grendel

You are getting a bumper update today, I have just made another little video clip to show the progress.

Lazy Sunday, so a bit more work on the model this evening, a milestone has been achieved, first plank is gluing. first it was damped and dry fitted into place, given a few hours to dry into shape, then the important step, shaving a slight angle onto the edge , as we get nearer the front the angle gets steeper, until right at the front the edge of the plank is wafer thin, then glue up - using gorilla pva glue as we don't want the foaming stuff here - if there are gaps with that it is not too strong, the pva will fill the gap, with a stronger bond. it will be sealed inside and out so no worries about water softening it. This plank alongside of the hog is the one with the biggest twist. tomorrow we will spin the model so I can do the first plank on the other side, and then the next one for this side will be dry fitted with a spray of water to get the bends in.

my father can remember tucking his youngest bother (of 7) into his draw of the chest of drawers then almost shutting it if there was an air raid. he also talks of his school being bombed and the children escaping to the outskirts of Deal through the smugglers tunnels that run under the town - and that the statue of the Virgin Mary in the playground was untouched, my mother also stayed in Deal through the war and remembers a german plane strafing them as they went to school. my Mothers father had served in the first war, was totally deaf and as a master baker was in a reserved profession, and thus the family stayed at Deal, one of the worst places along bomb alley, as the germans dumped their bombs there before heading back across the channel. My father was at his local rememberance service this morning with his naval buddies.

So with the last rib in place, the planking cut, it was time to set up for installing the planking, the workbench was tidied, all the dirt and dust I had not been able to get to, cleaned out. then the model was brought back, and the first plank damped down and clamped into position (dry) to take up the bend, the model will be turned and one plank attached and one set to take some bend each day. I am really pleased at how the shape is forming up.

unfortunately the blade is so close to the fence that you cannot fit the guard, the good bit is that the fence acts as a guard. the plank on the face of the table is cut part way and clamped, this stops up the bigger gap around the blade and stops thin pieces dropping down beside the blade.

This morning, although it is damp everywhere the sun is out, so I was outside creating planks. the last 2 ribs have been fitted, so it was time to make sure I had enough planks. I have some different widths, just in case I need to make spoilers (the small planks that fill the gaps where full planks wont fit.). No commentary on this one as the machinery s too noisy, as I have a large vacuum attached and running tostop the worst of the dust. only a little bit of commentary on this one

Today as I am going out this evening I did some work earlier, just a few ribs, but with any luck tomorrow will see the last ones fitted, then it will be on to the planking.

another set of ribs installed, getting there now.

we had similar, a local school built an observatory, bought a telescope, set it up in the observtory, then contacted us - the local astronomy group. we went in, designed and built an 8 foot pier to put the telescope on, designed a raised floor for their craft department to build to use it, yes they were only 8 feet short of seeing through the telescope dome.

Nice to see that even in our multicultural office the 2 minutes silence was observed by all.

well it is the original battery, from 2008, off mains power it now lasts about 5 minutes. Unfortunately I tried that (removing the battery) and the power supply still gets very hot. on standby with just the battery charging it is fine. I have ordered a cheap universal laptop supply (90W instead of the 65W supplied - to allow a bit of head room on the power consumption) and will see if that copes with it - to be honest if it wasnt for the fact that it has everything set up the way I want it, I would have replaced it years ago, we do have plenty of spare laptops in various states of health lying around- but none with the same resolution screen :-( it has worn through plastic on the edges through use, a broken hinge and various other cracks on the lid so it is probably near its end anyway, worst case, the hard drive will come out and be added to the server tower. but it is a faithful old companion.

Finally I get to a computer that works and manage to upload this video, another rib fitted today.

no, this is a dell, but has nothing set up. this may be the solution, my old laptop is now 8 years old, and until today gave no problems. I am still testing the power supply for my old machine, its running shutdown (just charging) without getting hot. next to try bootig it again.

got home this evening to find my usual laptop dead as a dodo, after some playing I got it fired up, then noticed the power supply was red hot (and I mean too hot to touch) so a quick unsucessful hunt for a spare power suppy (I did have a universal one somewhere- I think my daughter nicked it ) anyway typing this on my ubuntu mobile laptop while trying to get another old laptop to connect to the network. so if you dont see me anymore this evening you will know why.

only a quick bit of work tonight after a 1 1/2 hour queue on the M25 for the bridge, another set of ribs fitted.

long enough to reach the bottom (sorry, just had to say that)

Monty Pythons Dead Parrot sketch - has to be in there somewhere.

The best one was when the posh locals tried to get an e appended to my mother in laws village name, Kingston, they wanted to make it Kingstone, until it was pointed out that the missing e should in fact be placed Kingeston (actually old english Kingestun the hunting lodge of the king.)

There is a small village near maidstone, that is spelt Trottiscliffe - its pronounced Trosley, I once phoned in to the local radio station when they mispronounced it - the next bulletin came out and called it trosleycliffe- at that point I gave up.

Actually it is the bridge at 1.6m airdraft at Fordwich (about 2 miles out of Canterbury) that marks the limits of the navigable section up the Stour, to that point the lowest bridge is 3.5m and there is a reasonable depth for BA. there are some nice moorings on the Stour at Grove Ferry just by the pub there, and even moorings at Fordwich (though they are probably all private - some even have Gardens.) I am sure we will try and make an occasion out of the launch, maybe at one of the meets or the wooden boat event, where we can hold the event with a decent selection of forum members present.

JA, it may come to that one of these years

MM you beat me to it

At present the pace is relatively easy, just a commitment to 10 or 15 minutes a day, with the odd day where I do a couple of such stints through the day, with maybe some hour long stints at the weekends (mostly spent cutting timbers on the table saw) there will maybe be odd days when I cant get anything done ( works Christmas do up near Leicester at the beginning of December springs to mind). In general though I am finding it immensely satisfying to be doing this and relaxing at the same time. I have an uncle who made a model of HMS Victory, fully rigged this was over 6 foot high and 6 foot wide. he spent hundreds of hours on the rigging, then spotted that on one side had an extra rope, so took it all off and did that side again, so the model building runs in the family, his models are museum quality static models.

if I come to a meet next year you may also see the unfinished article

The easy answer is yes, there will be two finished articles, one for me and one for Griff, which may well have pride of place aboard the mother ship so to speak, plus I will endeavour to bring my one to the meets where possible. my one is being made first to learn the necessary skills, though which will be completed first is anyones guess at the moment, as once we get to the upper works and detailing, Griffs one may progress faster, though I will probably construct the fittings all at the same time for both hulls - there will be some differences between the two as I have materials that will be used on Griffs version but not mine.