I've been sidetracked a bit lately with other matters but I have completed my display case - 1300mm x 500mm x 800mm acrylic.
"That monstrosity" is the way my admiral describes it because it has to live in our lounge room.
She also commented that I am many months (or years) from completing Medea so how often will the ship be stored in the case?
I decided to do something about it just to make the peace.
This little die cast trawler was given to me recently by a well-meaning elderly friend "for parts for your ship".
Progress on Medea has been slow but I have some updates to come over the next few days.
Firstly, to address a few problems. There has been some warping of the stem due to heat from a nearby window. (Lesson learned!) This is Black Wattle timber, probably not seasoned as well as it should have been.
The alignment was approximately 1/4" off centre.
I soaked the stem with a cloth soaked in hot water and applied leverage with a clamp and some weight and left it overnight. It came back to it's correct position but I am concerned it will move again so I have to be careful about temperature from now on.
This led me to go over the build carefully with a bright light to identify any other problems I had missed. There are quite a few!!
There is quite a bit of patching to do but I'm glad I used the light because most of these problems were not visible to my eye in normal light.
Thanks Bryian.
It looks okay from a distance but a closer examination (like with a camera) shows my inexperience. But it's still fun most of the time so I plod along. Into my fifth year now.
Back tracking a bit to the planking of the foredeck. I made some large water barrels out of wooden beads from the opportunity shop and lashed them to a frame. Also some large boxes representing storage of returning soldiers equipment. Forgot to photograph, except for this one, before I laid the deck.
I tried to get the gratings small enough for scale, using a 1mm down flute bit, but they didn't work out. I intended them to be battened down anyway so I made a trial pair of canvas hatch covers to see how they would look and will go ahead now with the real thing with proper tie down points.
I've also made the collars for the Foremast and Mizzen mast (loose fitted).
The next thing is to complete the posts along the railing (what are they called???)
They are very fiddly and there will be something like 36 of them.
