11/3: Pulled form #10 out. A couple of taps with a screw driver handle and it was loose.

Mixed up some water putty and puttied the hull up. Then went over it with a damp sponge and wet hands to smooth it out some before leaving it to dry overnight.

Went to check on it before going to bed (concerned about it cracking) and it was drying fine. Going over it with the sponge and wet hands made it very smooth, there's a few low spots to fill, but very few high spots - shouldn't need any vigorous sanding.

11/4: Sanded the hull and gave it another coat of water putty to fill the low spots. That set up quickly and it was back to sanding.

Then I trimmed down the transom to where it's supposed to be.

11/5: Today the hull was taped. The idea here is to lay glass cloth over this hull, as a form, and pop off the glass hull in two halves. Each half will be glued to a new wooden keel and matted inside to stiffen and strengthen it. The form can still be finished as a model, which it may well be.

I didn't have enough cloth on hand to make a hull, so I went to the hobby shop get some only to find the place was empty with a "For Lease" sign in the window.
I ordered some cloth online, but that killed the idea of making a hull this weekend

11/6: I made a stand to hold the hull.

11/11: The glass arrived UPS on Veteran's Day. I gave the hull a light coat of spray adhesive and stuck on the cloth, then trimmed it and did the other side. It looks like I'll be able to do the hull in one piece instead of two halves. I was all set to apply resin but couldn't get the cap off the can which hadn't been opened since April of 2009 when I put matting inside Constellation.. I punched a hole in the can and drained it into a large mayonnaise jar. In the meantime I worked on cutting out Macedonian's forms.

11/12: Glassed the form.Not to happy with how it turned out, but after it sets up I'll see if it's usable.

11/13: The first batch of resin seemed thick, and gave me fits getting it on. I did the stern and the bow and most of one side then mixed another 4oz. This time I put in a splash of acetone and that went much better. I had some left over and poured it into Constellation to fill some crannies along side her stern post and keel.

The second batch cured nicely - thank goodness or I'd have a nasty lump of it to pull out of Constellation. The first didn't cure right, at least not everywhere - as if I hadn't mixed it thoroughly.

At any rate, I pulled it off and took off the tape. That was an interesting distraction, so now's it's back to plan A.

I pulled all the stations out, one-by-one, carefully. I missed about 8 or 9 of those nasty little nails/pins, but each station came out nicely otherwise.

I had to cut down the sternpost - which is something I should have done when the keel was just a piece of plywood and not surrounded by planking. Thank goodness for Mr Dremel's machine.

The inside of the hull got sanded and scraped a bit, then I painted it with thinned Tightbond III to get all the inside nooks and crannies. Any openings were filled with sawdust from the sander and glued up.

With the hull drying I sanded and painted the bench. It was getting hard to see the right markings with all the Constellation, and now Pride markings on it. Now it's ready to host it's third hull - Macedonian.

11/17: I took the hull in to the Naval Academy to show the folks - here's a picture of the 1:20th 90 foot schooner on the 1:24th 175 foot frigate St Lawrence I'm working on there.

Pete, one of the fellows working on the St Lawrence with me, gave me some wood from the original Pride. The story is that Pride put into Jim Richardson's yard to have spars replaced in 1985, just before heading to Europe for the last time. A friend of Pete's working there at the time kept some bits of the old spar and when Pete told him of my model gave some to Pete to pass to me. Ain't that something else! I wonder where I can get some original Macedonian for that model.

So, trying to figure how to incorporate this wood into the model; I think the best bet will be to use it to make the tiller, binnacle box, cabin hatch, skylight, and cabin trim. If there's enough, I'll also plank the transom part that was finished brite with it. The parts I listed can be seen in this photo I took on Pride in 81. "Leroy" is on the tiller guiding us out of the slip to head off to Chestertown. I think that will display the wood nicely and in a prominent way.

11/20: Today I painted the inside of the hull with resin. I used the old stuff with a splash of acetone in it. It went on well and was set up enough to sand in a couple of hours. Depending on the weather next weekend, I'll either glass the outside or install some structural pieces inside the hull.

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