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After a Long Pause

9/29/2012: Still looking for work and prepping to move has kept me out of the shop, but Mark's glassing the bottom of his skiff gave me a chance to put a coat of epoxy on Macedonian's completed wale. I wet and clamped some of the pieces for the starboard wale to pre-bend them in hopes of getting them on the hull in time to snitch some epoxy when Mark returns to glass the transom and sides of his skiff.

I cut out one of the catting ports. I did it carefully with a utility knife which was very tedious - not the way to go for the other 30 gundeck ports. There's 32 quarterdeck/focs'le ports to cut also, but all but 4 of those are simple sawing jobs.

Since I intend to model the full gun deck, I'll need to frame out each port to get the hull the right thickness. The gun deck up will be ceiling planked. A coat of epoxy inside that will protect the space from moisture. Since the "frame" intrudes into the gunport opening to form a rabbet for the lid to rest against - the ports have to be cut before they're framed.

10/4: I finally started installing the port side wale. This time I'm using the nails I used when planking the hull to help "clamp" the top-butt planks to the hull. This seems to be working much better than holding the peice until the CA sets. Having the pieces pre-cut and pre-bent is a big help too - I'm not having any of the aggravation I had while doing the starboard side.

10/5: The port wale is on. Using the nails made thing go much faster - I could have gotten the whole thing done if I had started earlier yesterday. Now to let it dry and then trim it down and sand it.

After pulling all the nails, I did some planing, trimming, and sanding and was ready to give it a coat of epoxy.

Mark came over and glassed the sides of his skiff. While he had epoxy mixed up I gave the wale a coat as well as inside the hull where the nails had come through. I think another coat on both sides and this phase will be done.

10/7: Cut out 8 more gun ports on the starboard side.

9/12/13: As I moved out of my house, and my shop was hurridly crammed into a smaller space. All the models were literally shelved for the time being.

11/7: I had some guns 3D printed. 5 Blomefield pattern 18 pounders, and 5 32 pounder Carronades. These will be masters to mold and cast the ship's full battery in resin.

6/31/14: All three models were taken out to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St Michael's Maryland to be displayed at their Model Boat Expo. Even being a bare hull Mac got a lot of attention, for her size, and her construction, which seemed to surprize people that she was built of common materials.

7/5: New servo trays were built for Constellation and Macedonian. Both models will function almost exactly the same, so the set-up is identical. The trays aren't quite complete yet, they lack the fairlead that will keep the braces on their respective slot in the winch-drum. The winch servos will slide on rods against springs to maintain tension on the braces.

6/9/15: Cut out the rest of the gunports and stern windows.