Sorry I dropped off updating the blog, but after 3 years, its now finished! 😁😊

A bit behind on updates, but hull painted. 3 coats rubbed down each time then lacquer 3 coats.

Bulwarks and keel added to the hull along with the rubbing strake. Next job to add a sealing coat to the hull using EZE-Kote and then rub down with wet'n'dry paper for prepping for undercoat.....
Only problem to solve next is finding a big enough box and location to do the spraying. Previous boats have been smaller so no problem in a packed shed.🤔

Decking has now been applied and first coat of yacht varnish added. The next coat will go on in 8 hrs and then a light rub down and wash with white spirit before the final coat. Next it’s adding the bulwark’s and then hull finishing, sealing and painting. 😎

After months of deliberations on planking and delaying and delaying I finally finished planking the hull and then filling and sanding 😊 . It’s not pretty, but once fibreglasses and painted it will look like the pictures on the box(hopefully).

It took many weeks of effort to actually get the first few rows of planks, but once I got going and mastered the pinning, I managed to do 2 rows a week! 👍

Again...sorry for the delayed update on this build....time seems to go so quickly that I have no time for myself!
Anyway, much progress has now been made on the superstructure and all is complete bar adding the 2 lifeboats which I'm now starting to build. These sit on top of the support brackets you see in the pictures, either side of the funnel.
I'm getting better at detailing and painting now, but still room for improvement, and some "touch up" required in places. Everything is small and fiddly and even with small tweezers my big fingers get in the way and cant seem to get things straight and perfect fitting. Once the lifeboats are built them its back to the main hull planking, but not really looking forward to that. Thanks for all the advise thought, I'll try a couple and see if it improves the flexibility of the willow planks.

I am really losing my patience with planking as cannot seem to get planks to line up with each layer going around complex curves at bow and stern, and planks dont seem to be too flexible for this and broken a few, so decided to leave alone for now and concentrate on the superstructure.
This is coming along quite nicely.... the engine cover is almost complete and am pleased with the main control room and the teak planking so far. A long way to go yet, but taking my time!😊

Unfortunately I haven't been able to progress much on the build for a few weeks, but I picked it up again last weekend by starting the hull planking and beginning the superstructure. Not much progress but have been told the you should only do small areas of planking at a time and keep it balanced by doing one side of the hull then the other to keep its shape. I'll have more time in the coming weeks.
The planking clamps are a great alternative to pinning... I starting pinning but every time the small brass pins bent while trying to hammer them into the Ply hull formers. I didnt want to hammer to hard as the hull skeleton is quite fragile. Any advice here please as I'll need to nail planks to the bow and stern.

So this week hull strengthening has been added and bow and stern deck bases, but a bit of sanding required to get the bases to sit flat on the skeleton. The next stage it to shape the Hull before starting to add planking. I'm a bit hesitant to start this with a file or plane and it looks a bit time consuming to do by hand with sandpaper, so I'm charging the small electric Bosch sander I have to help with this bit ....... a little at a time!
The Skeleton does appear a bit "twisted" but am sure this is either an optical illusion or will sort itself out with the planking.

So, rib strengthening bars fitted and all tied together with decking supports. This part of the build also included fitting the rudder servo housing and it was a good job I had the servo already, and tried to fit it while not connected to the skeleton. Some slight modifications were necessary to the cutout to make the servo fit, which would have been difficult once fitted into the build. Bow and stern decking base to fit next with more strengthening to attach planking for the hull. I'm also making good use of the keel clamp I recently bought from Amati.......what a great device this is. 😀👍