Hi again, I hope I can get this right tonight!
Again, thanks for your kind comments on the build. Whilst I haven’t made a boat for over thirty years the techniques used have been well honed on building model aircraft – it’s been fairly straightforward – just exchanged balsa for ply and the scalpel for the bandsaw! That’s not to be flippant, ‘building’ is one thing it’s the technical side where a steep learning curve should be readily apparent.
The photo’s? Well that’s definitely down to the camera – a 2 mega pixel ‘Nikon Coolpix 2000’ bought a few years back at what seemed an exorbitant price and now they virtually give that size away with the cornflakes! It does have an excellent macro facility though and is so easy to use.
As you can see there has been a bit more progress. I’m quite surprised at this myself but then it is all the ‘big bits’ getting stuck on at the moment. Things will slow down once the ‘fiddly bits’ begin.
This shows fitting a couple of supports for the deck at the bows. Incidentally does anyone know of a source of these small clamps? they came three in a pack for a pound and I'd dearly love to get some more.
Water proofing the bows and underneath the deck using two pack Tufcote fuel proofer. The benefit of using this as opposed to other resins is that it dries very quickly on the workpiece but remains very fluid in the mixing cup for several hours.
I’ve decided to leave the hull skins to the last minute so that it will still fit in it’s building jig for working on the top side.
Regarding the cabin PMD I’m hoping to make the whole roof removable from just in front of the windscreen. If memory serves me right I think that’s how the original Aerokits Swordsman was done. Looking at the drawings of the Huntsman though I’m certain the roof has much more camber than the Swordsman (kit) so this may make the forming of ply to the compound curves involved very awkward if not impossible though it may be possible to ‘flatten out the curve on the bulkheads a little to improve matters a little. I’m not that far off – next session will be to fit the well deck sides and then dry fit the cabin sides.
Thanks for the invitation Andy I’ll bear it in mind and as I’m definitely a fair weather person these days the ‘Summer’ it will have to be .
Once again a Happy New Year to you all, back soon - Ramon