having been sailing my fishing smack and bantam tug at a local lake , somebody offered me a large thames barge , i was told it has some damage around the bow area which may be fillable ! having had a soft spot for the thames barge for many years ive taken the plunge and gone to collect the model , after some initial inspection the damage didnt look too bad , a little mishaped over the first four inches at the bows mostly at deck level , the front hatch was a dummy , which i removed last saturday and cut a hole in the deck to get a sail arm servo inside , the construction of this pre loved model is heavy timber , all of the bulkheads are cut from 12mm plywood , the keel is 12mm pine . with the hole now cut and the remains of two bulkheads nibbled away i needed to make some holes to allow the sheet lines through the bulkheads , a 63mm dia . holesaw was borrowed , and duly cut my holes , next i elected to remove the bulwarks which were far too low , it was then i realised just how badly out of shape the bow was ! ! its like two different boats joined along the keel ! with this in mind ive taken the next step and tried removing the paint , only to find a strange method of construction , the outer hull was painted over some alloy type tape , which was stuck to a layer of veneer , beneath this was some matting and epoxy , which had been covering the inner shell of balsa . ive now stripped everything down to the frames which are going to be reprofiled to match each side before replanking can begin , i will try to add some photos later . jon