Planking is now complete so the next couple of weeks I will be sanding,  filling, sanding and fibreglassing . It’s a dusty job and I admit is not my favourite part of the build but time and care taken now will pay benefits later on .

Update on progress so far. I’ve finished the hull sanding ,fitted the coatings on the sides and front .I’ve also fitted and fibreglassed the propeller shaft in place. The trouble is that after about 10 am it gets too bloody hot in the workshop (35deg C) to do any work so it’s in the air-conditioned  house and doing some research,  namely watching utube clips of clyde puffers.

Update . Three coats of grey primer and a light sand back between each coat and I’m happy with the hull. The basic  cargo hatch and sides have been been made ( lots of refining to do). The staunchings have been made and fitted although there not an exact replica of the real staunchings it’s a looks ok and is probably less prone to damage on the lake.

Hi James the reason I am moving in this direction is that I’m building from a ship’s plan with no modeling detail included and to complicate matters further I’m upscaling everything by 20% ie;1/5th. My habit is to Make cardboard templates before before committing to plywood.  To illustrate the benefits of this process, yesterday I made up a cardboard box (mock up of wheelhouse structure) to see how it fitted on the hull . I must have been in zombie mode because instead of upscaling 20% I upscaled 15% it was obviously looking wrong.  So it saved me hours of work and subsequent expletives and waste of materials.  But getting back to your post I am looking forward to the more exciting part of the build namely all the more detailed bits ie: windows /door frames and fittings that take a inordinate amount of time to make but give the model authenticity and character.

We have just experienced a tropical cyclone hitting Brisbane and its caused quite a bit of damage to the environment and buildings south of the eye of the storm , fortunately for us we are on the northside of where the little bugger crossed the coast and apart from a few strong gusts of wind and some heavy rain about mid night we missed most of the drama

Getting back to more modeling subjects the puffer project is progressing on and I’m pretty happy with the build so far.  As most of you that have shown interest in my previous builds would know I’m not a fine scale modeler , I’m more into getting the feel of the full size subject rather than the exact copy, abit better than stand off scale but none  of them will win any show awards. My best friend (wife) once poetically put it the models capture the romantic picture of the subject rather than a photographic copy. That’s why she’s my best friend she says the nicest things

I totally agree Richard with looking at what we have built and try to see how we could have done better. I see a notable improvement as my skill levels and understanding of techniques grow in each new model, ie; my first plank on frame hull I found quite challenging to do but each new build it became easier as I learnt more about the technique of steaming and plank positioning on the frames

Regards mick east aka eastie