What's on my desk? Part 61.
Good morning,
February has rolled over into March, there's more light in the morning and evening and the weather is clearing up. Good times all around.
How's the Fram doing? I've been steadily continuing work. I received a few hundred nails from OcCre:
So now all chainplates are attached. I've also succeeded in fixing the railings. These are made up of thick photo-etch stands, to be pushed into the wood and glued. The front six receive rope railings, the others get thin brass wire. Here's the front, you can see the rope railings are knotted into a loop bent into the end of the brass railings.
The rest of the railings. They're made of A-frame stands pushed into the side, a length of thin brass wire is stuck through the holes, and then the wood pieces are superglued on top of that.
One problem, though: the side of the ship goes up a step towards the front. According to the instructions, there are two kinds of stanchions, but in fact these are all exactly the same. Result: the front ones are dangling in the air without connecting to the deck:
Bit of a pity, but eh, it's not that noticable.
I've completed the first yardarm. Lots of ropes, pulleys and metal attachments that make it look quite busy.
As mentioned in the previous blog, I cut the wood a bit longer to get it in the drill without damaging it. The yards need to be tapered on both sides though. I sanded it down as far as I dared, getting this:
Good thing I didn't go all the way, because when removing the superfluous part, the wood suffered a split:
Luckily, I still needed to remove a lot of the wood by hand, so this entire scar was sanded out.
Last thing I was able to do: the lifeboats. These are miniature versions of the big ship: a central rib structure, covered with separate planks. The skeleton is reinforced by the solid wood cover you see in the top left. Once the planks are done, you need to cut this away and attach the hollow piece like the one on the bottom. You can see there are large gaps between the planks, but all this needs to be filled, sanded smooth and painted anyway. And then there's a tarp going over it. That nice rib and plank structure you now see on the inside will be invisible in the end...
(Oh, and the discolouration on that left one is blood. I cut my finger while removing the supports of the first one...)
That's all!
See you next week!