Model Boats | Fairey Marine Huntsman Build (2)
Having attempted the first bulkhead I will admit to making a bit of a pigs ear with it. Having cut it out with the Axminster Jigsaw I was quite pleased with it until I held it over the plan for comparison. It was not quite of the quality and accuracy I was hoping for. It has now become a piece of scrap for use later in the build!
So it was back to the drawing board, or should I say tracing board and start all over again. This time I was hyper cautious with the cutting phase and B1 has now been cut and sanded down and is remarkably accurate (in my humble opinion).
Flushed with the feel of success I progressed onto the other main bulkhead members. What is it about success that it always proceeds failure! The next bulkhead was much more intricate and despite my best efforts this time I was over cautious and cut it too large. I do not know which is easier, throwing it onto the scrap pile or sanding and planing the excess off. Now intending not to spend too much on this build I decided to sand and recover the piece to avoid waste.
I am only able to spend a couple of hours a week if I am lucky on this build so any mistake adds a delay to completion.
Still despite these frustrations I have now mastered the delicacy needed with the Axminster Jigsaw and we now have 4 bulkheads out of 5 on the board. If you look closely in the picture you will see the first bulkhead now discarded on the scrap pile! Still I always learn better by making mistakes.
The difficult thing for me as a novice is not having any instructions to go with the plans. There is clearly an assumption from the author of a degree of knowledge I do not possess. I intend to avoid asking Mike too many questions as it would defeat the challenge "Even you could build this" so I can expect many more mistakes. I have found the easiest way for me of transfering the drawing to the wood is to actually lay the tracing on the wood, secure it in place then use a bradle? (a sharp pointy thing) and push small pin prick holes into the wood. I then join the dots. this seems to work on hard and soft woods very well.
Mike is making the seal engine and you can follow that build here.
Well thats as far it goes for update number 2 .
I am sure the easy way would be to buy a ready made model. Below is a selection of model boats currently for sale on ebay if you want to avoid the painful process listed above.