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This process of posting a build log is a lot more difficult than I had expected. The photographs were taken on a phone, transferred to laptop, uploaded ... but of course you know this already. Doubtless it will become a matter of routine within a few months and so to business. I began to build this model at the beginning of the year in a distracted kind of way. I'm certain that a person with more concentration than distractions could have it finished by now but this person alas, is not me. My progress has been halting and slow until quite recently when the smouldering embers of my enthusiasm flared up at the end of the long wet winter. I'm positively blazing along now so I'll show you how things stand at this moment. This was taken outdoors today for the light to show off the various woods in use. The model is constructed from a laser-cut plywood false keel crossed by some nine bulkheads. The shape of the hull is then achieved by laying limewood strips across the bulkheads from stem to stern. You can see this layer of white wood best at the foot of the stern post to the left of the photo and behind the bulwarks on the far side above the deck. Here is a close up of the second layer of wooden strips outboard of the lime. Starting from the top you see three strakes or lines of walnut planking laid carvel fashion, butt jointed edge to edge, on top of the limewood foundation. This is my own choice of wood. The kit provided cherry, I think, with the intention that it be painted over in blue. I have discovered that it was actually treated with transparent 'rosin', a varnish made from pinewood and so decided to use the prettiest wood I had available, and in a variety of shades, to stress the woodiness of the cutter and of the model. Below the walnut bulwarks lies the main wale, a thick (2mm) piece of lime which will be painted black, the only touch of decoration on the boat, and doubtless a heavily tarred form of paint. The stem, stern and keel will also be black. Below the wale, the kit advises butt jointed planks but this is a simplification as the original had a clinker-built, or lapstrake bottom with overlapping planks held together with nails whose ends were turned over in the manner of rivets. I have simulated this by hand profiling each plank as seen below. I haven't yet finished the surfaces for varnishing and I probably won't trouble with the nailing. Each plank is knife edged at the top and this slides into a rebate which I have been cutting into the preceding plank after fitment to the hull. This made a tidy joint and assisted with location and clamping. Once I had progressed below the waterline there was no need to bother with simulating clinker building as the cutter was sheathed in copper within two days of delivery to the Navy at Deptford in 1777. I have some copper ready sheet for this but must first lay the second layer of cherry planking down to the keel for dimensional reasons. It will be well hidden from view and is consequently attached in the simplest way possible, carvel laid and carelessly. It was when I had begun the fitting of the carvel section of cherry that I made the discovery which blew bright life into the fire of my keenness. I have built simple furniture in my past lives and am accustomed to glueing up the joints, assembling wet and waiting for the glue to dry overnight. If only I had made finer furniture I might have realised that planking a hull at this scale is no more than applying a veneer of 1mm thickness. Veneering does not make a lot of use of wet glues and clothes pegs. I discovered by trial and error that Titebond Original may be applied to the hull and the plank, LEFT TO DRY (ten seconds under a hairdryer) and then the two parts brought together at leisure before being INSTANTLY and ACCURATELY attached with a brief touch of a hot iron. There's no need for clamps, no drying time, no glue squeezed out to require cleaning up later. Unlike contact cement or superglue, there are no harmful fumes. It also makes laying short planks easier and long planks possible. Finally, if the plank should go wrong, perhaps breaking unexpectedly, a further touch of the iron will remove it. The iron I use is the Model Craft Plank Bending Iron which was always to hand, since it was used moments earlier to shape the planks to fit. It was there all the time, just waiting for me to notice it. This method has accelerated progress from one strake per side, per evening to at least ten. A fivefold increase in the speed at which I complete the most tedious and time consuming part of a kit like this means that the entire build time from start to finish is cut dramatically, perhaps in half. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that I joined this forum in order to tell someone, anyone who would appreciate the value of this simple change in technique, which I have seen described nowhere else (though undoubtedly, I won't have been the first to stumble on it). In earlier months when enthusiasm for planking burned low, I kept going by building my twelve six pounder guns (and a spare from a remaindered barrel). Note that the brass cap squares have been appropriately blackened since the pictures were taken. They are sweet little things which will one day have to be rigged with half a dozen ropes each. So that is the state of play with this toy of mine tonight, Sunday the fourth of August. I will be very happy to finish this one by midwinter and yet how often have men tempted cruel fate by declaring that "it will all be over by Christmas"?