Voyage to the Centre of the Lee - F..F..F..F..F..FINISHED!!!

[Bertie McBoatface]

There is paint on the engine!

 

After three and a half hours of fettling and making sub assemblies, I finally broke through the soil on the top of the coffin where MiniArt had buried my enthusiasm. I'm a long way short of finishing the engine but at least I've done with the mindless drudgery part of the job and can be a bit creative again.

 

 

I assembled my troops. Note that the chrome Vallejo paint was not put away in that condition, with the top ajar. I'd just been having a sniff of it. All hail the marketing genius down there in Spain who thought of perfuming Vallejo paints! He has headed off a million complaints by mums and other women about stinking up the place and made model painting acceptable almost everywhere. 

 

Bright red? Bright Blue? WTP? (What the ping?)

 

 

I chickened out and masked. It wasn't strictly necessary as I wasn't using a rattle can but an airbrush, but it only took a minute and that's fairly cheap insurance. I'm even going to be able to reuse most of the Tamiya tape.

 

 

I'll have to make it match the floor section but that can wait until I've installed some more gear and covered up 50% of this white area.

 

 

With AFV interior white in the brush already, I hit the engine bay components. The eye-shaped thing is an engine mounting and will be a smashing contrast with the dark engine even after I cover it with greasy 1/35 scale handprints.

 

 

After not quite white, I switched to not quite black. Doing it this way meant I didn't have to clean out the airbrush, or even rinse it as a bit of white was needed, along with red at first and then blue in the next cupful. You can see the different shades of 'black' very well in this photo, in natural light, there's not so strong a differentiation, unfortunately. When these pieces have been washed with black, highlighted with lighter greys and then chipped, the different blacks will, if my prayers are answered, look more alike but still like different parts of a machine. Sometimes in museums I've seen an assembled machine painted as a unit and thought it looked like a badly made model; that's what I'm trying to avoid here.

 

As you see, the metallics came next.

 

 

The piece on the left is an exhaust manifold while the other is intake trunking. Obviously there's more to do with these too. I need to lose the shine on the exhaust parts for a start.

 

 

The (not quite) assembled cast takes a bow. I really like the big round fan shroud that fits so perfectly around the cylinders.  I believe it's supposed to be black but it so happens that this batch were issued without paint as a cost saving experiment for which no historical records were kept so no-one can prove me wrong and it will look gorgeous. 😉

 

That all took two hours! I'm slowly succeeding in my ambition to take my pinging time and enjoy myself.

 

42 hours elapsed (I've just gone back a page and corrected some arithmetical errors in my timesheet. I think this is about right at 42 hours)

[Bertie McBoatface]

Two fun hours of detail painting the engine later (no sarcasm intended - I've had a fine old time!) and I've had to stop to let the paint dry fully before I start assembling the thing. This update is merely so I can keep a record of time spent. I've never timed a build before, well not as accurately or diligently anyway, so I don't want to lose track.

 

I bet all of us have at some time been asked, "How long did you take to make that?"

 

44 hours 

[PlaStix]

Seriously impressive modelling Bertie, as always!! Lots of fantastic skills on display. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

I have had the pleasure of fitting real aero engines into aeroplanes and they are big and heavy and awkward things with lots of fragile bits sticking out and getting in the way and the spaces they go into are ALWAYS half an inch too small, for at least half an hour and then suddenly they magically grow and the engine slips in and someone screams, "Get the bloody bolts in quick!" and the bolts slip in, if you are lucky, and the team cheer! And then you think you've finished until you turn round and see the dozens of bits that still have to be attached and connected up and wire-locked. Sigh!

 

I assume fitting them into tanks is exactly the same.

 

If you delete the words 'big', 'heavy', 'team' and 'wire-locked' from the first paragraph, you have a good description of fitting the engine into a MiniArt M3.

 

But first, let's assemble the engine.

 

 

Crankcase to cylinder block. Easy. Murphy proof. I picked out the crankcase bolts in silver paint because it looks cool and I had a new tool for the job.

 

 

It's called a nail dotting pen.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B088NFK1B6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

The set I bought has a variety of sized balls for making different sized dots. It took a bit of practice to get used to it but it's ok, in some ways easier than a fine paintbrush. I used it later for applying superglue and for this it was excellent!

 

 

I could not have done those very tiny bolts on the rocker covers with a brush, though note the blotted one on the left of the picture where I messed up.

 

 

None of this mattered because that fan shroud went on top and then...

 

 

And then the fan and the clutch go on top of that and all is lost to view. It was fun cleaning up all those unnecessary bit though. Maybe someone will section their engine and make it all worthwhile. 😩

 

 

Flipping the engine over we start on the rear, and most visible side of the donk. Note the single keyway in the flange where the aft end will attach.

 

 

Note the TWO keyways in the corresponding flange on the accessories section. We are entering the Rule of Murphy's Law here. This isn't made any easier by the way each diagram in the instructions is drawn from a different angle. It's very easy to make a mistake and one it's on and buried with other bits it's impossible to fix - or so I thought. 

 

I fitted it the right way round, by the way.

 

 

And then the engine looked like this. It's lovely!

 

 

Exhaust manifolds on. Now it really looks like an aircraft engine. The silver pipes are the fuel/air supplies to the cylinders and the browned ones are the exhausts. The mysterious big open holes puzzled me at this stage. I had thought the white bolts on the front of the cylinders were the spark plugs but now I realised that they are just blanking plugs, as they would need an engine removal to get at to service. These holes on the back are the spark plug sockets. If I'd realised that I might have  made some plugs but it's too late now and I'd probably have interfered with the fit of something else anyway. We'll have to pretend the museum exhibit is incomplete in yet another way.

 

 

There they are, the little tinkers!

 

 

The mounting plate goes on the rear of the engine, now we have five mountings to align, including the propshaft. Good colour contrast though!

 

 

No sooner was that glued firmly in place when the join between the accessories and the cylinders fell apart in my hand. The engine had broken in half! It seemed impossible to get at the flanges (a common Saturday night experience) but amazingly the two parts did separate completely. On examination there was very little contact at the flange so I glued the ends of the inlet pipes as well as the centre and somehow wriggled it all back together. Phew!

 

 

A few more bits were attached including the propshaft on the right. Topical Tip: Leave that until the end and the engines sits flat on the bench and is a lot easier to handle.

 

 

Now it was time for the wriggling and cursing and there's something in the way but I can't tell what it is and what if I go in from the rear instead of lowering it and be careful not to break that and where do I hold this 'darn' thing anyway ans can I spread the walls a bit (no) and what if I carve a bit off those invisible front mountings and the propshaft crutch? That's a technique not available on the real thing (?) but it worked like a charm here; suddenly it slipped into place. Then was removed again for glue to be applied....

 

I glued the front mountings with Tamiya Extra thin but used CA on the rear ones because they need to be slightly forced into place. It was that "Get the bolts in quick!" moment.

 

 

TA DAH! All done.

 

And then I turned round and saw the dozens of bits that still have to be attached and connected up and wire-locked. Ping!

 

It  looks very good though. I'm leaving everything to dry for a few hours before I do anything else. Time for a NAAFI break now.

 

 

 

p.s. It's great to be able to write an interesting update in which things happen. I'm sorry for all the tedious recent ones.

 

48 hours run

[Blade2009]

The engine looks great don't think I will be working on that until a lot later in the build, but I am looking at making a start on the tracks over the weekend.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Blade2009

[Bertie McBoatface]

18 hours ago, Blade2009 said:

The engine looks great don't think I will be working on that until a lot later in the build, but I am looking at making a start on the tracks over the weekend.

 

I'm glad you saw this, Blade. I wanted you to avoid all of my unforced errors. The final fitting issues were possibly due to the cutaways bending the engine bay so I'm hoping yours might be a better fit.

[Cerberus]

 The guy who came up with the idea of putting a radial engine into a tank hull was either a genius or stark raving crazy, but they do look good, If engines can look good that is, I think they can, but then I'm a biker, we tend to like the look of engines for some strange reason 

[Longbow]

That looks superb, Bertie !!

[Bertie McBoatface]

9 hours ago, Cerberus said:

 The guy who came up with the idea of putting a radial engine into a tank hull was either a genius or stark raving crazy, but they do look good, If engines can look good that is, I think they can, but then I'm a biker, we tend to like the look of engines for some strange reason 

Have you seen the Chrysler Multibank engines made for the M3 from five straight-six four litre car engines with a common crankshaft? Five distributors, 30 cylinders, I think that’s the crazy one. (There was a shortage of the Wright radial engines at the time.)

[Jasper dog]

Fine looking radial, looking very much at home in there. 

 

Couldn't help but notice you couldn't resist trying the nail dotting pen for its original purpose too, sure you cut quite the dash down the Dog and Duck!

 

Great work. 

Darryl 

[Bertie McBoatface]

19 minutes ago, Jasper dog said:

Fine looking radial, looking very much at home in there. 

 

Couldn't help but notice you couldn't resist trying the nail dotting pen for its original purpose too, sure you cut quite the dash down the Dog and Duck!

 

Great work. 

Darryl 

 

Thanks Darryl. 

 

The paint on the nail is either:

 

a habit I acquired from figure painting of testing the brushstroke immediately before applying it to the model

 

an accidental betrayal of what I get up to on a Friday night.

 

Take your pick. 😉

[Cerberus]

12 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

Have you seen the Chrysler Multibank engines made for the M3 from five straight-six four litre car engines with a common crankshaft? Five distributors, 30 cylinders, I think that’s the crazy one. (There was a shortage of the Wright radial engines at the time.)

 Necessity being the mother of all invention, how they balanced all that lot so that it didn't simply destroy itself is beyond me, granted they are hunting torque as apposed to rpm/hp but even so, It's crazy stuff, engineers are the most wonderful of people in my book 

 

[edjbartos]

That looks very good Bertie, I’ve always liked the Miniart engines and the detail that they put into them, this one to me seems to be the most complex one that I have seen to date. It looks fabulous painted, well done...

 

Ed

[Bertie McBoatface]

12 hours ago, Cerberus said:

 Necessity being the mother of all invention, how they balanced all that lot so that it didn't simply destroy itself is beyond me, granted they are hunting torque as apposed to rpm/hp but even so, It's crazy stuff, engineers are the most wonderful of people in my book 

 

I’ll post some pictures of it later. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

47 minutes ago, edjbartos said:

That looks very good Bertie, I’ve always liked the Miniart engines and the detail that they put into them, this one to me seems to be the most complex one that I have seen to date. It looks fabulous painted, well done...

 

Ed

Thanks. It’s exceeded my ability in places. Some parts were too tiny/fragile/awkward so I left them off but you wouldn’t notice.  
 

it’s been interesting working out what the various components are and what they do. 

[edjbartos]

6 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

it’s been interesting working out what the various components are and what they do. 

 

That's one of the reason's why I enjoy doing interior builds,  you learn quite a lot...

[Bertie McBoatface]

2 hours ago, edjbartos said:

 

That's one of the reason's why I enjoy doing interior builds,  you learn quite a lot...

 

I enjoy the density of the detail. No part of this model will be boring when it's finished; there's going to be interest everywhere.

 

Imagining myself inside it gives me pleasure. This is a warlike doll's house for boys like me.

 

Another thing that appeals to me is the sheer complexity of the thing. When I open any model's box, I see a chaos of barely recognisable pieces. 😱 It's a little bit like the confusion inside my head. 🤪 Then I spend happy hours integrating the parts into a perfectly coherent whole, which is what I've been trying to do with my head for sixty odd years. 😉  A MiniArt interior kit has a lot more of that chaos than the regular tank kit, though nowhere near as much as I have, and there's certainly a representative sample of ridiculously overthought bits and broken pieces. It's just a lot more me than a Tamiya. 🤣 And like my self, I know it will never be perfect, no matter how hard I try.

 

 

 

Edit: This could be the secret appeal of the wooden boats I'm just starting to build. It's all that sawdust, the organic materials, and the way they are lashed together with string! 🙃

[Cerberus]

19 minutes ago, Bertie Psmith said:

This could be the secret appeal of the wooden boats I'm just starting to build

 I was reading through that boat build of yours last night, It's an interesting build log, I like the way your trying to keep the build log clean so to speak, with only model related comments, made me chuckle when you broke the micro saw, have you considered buying a modellers table saw? They're like a very small band saw, designed for doing very fine cuts in various types of materials, could be/maybe handy for boat projects that are MDF based, but I have zero experience with model boats/ships, so might be talking nonsense, I have a sneaky feeling that they might require a slightly different skill set 

 

 I agree that they are very beautiful things indeed though, and look stunning in a nice glass case   

[Bertie McBoatface]

22 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 I was reading through that boat build of yours last night, It's an interesting build log, I like the way your trying to keep the build log clean so to speak, with only model related comments,

 

That's because the Model Ship Word forum has a rule  guideline about sticking to the business in hand. I've read a few of the logs concerning the same boat that I'm doing and they are really useful done that way. Reading an old BM log of say, ten pages, that I haven't been involved in at the time, I have to skip half of it because of the conversational digressions we do. It's really annoying and I'm one of the worst offenders here! (You are the other one, dude.) I'm writing the Lady Isabella log over there and then cutting and pasting it here. The inter-update comments are different of course.

 

I actually tried to run a log on my Valentine tank series in exactly that focussed manner last year but after a while it was boring the body-parts off me, so there's my usual ambivalence revealing itself.

 

22 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

made me chuckle when you broke the micro saw, have you considered buying a modellers table saw? They're like a very small band saw, designed for doing very fine cuts in various types of materials, could be/maybe handy for boat projects that are MDF based, but I have zero experience with model boats/ships, so might be talking nonsense,

 

It's not needed so far. That was when I was nervous about it all. Now I just use a craft knife and a bit of brute force!

 

22 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

I have a sneaky feeling that they might require a slightly different skill set 

 

@Faraway and I were just getting started on a discussion about the differences between wood and plastic modelling. It's surprisingly difficult to put my thoughts into words on the question. It's complicated. So far I've identified three areas for discussion.

 

There's the social acceptability aspect - wood definitely holds the outsider's interest longer than plastic. Mention plastic kit modelling and you get "Oh you mean like Airfix kits" and a swift change of subject Tell them you make wooden models of old sailing ships and it's more like "Oh like those galleons I've seen in museums? Wow! That's amazing dude!" They miss that vital word - KIT. My boat is still a box of components with instructions. All the hard parts have been done for me. There is NO comparison with the 18/19 century models build exactly like the real thing and without MDF frameworks!

 

Then there's the realism question. Using wood on a small scale model to simulate wood is bonkers from that point of view. It has grain holes that you could fall down and patterns that would have to come from trees then thousand feet tall. Same with the rigging ropes. Everything is bizarrely overscale. But it doesn't matter because the wood ships aren't meant to be realistic. For proof of that look at the way they are displayed on turned brass columns, or consider the almost total absence of weathering used in the wood genre. Of course there are still rivet counters or 'knot-watchers' over there and of course, I don't care because I just want to make something that I think is beautiful as opposed to realistic.

 

Finally, the skill set issue. I believe that there is no difference in the skills required to build models in plastic, wood, resin, brass or custard. The skills or perhaps abilities I have in mind are things like hand-eye coordination. You can't be too clumsy in any material before the result begins to look rubbish. You are also going to need  some problem solving abilities because the kit makers never think of everything. You have to be able to learn new techniques which I don't see as skills but just ways to use skills. For example, annealing your PE. That's not a skill, it's a technique you use to solve the problem of stiff metal, and you use the technique carefully using your hands and your eyes. You need organisational abilities, patience, resilience, maybe imagination if you want your particular kit to look different to most of the others. There are many more of these skills/abilities of course, and I'm not doing all of the work listing them. 🤣 However, I've seen nothing in wooden ships that doesn't have an analogue in plastic, resin, metal or yes, custard. Though now I consider it more deeply, it's very difficult sanding down the defects in a bowl of custard.

 

22 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 I agree that they are very beautiful things indeed though, and look stunning in a nice glass case   

 

Absolutely. And I have no idea why. A wooden model of an aircraft is beautiful too, in a way that a plastic one just isn't. You will have seen those models of Mosquitos with no paint, except for the simulated woodgrain - they always get a rapturous reception. When someone posts a WWI 'plane someone always comments on the wooden prop. I've seen a metal Spitfire which was amazing but somehow not beautiful. What is it about wood? Is it that it was once alive as we are? (So was plastic if you go back far enough but you know what I mean.) Is it because humankind has had a working relationship with wood going back a million years whereas plastic is new, and few people even understand how it's made, whereas everyone can recognise a tree when they see one? Is that why metal models are 'better' than plastic but 'worse' than wood: because we only took up metals fairly recently in evolutionary time? Maybe someone should build models out of stone? 🤪 Maybe I'm getting a little fanciful?

 

Wow! That was an interesting digression, for me anyway. 😆

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

And now for the update.

 

 

The Chrysler multibank engine - distributor end. That was the official terminology. How did they get each set of cylinders to share the load equally?

 

 

Drive end.

 

 

Side view. It's an engine that looks like it was designed by H R Giger.

 

 

That's how much of the engine I'll lose if I use the cutaway decking.

 

 

I think I'll just leave the decking off completely.

 

 

While I was waiting for the engine mountings to dry, I fitted the bogies.

 

 

@Blade2009, when you get to this bit don't get as confused as I was. Stick the air cleaners to the back of the tank and Fa15 to the fuel tanks and THEN slide the intake trunkings, Fb27/28 into the holes in Fa15 and glue them to the back of the air cleaners. If you try to do it as this picture suggests, making a sub-assembly you'll need a lot more than the twelve fingers I have.

 

 

That's what it looks like installed. The pipe is not glued into the white bracket at all.

 

Note that I've filled the cutout behind the pipe with a 'steel' inner fuel tank. the starboard side will be a little different to this.

 

 

Well done guys at MiniArt, you beat me. This delicate piece of bracketry which holds the mufflers was beyond my hand skills. The only way I could make it work was to flood it with superglue on the underneath. I wish I had the 'cover it with mud' option available. Of course. If the decking was stuck on, you wouldn't see it at all. 

 

 

This is the starboard side cutaway. Here I am not installing a fuel tank but I'll make a hole in the outer hull so that you can see straight through the empty horixontal fuel tank bay and into the engine as well as the vertical fuel tank on the right of the photo. I've added some greeble to make it interesting. You might recognise one piece in there which made me smile when I found it in my spares box (think aircraft). 

 

 

Finally, another cock up on the instructions. Variants 2 and 3 use B59 and 1 and 4 use Ha4, but check for yourself because I'm not accepting responsibility if it turns out I'm wrong. (I was drinking hot chocolate and whiskey at the time...)

 

I didn't time this lot but 2 hours is a reasonable guess and takes me to the half-century mark.

 

FIFTY HOURS ELAPSED TIME! 

[Faraway]

2 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

That's because the Model Ship Word forum has a rule  guideline about sticking to the business in hand. I've read a few of the logs concerning the same boat that I'm doing and they are really useful done that way. Reading an old BM log of say, ten pages, that I haven't been involved in at the time, I have to skip half of it because of the conversational digressions we do. It's really annoying and I'm one of the worst offenders here! (You are the other one, dude.) I'm writing the Lady Isabella log over there and then cutting and pasting it here. The inter-update comments are different of course.

 

I actually tried to run a log on my Valentine tank series in exactly that focussed manner last year but after a while it was boring the body-parts off me, so there's my usual ambivalence revealing itself.

 

 

It's not needed so far. That was when I was nervous about it all. Now I just use a craft knife and a bit of brute force!

 

 

@Faraway and I were just getting started on a discussion about the differences between wood and plastic modelling. It's surprisingly difficult to put my thoughts into words on the question. It's complicated. So far I've identified three areas for discussion.

 

There's the social acceptability aspect - wood definitely holds the outsider's interest longer than plastic. Mention plastic kit modelling and you get "Oh you mean like Airfix kits" and a swift change of subject Tell them you make wooden models of old sailing ships and it's more like "Oh like those galleons I've seen in museums? Wow! That's amazing dude!" They miss that vital word - KIT. My boat is still a box of components with instructions. All the hard parts have been done for me. There is NO comparison with the 18/19 century models build exactly like the real thing and without MDF frameworks!

 

Then there's the realism question. Using wood on a small scale model to simulate wood is bonkers from that point of view. It has grain holes that you could fall down and patterns that would have to come from trees then thousand feet tall. Same with the rigging ropes. Everything is bizarrely overscale. But it doesn't matter because the wood ships aren't meant to be realistic. For proof of that look at the way they are displayed on turned brass columns, or consider the almost total absence of weathering used in the wood genre. Of course there are still rivet counters or 'knot-watchers' over there and of course, I don't care because I just want to make something that I think is beautiful as opposed to realistic.

 

Finally, the skill set issue. I believe that there is no difference in the skills required to build models in plastic, wood, resin, brass or custard. The skills or perhaps abilities I have in mind are things like hand-eye coordination. You can't be too clumsy in any material before the result begins to look rubbish. You are also going to need  some problem solving abilities because the kit makers never think of everything. You have to be able to learn new techniques which I don't see as skills but just ways to use skills. For example, annealing your PE. That's not a skill, it's a technique you use to solve the problem of stiff metal, and you use the technique carefully using your hands and your eyes. You need organisational abilities, patience, resilience, maybe imagination if you want your particular kit to look different to most of the others. There are many more of these skills/abilities of course, and I'm not doing all of the work listing them. 🤣 However, I've seen nothing in wooden ships that doesn't have an analogue in plastic, resin, metal or yes, custard. Though now I consider it more deeply, it's very difficult sanding down the defects in a bowl of custard.

 

 

Absolutely. And I have no idea why. A wooden model of an aircraft is beautiful too, in a way that a plastic one just isn't. You will have seen those models of Mosquitos with no paint, except for the simulated woodgrain - they always get a rapturous reception. When someone posts a WWI 'plane someone always comments on the wooden prop. I've seen a metal Spitfire which was amazing but somehow not beautiful. What is it about wood? Is it that it was once alive as we are? (So was plastic if you go back far enough but you know what I mean.) Is it because humankind has had a working relationship with wood going back a million years whereas plastic is new, and few people even understand how it's made, whereas everyone can recognise a tree when they see one? Is that why metal models are 'better' than plastic but 'worse' than wood: because we only took up metals fairly recently in evolutionary time? Maybe someone should build models out of stone? 🤪 Maybe I'm getting a little fanciful?

 

Wow! That was an interesting digression, for me anyway. 😆

 

 

Bertie. You have, very eloquently, put into words everything my covid addled brain was trying to. Thanks.

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

33 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Bertie. You have, very eloquently, put into words everything my covid addled brain was trying to. Thanks.

Jon

 

You're welcome. I've had time to ponder deeply today.

[Cerberus]

22 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

I'm one of the worst offenders here! (You are the other one, dude.)

 Guilty as charged m'Lud, I love it when a build log rambles all over the place, It restores my faith in humanity, though I do like the more clinical ones as well, because they can be more helpful as you say.

 

23 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

What is it about wood? Is it that it was once alive as we are?

 Well, I'm biased because I used to be a carpenter and joiner many years ago, but wood is organic, alive, it has a natural beauty and warmth that man made materials simply can't compete with, man made materials tend to be cold and clinical, in a way they are sometimes too perfect, and that perfection can be jarring to the human eye, wood has imperfections and faults which contrast with the beautiful grain and structure of the wood, in my view perfection is something that you should never strive for, because it can be harsh, people are not perfect, we have faults and imperfections, that's what gives us warmth, and makes us likable in a way, so we are drawn to materials from nature that are also not perfect, maybe? It's something that's very hard to put into words.

 

 Plus wood is very accessible as a building/construction material, you can quite literally go out into your garden, cut down a small tree, and then make something from it, if you have the skill set to do it that is, so in a way people are always going to like it, because it's been a part of our world since the dawn of time.

 

 

23 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

Finally, the skill set issue.

 The skill set thing is also hard to explain, I tend to view it like this - I own a very sharp modelling knife/scalpel, which I use without any fear whatsoever, I even hold it sometimes in such a way that it pares skin off my forefinger when using it for carving and small work, but when I go out in the shed and do wood working stuff, I have to flick a mental switch in my head, and behave in a completely different way with sharp tools, I have to flip the fear factor on in my head, otherwise I'm gonna lose a finger or something, that's how I tend to view differing skill sets, but maybe that's not a skill set thing, just a personal safety thing? To me it feels like differing skill sets, but the more I think about it... 

 

22 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

I think I'll just leave the decking off completely.

 And to get back on topic, I also much prefer it without any engine decking, It looks good, the whole thing looks good, you are doing a quality job, in a short time frame 

[Bertie McBoatface]

23 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 Guilty as charged m'Lud, I love it when a build log rambles all over the place, It restores my faith in humanity, though I do like the more clinical ones as well, because they can be more helpful as you say.

 

 Well, I'm biased because I used to be a carpenter and joiner many years ago, but wood is organic, alive, it has a natural beauty and warmth that man made materials simply can't compete with, man made materials tend to be cold and clinical, in a way they are sometimes too perfect, and that perfection can be jarring to the human eye, wood has imperfections and faults which contrast with the beautiful grain and structure of the wood, in my view perfection is something that you should never strive for, because it can be harsh, people are not perfect, we have faults and imperfections, that's what gives us warmth, and makes us likable in a way, so we are drawn to materials from nature that are also not perfect, maybe? It's something that's very hard to put into words.

 

 Plus wood is very accessible as a building/construction material, you can quite literally go out into your garden, cut down a small tree, and then make something from it, if you have the skill set to do it that is, so in a way people are always going to like it, because it's been a part of our world since the dawn of time.

 

That's well put. The imperfections make it accessible. That would also explain why some folk prefer an Airfix Vintage Classic to a brand new Tamiya. Actually, I was rather intimidated by the Tamiya Phantom and had to build it as a wreck because I knew I wouldn't be able to do it "perfick"

 

My boat has a laser etched wooden deck and though that has advantages for me as a beginner, it looks awful because it's so very obviously created perfectly by machine. The totally accurate geometry overwhelms the woodiness of the material, contrasts with it too much maybe. I'm going to have to do something about that bit, maybe sand off the engraving and re do it in  pencil?

 

23 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 

 The skill set thing is also hard to explain, I tend to view it like this - I own a very sharp modelling knife/scalpel, which I use without any fear whatsoever, I even hold it sometimes in such a way that it pares skin off my forefinger when using it for carving and small work, but when I go out in the shed and do wood working stuff, I have to flick a mental switch in my head, and behave in a completely different way with sharp tools, I have to flip the fear factor on in my head, otherwise I'm gonna lose a finger or something, that's how I tend to view differing skill sets, but maybe that's not a skill set thing, just a personal safety thing? To me it feels like differing skill sets, but the more I think about it... 

 

In your shed the tools are just bigger. They will be as sharp as your scalpels, most likely, but heavier and perhaps faster. It's still the skill of knowing how to be careful around sharp things. I have a bandaged finger today after getting a new Stanley knife yesterday, just by coincidence. My son used an electric planer to remove the tips of three fingers a couple of months ago. ("Dad! I can see my bones!" was the rather shocked call I got from the hospital, followed by "Oh, gotta go now.") 

 

We both lack the ability to be safe! Same problem, different setting.😆

 

23 minutes ago, Cerberus said:

 And to get back on topic, I also much prefer it without any engine decking, It looks good, the whole thing looks good, you are doing a quality job, in a short time frame 

 

Well, ta very much. I'm going to speed it up a bit this week, I'm beginning my customary sprint to the finish.

 

[PlaStix]

Fantastic progress again Bertie. It's always a pleasure to see your project developing.

Kind regards,

Stix