malpaso Posted April 26, 2022 Share Posted April 26, 2022 Hi Bertie, following along in hope of learning something useful, as my daughter wants to build a model ship as relaxation(!) after her Uni finals. She has already had a little advice from Philip Reed! (See youtube) So anything I tell her will probably be superfluous. I can help you with sanding sealer, it's basically cellulose dope with talcum powder in it. It fills the grain with the talc, but is not filler. Even on balsa a few coats and rub downs give a lovely silky smooth finish, quite unlike the ball of fuzz such wood starts as. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 26, 2022 Author Share Posted April 26, 2022 6 minutes ago, malpaso said: Hi Bertie, following along in hope of learning something useful, as my daughter wants to build a model ship as relaxation(!) after her Uni finals. She has already had a little advice from Philip Reed! (See youtube) So anything I tell her will probably be superfluous. I can help you with sanding sealer, it's basically cellulose dope with talcum powder in it. It fills the grain with the talc, but is not filler. Even on balsa a few coats and rub downs give a lovely silky smooth finish, quite unlike the ball of fuzz such wood starts as. This first one is not relaxing me! I’m curious to use the sanding sealer. I remember Airfix Magazine suggested it for their balsa wood conversions, decades ago. And most boats and ships are painted to some extent. it’s been great fun acquiring the tools and so on and remembering how to work with wood. The model IS more relaxed a project than a new kitchen for example. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 26, 2022 Author Share Posted April 26, 2022 11 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: But not so slow that I haven't ordered my next build already. I ordered from these guys: https://www.hobbies.co.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaignid=2039839371&utm_campaign=Hobbies_Brand&utm_term=hobbies&adid=512789223512&addisttype=g&matchtype=b&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgMqSBhDCARIsAIIVN1UN4GxzvsYbOVx3FJ5Kb_q36qfr-ScgQZn0NMKkjvbQIXqH4xxkn98aAjQGEALw_wcB Yesterday I messed up the order first attempt, they politely emailed to let me know and offered assistance but I tried again on-line and pressed all the right buttons this time. The price was the lowest I could find and delivery was free. It's scheduled for delivery lunchtime today. I'm very impressed and recommend the seller. (Assuming that it actually arrives, I'll give them a shout out in the good dealers section.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 26, 2022 Author Share Posted April 26, 2022 I've started the second layer of planking today which begins with laying the garboard, or garboard strake. That's the line of planks which lie next to the keel. ('Strake' seems to mean anything that goes from front to back of a ships hull, so it's a bit redundant in the expression 'garboard strake' as 'garboard' means a line of planks next to the keel, and so MUST go from front to back. But hey, that's my new second language, Nautical, so who am I to complain?) It's the foundation for the ones that will come above so I need it to fit precisely and to be fixed exactly where I want it. I planed the edges of the garboard so that they would tuck under the rabbet on the keel. If I left them square they would meet corner to corner which I though might lead to gaps. The joint doesn't need to be strong on a model because the garboard will be glued to the under-planking as well as to the keel, but I'm being a bit of a perfectionist with the boats. I've looked at many model boats on line since starting this and sloppy joinery looks dreadful. It's like seeing a plastic model with gaping seams and flash left on. The ones that are well fitted and square are infinitely better and while that will be out of my range for a boat or two, that's the standard I want. I said planed, but actually I used my scraper with the wood held at the appropriate angle. I have a plane for the job but I haven't yet built a plank holder to allow me to use it. Either way, as you saw above, the edges aren't rounded and wooly as they would have been with sandpaper. I did use sandpaper on the curved portions though as I had to adjust the fit slightly. Sometimes it is the correct tool. That's the standard I hope to achieve on as many plank joins as I can on this build. If three out of four are that good, I'll be delighted. One out of four might lead to a Viking funeral! And then things became tense. The instructions say stick it down with superglue. I have many reservations about that. CA dries hard and brittle and wood breathes - it expands and contracts with changes in humidity. That makes me doubt the longevity of CA as a wood glue. I've had CA joints randomly fail on plastic to metal joints, reason unknown but possibly due to temperature changes. My other problem with CA is that in my experience, it choses its own moment to 'grab', and then it will not let go. I'll have to fit the whole six inches of this garboard, under the edge of the rabbet, simultaneously and with a tolerance of zero, both up and down and fore and aft. I don't think I will be able to make that work. If it does, it will be great, so I'm going to try my best here. It behaved exactly as I expected, grabbing firmly a fraction of a second and a fraction of an inch before I wanted it to. There was no getting it off again, no slide, no delay. In this case, it's a tiny tiny gap, maybe 0.1mm and I'll be painting this section of the hull anyway so it's no biggie. But maybe the next one will be 0.1 inches out? And, at the springy end of the plank where the instant grab would have been really useful, the glue wouldn't grip at all! That's it for me and superglue, it's a relationship doomed to failure. "CA, you're dumped!" I reverted to the wood glue that I've been using so far. At this point, it's easy to clamp over the keel as you see. Further up I have two possibilities. The first is contact or impact adhesive - the instant glue of my childhood, which with cunning use of acetone as a thinner might be the perfect compromise. Plan B is to use wood glue and invent or discover some clever clamping techniques to hold it all together for the drying period. That would be a one plank per day proposition so I'm really rooting for the Evo-stick Impact Adhesive. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerberus Posted April 26, 2022 Share Posted April 26, 2022 3 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: That's it for me and superglue, it's a relationship doomed to failure. "CA, you're dumped!" I fully understand your frustration with ca, it can be very erratic with regards to when and if it chooses to grab, but having said that, ca tends to work best when you can place a part, or parts in exactly the right position and then apply the ca, with small applicators like a thin piece of wire, then simply allow capillary action to suck the ca down into the joint/joints, in other words, it works best if everything is in exactly the right place beforehand... and then you hit it with the ca, and in some situations (probably not this one) you can get creative and drill holes from the back so that ca can be fed into joints while something is firmly held in position. That's my experience with ca and plastic (scratch building) anyway, with regards to ca joints for metal to plastic, both surfaces need to be keyed really with fine sandpaper, otherwise yes you can have problems with parts just dropping off, ca just sometimes needs something to grab, keying the surface can help in that regard. But anyway, yes ca can be a right pain in the a.. sometimes. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 26, 2022 Author Share Posted April 26, 2022 5 hours ago, Cerberus said: I fully understand your frustration with ca, it can be very erratic with regards to when and if it chooses to grab, but having said that, ca tends to work best when you can place a part, or parts in exactly the right position and then apply the ca, with small applicators like a thin piece of wire, then simply allow capillary action to suck the ca down into the joint/joints, in other words, it works best if everything is in exactly the right place beforehand... and then you hit it with the ca, and in some situations (probably not this one) you can get creative and drill holes from the back so that ca can be fed into joints while something is firmly held in position. That's my experience with ca and plastic (scratch building) anyway, with regards to ca joints for metal to plastic, both surfaces need to be keyed really with fine sandpaper, otherwise yes you can have problems with parts just dropping off, ca just sometimes needs something to grab, keying the surface can help in that regard. But anyway, yes ca can be a right pain in the a.. sometimes. Oh I know how to use it. That’s why I knew I wouldn’t like it in this situation! 😄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 14 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: Oh I know how to use it. That’s why I knew I wouldn’t like it in this situation! There are two mistakes in that quote. I didn't know how to use it on wood and "knowing that I wouldn't like it" was certain to ensure that it wouldn't work for me. Mulling over @Cerberus's post during a long sleepless night ministering to a sick pooch, I concluded that I had given up on CA too soon, based on prejudice against new materials which weren't mentioned in my forth year Woodwork Class. So, research. I watched a fascinating video about two very skilled Australian 'makers' building spruce strip canoes. Full sized but with a lot of similarities to this project. They were artists in wood, and their results make be take their work seriously. They were using CA. As wo do with plastic, running into joints by capillary action which I thought would make an awful mess. It did! But when the varnish went on, the glue marks disappeared. CA stains on wood are exactly the same as varnish or resin, they glaze the surface and make it transparent enough to see the beautiful grain. Then I did some experiments of my own. I discovered that rough surfaced wood doesn't work well with ca, but if you sand it, making a much finer key, it sticks like something to a blanket. I also found that thinner CA, worked better than the thick stuff. This surprised me but it's really handy. It soaks into the surface and doesn't grab until I align my parts and give them a jolly good squeeze! Then I think the glue squeezes out and it locks on. No need for clamps, though I'm still using them where there's a purchase, just to make life easier. On the unclampable bottom of the Lady, I just use my fingers for a few seconds and all's well. The glue stain was applied afterwards to test it with varnish etc. Unfortunately, I only have thin water-based varnishes here and they are rubbish on wood so that part of the experiment is yet to be carried out. This is the gamechanger. Because I can run the thinner glue into the narrow end of the plank to hull gap by capillary action (AND neatly apply glue to the edge of the preceding plank at the same time) I can do her a handful at a time, working from back to front and just holding it tight for a matter of seconds until it sticks. There's no need so far, for pre-bending as the CA is strong enough for brute force to settle the planks in position. They are also thinner and more flexible than the first layer. These top three or four planks are the ones I want to leave in varnished NWF (natural wood finish) and I think I may have aced that already. Down underneath, I've even been getting a little cocky, and why not, Missus? It does you good! I've been practicing butt joining. In real life the shipwrights probably woulfn't have had access to 80ft planks so a few joins might be apparent. I can do it like this with real joints, and also save on my timber, or I can score fake joints here and there. That's my back end. I'll need a little filler in the crack. And up her front too. I haven't quite made contact with the rabbet yet, but give me time and practice and I'll close that gap. Down by the keel will need fair bit of patching but this is designed to be painted anyway. I'll try for NWF, but I am prepared to have to paint over the varnish if it's not good enough. However, that's good as the varnish will be a perfect undercoat for the red paint that was traditional. I have really loosened up in the way I'm building the Zulu. I think that's because HMS Beagle arrived yesterday. Having the next boat on hand means I really KNOW that this one can be just for fun and really doesn't have to be perfect. 'Good enough' will be good enough. Or it might be that I got up at 0230 this morning and I'm too tired to care. 🤪 The dog has completely recovered, of course. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 On 4/26/2022 at 7:06 AM, malpaso said: my daughter wants to build a model ship as relaxation(!) after her Uni finals. She has already had a little advice from Philip Reed! (See youtube) So anything I tell her will probably be superfluous. I'm watching several build logs for this boat and my next one and, just like plastic kits, no two people build them in the same way and nobody follows the instructions. So she has a wide range of techniques to cherry pick from. Which boat does she have in mind? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psdavidson Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 6 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: On the unclampable bottom of the Lady, I just use my fingers for a few seconds and all's well 6 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: That's my back end. I'll need a little filler in the crack. Well, Fnaar 6 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: The dog has completely recovered, of course. Glad to hear it Oh, and the boat build's looking good too /P 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 6 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: And up her front too. I haven't quite made contact with the rabbet yet, but give me time and practice and I'll close that gap. @psdavidson, you missed one. Or two... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 8 minutes ago, psdavidson said: the boat build's looking good Thanks. I'm feeling really positive about it now. I know I can make a good fist of the planking, and once that's over I'll be completely relaxed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psdavidson Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 18 minutes ago, Bertie Psmith said: you missed one Didn't want to go too far this early in the day 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 That hull is shaping up nicely Bertie. Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 36 minutes ago, Courageous said: That hull is shaping up nicely Bertie. Stuart Thabks Stu. I think I've gone as far as I can with full parallel planks. I stopped this morning after setting five planks because my concentration was ebbing away. The ones in between are going to need a taper at one end or both. I'm too tired to work it out today but when I'm fresh, in the morning, I'll do the little bit of necessary maths and carry on. I'll do a full side at a time like before so that should I pork it up, I'll be able to have another go. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerberus Posted April 27, 2022 Share Posted April 27, 2022 9 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: Mulling over @Cerberus's post during a long sleepless night Probably best not to mull over anything I say for too long, I talk a load of nonsense mostly 🤣 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 27, 2022 Author Share Posted April 27, 2022 2 minutes ago, Cerberus said: Probably best not to mull over anything I say for too long, I talk a load of nonsense mostly 🤣 Yes, it's trying to make sense of it all that leads me into new and strange regions of the mind. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 28, 2022 Author Share Posted April 28, 2022 Today's update is more technical than usual, no jokes. It's also long so I'll do it in two parts; Planning and Execution. A Zulu is a complicated shape under the water. This is an original building diagram, I think. Note that the stern is the pointy end - in this case it's blunt end first. Look at the waterline indicated on the top drawing. You can see how she's trimmed by the stern, the back end sits low in the water so she planes along like a powerboat. I can see that shape now on my model. The back end of the keel sits low in the water for directional stability but her aft quarters, the part behind the middle, are quite flat, like a stone that you might skim across a pond. This is the first time I've ever understood a boat's shape and how it works. I suppose it's only damp aerodynamics really, but I'm really getting a kick out of it. Actually making the shape with my hands is the best modelling experience that I've had for a long time. I've been plating the shape today, not making it, but the grin factor is just as good. I didn't have a fag packet to work on so I resorted to paper and pencil. I measured the vertical gap between the planks I've already laid. The measurement was taken amidships, the fattest part and around the curves. I did this by holding a strip of paper over the gap and cutting it off to fit exactly. I measured this at 65.77mm, which I rounded up to 66mm because this isn't rocket science, it's nineteenth century boat science. 😁 I took a sample of the planks and found that there wasn't much width variation so I would assume they are all 4mm. They shrink a bit because I'm sanding them smoother, for the glue to work better, and I'm chamfering the edges a tad too. So I needed 16 and a half planks. Rats! That's the same as 17 but I needed to lose a couple of mm somewhere. I could reduce all of them by a midges doodah (It's a Scots boat) but that would be Difficult. So I decided that I'd have 14, 4mm planks and three skinny ones at the bottom, under the paint where no-one would notice. On the next side, I'll do these calculations before I lay ANY planks which will give me more options for fiddling the figures. Another lesson learned. I marked out my planned plank widths on the strip of paper and stuck it to my desk, aligned with the cm squares. I cut two more strips of paper the length of the stem and the sternpost. Now, I could have done some arithmetic and scaled up and down my midships distances, but I thought there was a good chance that I'd mess up the calculations so I did it with geometry instead. I lined up the stern tape with the top and bottom of the midships one and simply drew across with a long ruler. I used a long one so that I could be fairly sure that it was level compared to the cutting board grid. Clever eh? My GCE maths teacher would be proud of me for coming up with this elegant way to work the ratios but disgusted that I couldn't handle the sums. version. 🤣 The keel is at the top of the picture for this procedure, if you are puzzled. I taped the strip to the stern, being careful to keep it in the right orientation, hence the scribbled lines on the 'wrong' side. The marking were then transferred to the sternpost. If I can space my planks to meet those lines, I won't need any steelers. In fact despite the rake of the stern, the gaps between marks are the same vertical height as they are at midships. I was reminded of the area ruled aircraft of the sixties and wonder whether this was a deliberate decision for speed, on the part of the designer or just a coincidence? The bow is a lot smaller. So it IS the pointy end, after all! No problem. I just set the midships tape at an angle and had the bow vertical, then ruled across as before. That gave me this. Those last three planks are only 0.66mm narrower but I could feel the difference quite clearly. When transferred to the stem, the marks are clearly less than a full plank width so they will be adjusted to meet the lines, one by one as I fit them. This will allow me to avoid making another horrible mess like the first planks that you see on the right of the photo. 😁 And even the skinny planks are still slightly more than half width. There's a rule against going narrower than that for reasons of strength. At the stern, the gaps are roughly the same as midships so no problems there. If, at any of these three positions, the planks start to overrun the lines, I'll trim them to fit. That's the Planning done. I enjoyed that immensely and won't hesitate to do it next time, as I may have done here... End of Part One 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 28, 2022 Author Share Posted April 28, 2022 Part Two - Execution. At the stern the planks had to be bent downwards. I've shown you that process before but I found a new ... angle. 🤣 I discovered that after the edge bending, I could impart a twist simply by reheating the wood with a hair drier. That was enough heat to soften the lignin enough for a twist without undoing the high temperature induced bend. This helped me reduce the step effect that had plagued me on the first planking. Considering that wooden model boat building has been goin on for hundreds of years, there still seems to be room for inventing your own techniques. Of course, thousands of other people have also invented this idea, they just didn't tell me about it yet. The front end just needed a gentle taper. The bows have a curve that's almost one directional. It's like an axe edge for cutting through waves. I found out how much to remove by dry fitting the plank, cutting it for length and then transferring the stem pencil mark to the end of the plank. The other end of the cut goes where the plank tries to climb over the previous one. This leaves a definite corner and I've been rounding or even cutting that corner away with a second cut because the taper must be a curve in real life, surely? The first plank to go on today was a thick one. Youi can just see the pencil mark at this midships position. Exactly under the edge of the plank. So far so good. No problem at the bow either, apart from I cut it a millimeter too short. A little fat at the stern though so the next one will be tapered both ends. to come back to the line Most of the problem is the slight gap between plank 3 and 4 caused by the rough edge of plank 4. There's a lot of steps to remember in the working of each plank and I forgot to smooth the edge. Maybe I need an aide memoir? The untapered plank 5. You can see how quickly things would have gotten out of hand if I'd been doing it by eye. That's what made the first layer so difficult - I was too lazy to do the maths. At least I remembered to smooth the edges of this one. That's how I broke it, sanding in the wrong direction against the delicate wood. It buckled and broke at a point where the grain went less than parallel with the long axis. No amount of quality control will spot planks like this and if you don't break them, they will be the pretty ones. It's just one of those things. A second's lack of concentration can really mess you up in our hobby! Remember I haven't had a good night's sleep all week so I should have been being more careful. I used the split ends as a scarf joint and carried on with the same plank. I have one that's very thin and useless except in emergency, and no other spares! At least I'm back on the line here at the stem. Same at the stern, back on course. The joint looks awful flooded with CA but you'll see in the last photo that it's almost gone after a bit of scraping and sanding. With varnish I hope it will disappear completely. Bent, twisted, cut down to size, and still I get these steps. The instructions say don't sweat it so I guess it's one of those freaks of topography that can't be completely dodged. My geometry doesn't take me far enough to understand it so I'll just scrape it off later. Later being right now! I had only done three planks but I was getting tired and making tiny mistakes. It was time to stop touching the unglued planks before I bust another one, so I tidied up the surface because I wanted to see the grain. It turns out that number four, which I fitted last night, and number 5 which was the first one today are book matched veneers - mirror images of each other. They are two sides of the same saw cut! What were the odds! I definitely can't paint over that! The mirroring goes all the way from bow to stern though it's less obvious at the front. Once varnished, it will be stunning. And there we rest. I love how the gap seems to be getting more and more parallel as it closes up. With any luck the edges will meet square and true this time. And see the broken plank? It's less obvious already. On second thoughts I should have trued it up and made a proper butt joint. Then, if it IS visible, it would have looked as though it was meant to be there. Another lesson for a newbie. Now I'm going to tidy up, make some tea and gently ease into an early night with a book. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 28, 2022 Author Share Posted April 28, 2022 3 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: I had only done three planks but I was getting tired and making tiny mistakes Nope. In the last lot of photos I’d clearly only done 3 at the top so today I laid four. I really do need an aide memoir, for every aspect of my life! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted April 29, 2022 Author Share Posted April 29, 2022 A Philosophical Digression [Oooh, a title! I like that.] I posted an update on the Model Ship World forum last night and a guy gave me some information which I might or might not find useful about hull geometry. I liked that. Another bloke kinda gave me advice about how to do the planking, which was to do it his way. Advice is usually like that. I appreciated that he was aiming to be helpful but his post wasn't quite so welcome, except in provoking some thought on my part about why I didn't welcome it. This was my response, which I'm posting here because I enjoyed writing it and because we might find a splendid conversation grows from it. Or not. Whatever. I think it depends on whether one is employing a goal focused approach to the task of building the boat, or a process focused one. With Lady Isabella, I'm far more concerned with the process of learning to build than with the end result. I accept my mistakes as part of that process and if the boat is a bit wonky at the end, it will just add to its charm. I've read only a little about different planking techniques and discovered a fascination for the geometry involved. I came up with a geometrical method of transferring plank widths to the different frame positions, because the arithmetical method bored me. In turn, this has led me to develop my trim, bend and twist technique. I know that this won't be the first time these things have been 'discovered' but it's the first time I've discovered them, and that makes them feel like mine, and gives me a tremendous sense of satisfaction. It's a slow way of building a boat and leads to many diversions, often into dead ends, and that's OK. If I should make a fatal error and the boat becomes unbuildable, that's actually OK too. If I was working with the goal at the forefront of my mind, I'd be searching for the most efficient way to make the model as perfect as possible. "If I was working..." That's the way I worked for my money all of my so-called productive life. Meeting other people's targets and deadlines, never stopping to smell the flowers. Doing the boat like that would involve following to the letter someone else's proven approach; following the instructions in fact. And I'd feel like I was working for someone else once more. I've retired from the world of work. I've been retired for six years and still I find myself rushing things that don't need to be rushed and making things perfect that don't need to be perfect. Work is a hard habit to break, but I am slowly re-learning how to play. I am finding things out by playing with them. A model boat can be a toy, so playing with it seems rather fitting. Another way of looking at this idea is the ancient dichotomy between being and doing. I can be doing the boat or being the boatbuilder. Either route leads to the same place which will probably be a completed model, but from where I am, being the builder gives me a better experience. Some philosophers say that 'to be is to do', others say that 'to do is to be'. I always remember that great thinker F. A. Sinatra who put it most succinctly when he said "Dobedobedo". I'll do it my way. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faraway Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 Like you, I no longer ‘work’. So I now do things for me, or my wife, which ever comes first (usually my wife). My first task upon retirement was to finish all the PS4 games I hadn’t. That took a year or so, after which I returned to modelling. First AFV, then aircraft and now ships, which I much prefer. I follow a few of our fellow builders on here who have FAR more experience and expertise than me and continue to learn from them. One thing I am aware of, is that the chaps I get info from don’t ever say “this IS the way to do it”, they only ever say “this is how I do it”. The overwhelming feeling I get here suggestions NOT rules to follow. When I worked there were procedures I had to follow, I worked in Aerospace, where the regulations are very strict, for obvious reasons. So when I taught people how to do a thing, first show them how the procedure should be followed, then show them how to achieve the same result by the tried and trusted method that had been used for years, which was the same method only streamlined to reduce time and effort, but achieving the same high and acceptable standards required. So, what I’m saying is if YOU achieve the result YOU want and it works then that is the right way. Jon 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArnoldAmbrose Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 Gidday Guys, like you both I'm retired now and have been officially for, oh, two weeks now. Although from a practical point of view I have been retired since school broke up mid December last year. For nineteen years I was the sole cleaner at my local school and over those years I developed a few strategies for getting the job done more efficiently. Then came Covid-19 and all the panic that went with it. As a cleaner these last two years were quite busy for me. I guess in a way it got me thinking that it's time for me to go, which I've done. Like you I think instructions are guidelines. I think it's healthy to keep the Grey Matter ticking over. Admiral Nelson once said "Blind obedience to orders is no substitute for initiative." Hobbies are meant to be enjoyable. So by all means ask questions and ask for advice but ultimately build your models your way. (Provided, of course, that your way is my way! 😁) That planking is looking very good, Bertie. Keep it up. Regards, Jeff. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faraway Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 52 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said: Gidday Guys, like you both I'm retired now and have been officially for, oh, two weeks now. Jeff. I’m coming up to five years and I have to say I do not regret retiring, the first year or so felt like I was on holiday and I kept wondering how much I’d have to do when I went back to work. Then I remembered, I didn’t have too. Jon 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArnoldAmbrose Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 Yeah, it's a great feeling. I wonder why I didn't do it sooner, then I remember - money, or rather the lack of it. Apologies for the digression, Bertie. Regards, Jeff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColonelKrypton Posted April 29, 2022 Share Posted April 29, 2022 5 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said: ... still I find myself rushing things that don't need to be rushed and making things perfect that don't need to be perfect. Work is a hard habit to break ... Indeed. The other day I found myself rushing along on a couple of items for my M3/M4 Group Build project. I put that project aside when I finally realized that I was rushing and starting to take short cuts. As a diversion I spent a few hours making a small carving skew chisel out of an old needle file, a small block of some kind of wood with a brass ring ferule. I also had to make a small jig to hold the handle square in the drill press so could drill out a hole to hold the finished blade. I posted this quote somewhere else before but it bears keeping in mind - I have it printed out in fancy script on a small piece of paper in the workshop : Quote It is true that we shall not be able reach perfection, but in our struggle towards it we shall strengthen our characters and give stability to our ideas, so that, whilst ever advancing calmly in the same direction, we shall be rendered capable of applying the faculties with which we have been gifted to the best possible account - Confucius Bertie, it does indeed sound as though you are truly enjoying your journey. cheers, Graham 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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