Bertie Builds a Boat - Lady Isabella - Scots 'Zulu' Herring Drifter - Finished ! ! !

[Bertie McBoatface]

I have contact dermatitis. It's worse on my right hand first finger and thumb, but the whole right hand is affected, and a little bit om my left. I assume this is a result of the CA glue fumes from the planking, which required as much super glue as I would normally use in a year. It's quite sore and a bit of a bind. I read that it's a known hazard of using a lot of the stuff, but thought it wouldn't happen to me. 😕

 

As I can't work in gloves, I'll be doing the second side with Evo-stick impact/contact adhesive. I wonder what that will do to me.

[Dubz]

That's a great planked hull!! 🙂

 

cheers

 

Dirk

[Bertie McBoatface]

38 minutes ago, Dubz said:

That's a great planked hull!! 🙂

 

cheers

 

Dirk

 

Thanks Dirk.

 

One day I will be as good as you but not today. 😄

[MR2Don]

On 4/5/2022 at 4:00 PM, Bertie Psmith said:

it's customary to pull it through a block of beeswax to tame those loose hairs

Did that when building my boats. The two thicknesses may be to differentiate static rigging (i.e. holding up masts) from dynamic (operating sails).

[Bertie McBoatface]

47 minutes ago, MR2Don said:

Did that when building my boats. The two thicknesses may be to differentiate static rigging (i.e. holding up masts) from dynamic (operating sails).

 

Indeed so. It's a curious feature of the Zulu class boats that there is no standing rigging at all. The masts are held up by the same ropes that work the sails. Very cheap and efficient but when tacking, the masts would be temporarily unsupported while the sails were dropped and the yards removed and carried around to the other side of the mast, reattached and raised. That seems a little dodgy and if a rope parted at anytime...

[Bertie McBoatface]

I've been designing a plank holder for side two. The slotted scrap wood was useful but I can do better. And what better than copying the double screw vice described, but not invented by Joseph Moxon in 1703. It goes back even further than that.

 

 

That's the full size carpentry version. It's dead simple to make, can be clamped to a bench or used free standing for small jobs, and even holds tapered workpieces. Clearly this was the ancestor of the Black and Decker Workmate.

 

I'm going to make a miniature one from beech or some other heavy hardwood. Why shouldn't my tools be as beautiful as the boats I'm going to build? I've ordered the necessary hardware already but not wanting to wait before covering the Lady's other futtock, this evening I made a temporary version from my store of offcuts - and two woodscrews.

 

 

Front view. The screws pass through clearance holes in the front plate and are driven into the rear jaw. Opening and closing them around a plank is only a quarter turn with a screwdriver.

 

 

Back view. The lump of rosewood is just to stop it falling over. The jaws are a tad shorter than the planks but that's ok as they are longer than the boat and that's the important thing.

 

 

The plank is 4mm of which 2mm are gripped in the vice. I'm forbidden by convention from narrowing a plank past half width so that works out fine. 

 

However, can you imagine the struggle to get a plank at exactly the right height in the long jaws while tightening the two screws with a screwdriver. Surely that's a job for four hands at least?

 

 

Here's the solution to that problem. I glued some plank scraps 2mm below the top of the jaws for the fresh plank to sit on while I tighten it up. They go all the way along and there's another line of them below the screws so that the jaws remain parallel.

 

It all works just fine and until the screw holes wear out should give me no problems. (When they do, I'll just move the back jaw along half an inch.) I'm still going to make a fancy one though - just for the joy of handling a lovely tool, as Lady Isabella herself said to me the other night.

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

This has been my first day in Bertie's Boatyard with no other projects in the background. I can give the Lady my full attention (apart from so-called real life of course.) You'd think I would have made a lot of progress. Well, I did and I didn't.

 

 

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the state of my rabbets. I can't use CA anymore so the rabbets are going to be especially important for locking down the ends of the starboard side planks while the wood glue dries. Wood glue? Weren't you going to use impact adhesive? Yes I was, but two things are steering me away from that stuff. First, the smell is atrocious and while I might care to suffer headaches for my art, I won't do that to the dog. Second, Evo-Stick is still pretty well immediate and irreversible, same as CA, and I'd like some time to smoothly slide the plank up the rabbet, which wood glue would do perfectly, even lubricating my wood on the way to its perfect location. But I digress.

 

 

I'm also keen to make the plank ends perfect like a Hollywood smile and not like the English teeth that I ended up with on the port side. The stem and sternpost rabbets, which are just  locating slots with a fancy name, need to be right. You can see how narrow I had made it by my sloppy work on the first planking. So I started tidying things up with a scalpel, while wishing that I had some decent paring chisels or carving tools. And that thought led me to an hour on line looking at tool suppliers. I haven't bought anything as the scalpels did the job with only minor risk to my arteries, but next month...

 

 

I spent some more time smoothing the hull too. The less filler I left on there the happier I'd be...

 

 

...because it has become loose and powdery. Wanting to stabilise it as well as I could, I gave it a dose of sanding sealer. I like that stuff a lot. It soaked in well being alcohol based, dried fairly fast and gave a hard finish which I think will stop the first boxwood planks absorbing so much of the wood glue and consequently extending the glue drying time. It also glued the filler into a hard mass. It did need some drying time though. So I turned to the superstructure while I was waiting.

 

'Superstructure' makes me think of battleships and carriers but in this case we are talking about a wooden box shape about two feet high which forms the roof of the companionway, which leads to the crew cabin and contains the hatches to the fish hold. Apparently superstructure means anything above the main deck. And yes, there's a downstairs, with bunk beds for the crew! Because this boat looks like a rowing boat, we forget that it's eighty feet long, near eighteen feet wide and had quite a big crew. Once the nets were out last thing in the evening, everyone except the watch keeper went to bed, while hundreds of thousands of herrings trapped themselves in a mile or two of nets hanging like a curtain in the water. At dawn, the crew hauled them in as fast as they could and headed for home as fast as the wind would bear them. 

 

So this low superstructure. I'd already built the frame. It was the very first step in the build. I just needed to laminate it with a pearwood outer layer. Now a lot of this kit is constructed with an eye on Murphy's Law and many parts will only fit one way, the right way. However, this does not apply to everything and even photo instructions can be misleading so I stuck the ends on the wrong ends. Thank Neptune I wasn't using CA, because the wood glue allowed me to salvage the situation. I should have had my brain in gear I suppose, but this is supposed to be a kit designed for beginners and I spent two hundred quid on it. Little avoidable things like this are beginning to irritate me. For example I wasted time looking for the required components because the instructions described them as 3mm pearwood, when they are actually on the 1mm sheet. I had a little panic thinking I'd lost a sheet. Little unimportant errors but not the kind of thing that I expect on a supposedly top quality kit. This isn't Tamiya standard, for sure. Anyway, enough moaning - the superstructure is now built.

 

 

There was a bit more preparation needed before the planking. I wanted a bench hook so that I could saw the ends square instead of using nippers which crush and crimp the wood. I had the materials but the construction called for heavy duty clamping and my biggest, meanest clamps, a full three inches wide! needed some fettling as they were donated with a big casting ridge right across the fixed jaw. So out with the files and the new portable workbench and a pleasant time was had filing them smooth. I used to hate filing but I actually did enjoy this half hour. 

 

 

And then I could make the bench hook. That pleases me. Usually, I'd have lashed something up or used the clamps with the ridges bruising the wood where it wouldn't be often seen. Maybe I did it properly today because of the one project experiment?

 

 

Nice.

 

I've told you about my plank vice for the tapering and shaping of the  planking. Today I made a modification to my bending hardware.

 

 

I made the bending former symmetrical, because I'll never use the small radius end for this job, it was too small and no plank could ever be bent that far without shattering. And now I can work a plank left- or right-handed instead of having to flip it over and losing sight of my marking out. The offcut of Purpleheart is there to avoid damage to my portable workbench. I don't know whether it's big enough for the job yet - we will see!

 

 

Then came an hour or two of arithmetic as I attempted to mark out the hull the other way. My geometry method worked absolutely fine so why not change it? Ha! I just wanted to see if the other way was as bad as I thought.

 

YES IT WAS! It took me ages to get some figures for the plank spacing that I could believe in, but when I transferred them to the boat using compasses, the whole thing became so corrupted by tiny accumulating errors that when I counted the dots, I found that I'd lost a whole plank somewhere! Out with the rubber and then back to geometry.

 

 

And now I have ten paper templates each divided into 21 segments to be transferred to the hull in the morning. There will be slight differences in the placing but they will all line up so that doesn't matter, the errors will not accumulate this way. That took about an hour of careful work with scissors and straight edge, with nary a measurement taken. That's how the boatbuilders used to work things, being smart enough to do things the old, elegant ways rather than spending money on digital calipers!!

 

 

Oh all right, there was some measuring done. I checked the planks for width and laid them out in order of thickness with the thin ones being in the middle. I've examined them for flaws and spotted a few dodgy planks but since I have no spares, that achieved little apart from letting me know that I will break a few. And repair them. No worries.

 

So it feel like I've done a lot today, but it looks like nothing much at all. Never mind, I'm happy to call it progress.

 

[ColonelKrypton]

nicely done bench hook. It should prove to very handy.

 

Something I have been wondering but never bothered to ask - what are the dimensions of the planks, width and thickness?

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

5 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

nicely done bench hook. It should prove to very handy.

 

Something I have been wondering but never bothered to ask - what are the dimensions of the planks, width and thickness?

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

Width 4mm nominal but varies from 3.9 to 4.2 

Thickness 1mm nominal, 0.7 to 1.2 actual.

Length 420mm

21 planks per side if I get it right but I used 22 last time which included my only spare, though I didn't realise that at the time. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

8 hours ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

 

Something I have been wondering but never bothered to ask - what are the dimensions of the planks, width and thickness?

 

cheers, Graham

 

some of them have quite deep saw marks so there’s a smaller ‘useful dimension’ for the width. I think they have been cut with a very small circular saw, possibly operated manually which would raise costs enormously. 
 

 My son has made some for me on his hobby size bandsaw and achieved 1mm +/- 0.1 thickness but of course he had unlimited time to do it and probably lost a few in the process. They are also shorter in length. 
 

It seems likely that I will soon be adding some power tools to the Bertiverse inventory. My next boat is a kit but the one after that is planned be a scratch build. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 4/26/2022 at 7:06 AM, 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.

 

Has she started her build yet?

[malpaso]

1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

Has she started her build yet?

Keel and frames erected and first plank done, from the photo she sent.  It’s the Model Shipyard 18C longboat.  Her main complaint is having to do a crash course in 18C nautical vocabulary to understand the instructions!  Apparently more technical to read than the first few volumes of Patrick o’Brian. 🤣

[Bertie McBoatface]

I have started my final examination planking test piece.

 

 

There are the target marks that I wish to hit. I won't get all of them spot on, obviously, but the more I touch, the merrier I shall be. I marked them in threes so that I really can't lose my place. Can I?

 

 

There's the front end of the bulwark plank. I hit the mark, though it's not easy to see that in this picture, but more importantly to me, The joint at the stem is perfect, even enlarged like this. Excuse me while I dance around the room for a moment.

 

Using wood glue made it so much easier to get everything lined up perfectly. I clamped this particular plank really tightly as the upper edge and the plywood former under it together form the very visible top edge of the hull. I don't want any avoidable gaps there. The modern resin wood glues only need clamping briefly, maybe ten minutes, after that they will continue to harden for hours but the joint will stay intact. If the worst happens and I can't come up with a method to clamp my plank, I'll just hold it in my fingertips for ten minutes. It won't significantly add to the build time as these planks are taking me a long time to prepare. A very long time.

 

 

That's the sternpost to bulwark joint, five times life size, on my monitor. Not quite perfect but very adequate!

 

 

And from above. It doesn't look too good from this angle but, if you will trust me, that's an unavoidable consequence of the geometry at this point.

 

 

Here's the two planks that I've fitted today. Yes, only two. When I was using CA I was relying on its power and my brute strength and ignorance to force my planking into position and hold it there. My preparation of the wood did not have to be very good, though this ultimately led me into a bit of a muddle when errors accumulated. It's very different now I'm using the 'proper' glue. Now I must make the planks fit with the minimum of force. In fact I must make the planks fit. That's why progress was a little slow today.

 

I forgot to photograph the plank prep today because I got so into it. I'll do that for you tomorrow. It has changed slightly as my techniques have evolved and the need for accuracy has increased. 

 

 

I laid out my planks in thickness order as before but had to be a bit clever with it this time. On the previous side i went thick at the bulwark and keel and thin in the middle, where the shape seemed most complicated and I wanted the most pliant material. On this side of the hull I have some problem areas inherited from second planking and before.

 

 

The first planking which will go beneath planks 11. 12 and 13 are paper thin in places. This seems to have happened where they didn't stick to the bulkheads and rose out of position. Being new to this, I misinterpreted this as a simple bulge and sanded it off. The more I sanded, the thinner the wood became and the MORE it bulged outwards. The more I rubbed it the bigger it got! So typical of the Lady Isabella. Fortunately I didn't sand all the way through at this point.

 

 

I did sand through at this point though. That's the MDF bulkhead in there and again there doesn't seem to be enough glue holding the first planking down. Both of these dodgy areas are at the same level so I guess I just didn't put enough glue on that particular plank. It's all learning.

 

I don't want to be laying thin planks over the top of these poor foundations, so the sequence this time is thick/thin/thick/thin/thick with that middle thick section right over the flaws. I'm hoping that will give me a stronger waterline section and allow for a tad more sanding of the top layer. It's only 0.5mm thicker but it's not the actual size that counts, but where you lay it.

 

 

Macro photography reveals that the edges of my planks are splitting the target marks in half. You may well be thinking, "huh, big deal" but it's a huge achievement for me.

 

 

Though I only fitted two pieces of wood today, these results raised my mood from "pretty well fed up with life, the universe, and everything"* to 
"Walking on sunshine, woooah! Walking on sunshine, woooah! And don't it feel good!"

 

 

Considering that the entire length of that plank was planed down to some degree (0.1mm in the middle, maybe 0.5 at the ends) and still hits the marks, you might understand my jubilations.

 

 

Here's the stern with the clamps out of the way.

 

 

And here's the stem. There's room for improvement still but compared to this...

 

 

...I can see that I'm getting close to nailing it. Well, alright then, close to gluing it!

 

 

*I had no particular reason for being fed up, just a brush with the blues.

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

22 minutes ago, malpaso said:

Keel and frames erected and first plank done, from the photo she sent.  It’s the Model Shipyard 18C longboat.  Her main complaint is having to do a crash course in 18C nautical vocabulary to understand the instructions!  Apparently more technical to read than the first few volumes of Patrick o’Brian. 🤣

 

Oh my, that's a really difficult one. 😱 She's building plank on frame, mine is plank on bulkhead. The difference is that she only has one layer of planks and it's visible from both sides. Please let me know how she gets on. It's a fine looking craft and if she hacks it, I might be encouraged to try one myself sometime. Maybe. 

 

I fully understand her struggles with the vocab. I don't fully understand the vocab though. 🤔

[Bertie McBoatface]

Leaving planking aside for the moment, with no other projects filling my mind, I've been working on the other aspects of the boat. This is for when I'm a bit tired or temporarily cheesed off with walking the planks.

 

 

This is the back end of the superstructure and tha laser etched square represents the hatch at the top of the companionway. 

 

 

I couldn't resist a little embellishment using scraps.

 

 

And while I had the superstructure in my hand it was time to make it look as though it was made from many pieces of wood. As it comes, it looks like a single sheet of wood with lines drawn on. Not a surprise because that's what it is! So I applied some acrylic ink to selected panels. These are hatch covers for the fish hold by the way. Some of them got two coats and some received three. It looks stark in the photo because the inks were still a little damp. When it had dried overnight though, I think the effect is quite good.

 

 

It's definitely made the thing look less bland, but is perhaps a little overdone? It has to be varnished yet and possibly weathered and I'm hoping that will tone the hatches down a bit.

 

 

I did the thin deck planking too and it's so subtle that you almost can't see it. That's what I aim to do with the main deck.

 

 

 

 

[ColonelKrypton]

On 5/7/2022 at 6:02 PM, Bertie Psmith said:

Width 4mm nominal but varies from 3.9 to 4.2 

Thickness 1mm nominal, 0.7 to 1.2 actual.

Length 420mm

21 planks per side if I get it right but I used 22 last time which included my only spare, though I didn't realise that at the time. 

 

Bertie,

 

Thank you for the details.  I had an idea of the overall size of Isabella but was having trouble visualizing the dimensions of the construction material.  What got me wondering was something I was messing about with and was considering using a thick veneer that is available locally from a wood supplier but is about 1.5mm thick - roughly twice that of more common veneer. Being a flat sheet I was thinking I could just use a heavy metal straight edge and a sharp knife to slice off my planks.  This is what I would have done when I was building flying model airplanes from sticks of balsa and bass wood. I also used to make a simple balsa stripper tool that would make the job simpler. Do a search for balsa stripper tool, it might give you some ideas on making your own planks. 

 

Speaking of tools, I was just searching around on the topic of cutting small hardwood strips and stumbled across this very interesting tool that should be easy enough to knock up a variation for my own use - a plank chamfering cutting tool ( this example on amazon.ca ) https://www.amazon.ca/Chamfering-Cutting-Tools-Wooden-Planking/dp/B07XNGH5H7

 

Even found a youtube video of the thing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwz5r3fza2Q

 

As to your deck planking - yes, in the photos at least it does look a wee bit overdone but once you have been handling the piece and put on some weathering and varnish I think that will tone it down a bit as you suspect.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

36 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

Bertie,

 

Thank you for the details.  I had an idea of the overall size of Isabella but was having trouble visualizing the dimensions of the construction material.  What got me wondering was something I was messing about with and was considering using a thick veneer that is available locally from a wood supplier but is about 1.5mm thick - roughly twice that of more common veneer. Being a flat sheet I was thinking I could just use a heavy metal straight edge and a sharp knife to slice off my planks.  This is what I would have done when I was building flying model airplanes from sticks of balsa and bass wood. I also used to make a simple balsa stripper tool that would make the job simpler. Do a search for balsa stripper tool, it might give you some ideas on making your own planks. 

 

There are several available very reasonable prices, though I might make one, just for the fun of it. A balsa stripper would certainly be a handy tool. 

 

1.5mm veneer would be useful in this field too; not just for planks but a myriad of different uses and I'm sure it would be workable with a sharp knife and a straight edge, assuming that it was reasonably straight grained and not too hard/brittle. 

 

36 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

Speaking of tools, I was just searching around on the topic of cutting small hardwood strips and stumbled across this very interesting tool that should be easy enough to knock up a variation for my own use - a plank chamfering cutting tool ( this example on amazon.ca ) https://www.amazon.ca/Chamfering-Cutting-Tools-Wooden-Planking/dp/B07XNGH5H7

 

Even found a youtube video of the thing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwz5r3fza2Q

 

The planks I laid this morning were chamfered with a quick swipe of an emery board. I've also use my plane at a slight angle, but sometimes , as this morning, the chamfer angle required varies along the length of the plank. The tool on Amazon looks to me rather an over engineered and over priced gimmick. $50!

 

36 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

As to your deck planking - yes, in the photos at least it does look a wee bit overdone but once you have been handling the piece and put on some weathering and varnish I think that will tone it down a bit as you suspect.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

The planked area on the superstructure is ok fortunately, and the fish hatch covers would surely have been pretty filthy after a few nights fishing - a good place to practice my oil weathering!

 

 

[ColonelKrypton]

1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

The tool on Amazon looks to me rather an over engineered and over priced gimmick. $50!

 

Agreed. I would never pay that much for something so simple I could make my own.

 

In fact I would probably make one that would similar to a cabinet makers moulding plane but as a scraper rather than a plane. There are lots of ways to cut and shape wood ( and plastic and metal, etc ... ). Sometimes you just need a bit of inspiration to set you off on a path so that you could find the solution you like best.

 

Quote

fish hatch covers would surely have been pretty filthy after a few nights fishing

 

Indeed, and smelly too.

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Cerberus]

4 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

but is perhaps a little overdone?

 I wouldn't say it looks overdone, but I would get more of it constructed before making changes, that's just me personally anyway.

 

 What did they think to your planking over on the 'other' more serious site? Were they impressed? They must of been impressed surely to god?

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

Indeed, and smelly too.

 

I know a joke about that but it's as filthy as the hatches. 😄

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Cerberus said:

 I wouldn't say it looks overdone, but I would get more of it constructed before making changes, that's just me personally anyway.

 

Thanks. I'd say it looks overdone now, but when the deck's as mucky as some of my photos, it will blend right in! 

 

1 hour ago, Cerberus said:

 What did they think to your planking over on the 'other' more serious site? Were they impressed? They must of been impressed surely to god?

 

The post of the completed planking on the port side has collected 8 'reactions' (thumbs up signs over there) and not a word of comment. There have been quite a few comments in the past though, usually when I'm getting it wrong and the members want to give me information that will help. Sadly there's a shortage of banter as well as of encouragement. There aren't many members compared to here so that will make a difference but I think the organisers are keeping the members under the cosh with all those dire warnings about staying on topic. (I'm not allowed to quote here, anyone's comments over there, so I can't give you any examples.)

 

At least one of the admins is also a boat kit manufacturer who coincidentally sells plans and possibly materials for a boat that is the subject of a 'single type group build' which struck me as a little odd. But then again we have many manufacturer members here too. Group builds last for years over there! 😆

 

Each of my posts gets a thumbs up from the designer/supplier of the Lady Isabella which was nice at first but is now giving me a strange feeling of being supervised. It could almost be felt to inhibit criticism. But hey, I'm just a paranoid grumpy old geezer, what do I know?

 

All in all, I'll probably cease and desist posting there fairly soon. I don't think I fit in.

[Bertie McBoatface]

The Tale of the Plank

 

It's been a funny old day. Hactually it's been a funny old week, but today was downright narsty. A while back some big geezer opened up our sealed plastic bag which seemed like a good thing at the time. It was nice to get some fresh air, and absorb a little moisture from the hatmosphere, despite it tasting distinctly of dog. I remember dogs from my time as a tree; root-rotting little bleeders they are! So, there we was, 21 of us in a nice pile in the sunshine, taking the air and havin' a chat amongst ourselves when the big geezer, the one wiv the monocle, well 'e comes back and gives us all a rub down wiv sandpaper. Most invigorating! It smoothed my ruffled grain and left me fair relaxed. Then the weird stuff started.

 

We was all measured and laid out like we was on parade. Was we in the army? I had a shufti around but as I couldn't find a staff sergeant anywhere (groan!), I decided that was not the case. We had been arranged with the thick ones on the ends and the skinny guys in the middle. Being of haverage hintelligunce and carrying a few pounds extra, this saw me a couple of ranks back from the edge. I could still hear what was happening over the next couple of days. Oh the screams! Hot irons. Steam. Machines to bend and twist yer, to clamp and slice yer. It fair gave me the horrors and today it was my turn.

 

 

That's me right at the back. I thought I'd be ok back there but he was taking us from both ends!

 

 

First 'e sharpened my head to a point. I felt like a rotten p'liceman for a bit and everyone was larfin' at me.

 

 

Then he beveled me as well, and jambed me hard into the crack as you see in the picture.

 

 

After that 'e eased off a bit. He pressed me up against Lady Isabella's bulwarks, which ain't such a bad way to spend the mornin', and tattooed me. The double striped lined up with the tattoos on the lady which helped keep me in line. 

 

 

Then he took the measurements of the lady with a pair of compasses, which I thought was not the act of a gen'leman.

 

 

Said measurements were transferred to me. I told 'im to watch what he was a doin' with the pointy end but 'e just larfed and muttered something like "Just you wait, you splintery cove."

 

 

Well, I 'ad to wait. I wasn't goin' nowhere was I? While I lay there quivering like an aspen, he touched up the lady wiv a chiv! The idea, haparrently, was to clean out any residue of glue, so I would be ably to snuggle up tight.

 

 

That's me layin' quiverin'. Tattooed from head to foot. Notice how straight and square I was - not for long though.

 

 

This is me, screwed! Screwed tight into a vice so I couldn't move, couldn't even break myself in half. Helpless.

 

 

And this is me a bit later and a bit slimmer. I thought planes were nice city trees but the plane that was plied all down my flanks was not nice at all. He cut me down to size, both ends!

 

 

Then he flipped me over and beveled me other edge with that sandpaper. An' 'e's got some 'orrid skin disease on 'is hands too - ew!

 

 

Next I was offered up to the lady, which sounds better than it was. Apparently, this was to see if I had to have another very close shave, but I got away wiv that one.

 

 

If I was goin' to get into bed wiv the lady, there was a problem wiv me feet. They was sticking out like Bertie's ears.

 

 

He giv me the finger and shoved me up against the stem, and I didn't fit there either. He said I was too low. Cheeky posh git.

 

 

More mystery tats. The circle is where it had to happen and the arrows said in which direction it 'ad to happen. I was sweating splinters wondering what was goin to 'appen next.

 

 

He done me up the sharp end too.

 

 

In some places I was too low and in some places I was too high. Some people are never satisfied.

 

 

Whatever he was plannin' for me other end was goin to happen twice 'ere, both comin' and goin'!

 

 

He took me down the beech and splashed me. 

 

 

Clamped me down and bent me.

 

And then. An then. He pressed a red hot smoothin iron on me until my lignin went all soft! I can't show you a photo - this is family entertainment and I don't wanna scare the little twigs.

 

 

While I was coolin' down and realisin' that I'd never get that job as a ruler that I always fancied, what do you think 'e was doing?

 

 

Milk and cookies for the psychopath!

 

 

Sure enough, when 'e comes back and released me, I was fair crooked.

 

 

BUT, I 'ave to admit, I was in much better shape for spooning up wiv the lady.

 

 

Me other end got the same treatment, up AND down. Was he happy now?

 

 

No. Now he wets me again and twists me in front of the fire so me 'ead an' feet are pointing in one direction and my belly in another. NOW is he finished?

 

 

Still no. I'm the right size, I bend edgeways in the right places and I've got the right twist but end to end I'm still straight. Which means that when I'm up against the lady I'll always be wantin' to ping off out of it. Because he can't get the Super Glue on his scabby hands no more and can't use strong clamps, I've got to be bent in ANOTHER direction.

 

 

Three more goes in front of the hot iron left me like this. I 'ad very little spring in me step by this point, I can tell yer.

 

 

Shaved, bent, twisted and bowed, and all ready for the glue.

 

 

I still put up a bit of a fight though, until he clamped me again.

 

 

And while the glue fastened me down for good, I had a grandstand view of exactly the same fings happening to my mate Eric down on the keel.

 

 

The only difference bein' they nailed him into place instead of using clamps ('cept at the ends).

 

 

And there we are. two once proud planks that are now just a bit of a curvy lady. The shame of it!

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

NB If you get an iron for this kind of work, an auto shut off feature is well worth the extra few quid.

[ColonelKrypton]

4 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

All in all, I'll probably cease and desist posting there fairly soon. I don't think I fit in.

 

From time to time I read through various parts of the modelshipworld.com forum but have resisted joining.

 

Friendly enough bunch of model makers but the administration has always struck me as a bit stuffy.  Every online forum has it's own personality which tend to reflect on the administration. Some you will immediately feel at home and others not. - to each their own.

 

I notice a real distinct difference between online forums which are North American centric versus those which are European centric. I think for the most part the differences are simply reflections of differences in culture.

 

I enjoyed the "Tale of the Plank" - made my afternoon.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

5 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

From time to time I read through various parts of the modelshipworld.com forum but have resisted joining.

 

Friendly enough bunch of model makers but the administration has always struck me as a bit stuffy.  Every online forum has it's own personality which tend to reflect on the administration. Some you will immediately feel at home and others not. - to each their own.

 

This is very true. I'm reminded of schools which similarly take their 'house style' from the Head.

 

5 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

I enjoyed the "Tale of the Plank" - made my afternoon.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

That's good. I thought it would be more interesting from a different viewpoint.