So it’s been a little while since the last wooden ship update… I had to take a bit of a break after I broke something (sad panda).
I had to bend the bulwarks to make them curve alone with the sides of the deck. That means getting the wood wet, gently bending by hand, then letting it dry. This process seemed to require a couple of repeats to get it just right. Once they were all set, I glued the first side on. The next day when trying to fit the other side on I notices that the bottom edge of the piece was opposite how it ought to be. Further investigating revealed I had glued the previous section on backwards (boo-urns. I was able to remove the piece eventually (very, very slowly and careful) but attempting to bend the piece the opposite way proved too much for it, and it broke.
I wrote an email to the company, which it turns out is in Spain… A few days later I got a reply, filled with a lot of internal communication all in Spanish, saying :
Hola Ron, Las piezas solicitadas serán enviadas por correo gratuitamente. Requested parts will be send by post and free of charge. Saludos
Turns out they’re also awesome. So now I just had to wait for that replacement, and a few weeks later it arrived. Since then I’ve been able to make some good progress. After bending the new bulwarks very carefully and very gently (and checking the diagram repeatedly to make sure I was doing it the right way this time), I I was able to get them correctly place, and from that point on the work has gone from fairly large steps with many parts (e.g. make the hull from these 25 strips of wood) to small, intricate work (e.g. shape this piece to fit along the hull). It’s really starting to look like a boat now. And I got to use my drill bits!
You can see more pictures here: http://ronveenstra.com/pictures/wooden_ship/
