Hey, that's no joke of a job there! Floor joists are no fun.

you're telling me, thank goodness I got the tenant out before it was worse, a weeks worth of work ended up being 5 weeks and a complete renovation of the house. But it is a whole level or two less precission than making the model of the Warspite, that I take my hat off to, well done AJ.

Nice job, looks like you had a decent leak there Alicatt!

Alicatt, that looks to be a proper job. Did you need to get any permitting or inspections ?

Ajay your 'sea' looks so good I get motion sickness just looking at it (I was once seasick in a rowing boat in a sheltered cove).
The aerial shot, I'd of thought it was the 'real thing' if i didn't know otherwise! Brilliant work sir!

Thanks BD! I've been seasick twice, once as a kid and then an adult, no joy at all lol.

Rigging, had some issues. My rigging was slightly too tight when doing from the fore to aft masts so i had to use a dab of ca on the front mast and set it up overnight with a shoelace, to pull it back true.





My plan after that was to be able to use some of the rear rigging to pull the rear mast straight as now the front mast is solid





..but that didn't work so well and i also have managed to get a few of the other pieces of masts off kilter in the whole process.









So, i'm thinking about pulling the rear mast out and ditching it except for that small moulded top piece, redoing it in brass tubing and then plopping the moulded piece back on top. If that proves easy enough i may ditch the top section of the front mast and redo it as well. I've already snapped the front mast in two separate places and had to add a plastic brace from the mast to the top of the crows nest as it is. You can spot that in the side view posted pic above. Hoping the shop has the tubing in stock so i can get cracking on it tomorrow!

Besides the rigging, most of the AA is now on, the secondaries are all fitted, some more deck fittings have been added, the little fillets (breakwaters i imagine) in front of the side mounted secondaries glued in, stashed the plane in the hangar and fixed the front and middle deck join with some slivers of the pontos decking.

I was looking at this and my wife say it. She wanted to see. When I showed her the process and where you are now she was blown away. Said it certainly is a labor of love.

Well tell her G'day from Oz and i'm glad she looked in on my little project. I'm sure with yourself around she knows that us men really never stop being boys Cheers mate.

Nice work Ajay, it is getting closer to being ready.

Looking at the rigging reminding me of when I was a trainee and having to climb the masts and set the rigging for the radios and navigators on the fishing boats.

Or on a heaving sea having to climb up to what would have been the crows nest on an East German registered deep sea trawler on it's way to fish off the Grand Banks, and remove the scanner motor on the radar. One minute you are looking straight ahead at the sea and next at the sky with a 105lb electric motor strapped to your back, fun days indeed, the crew gave me 200 cigarettes and a case of beer for doing it. East German F.6 cigarettes but I can't remember what the brand of beer was - it was not that good and I could not give it away - as nobody would take it!

Strewth! (Sorry ) This is great modelling Ajay. And two bricks and a shoelace is PROPER modelling innovation. It reminds me of the time I had only one suitable weight to hand when I had to get the Chinook to set true.



It was the last one too, luckily the the glue set nice and quickly.

Great job Ajay.

For weights I would fill small bags with sand and bird shot (lead). The sand was to fill in between the shot. This was for wooden models tho.

German cigarettes, British Lager, sand and bird shot. All part of a good modelling adventure

I managed to save it even though i did get my hands on some brass tube. After i cut the rigging off, the mast piece came away rather neatly with a bit of work with a blade and i was also able to work the mast itself out. After a clean up and a reglue and refit, i tilted the mast slightly rearward this time to compensate for any tension and rerigged it. The rigging is a bit looser this time which i think prefer to how taut i had it before.





Allicatt, i would love to do something like that. The open ocean terrifies me but also excites me, it's a weird thing. I'm a definite case for the thalassaphobia pile but there is just something about the unpredictability of the wide open sea and voyaging upon it.

You'Ve got the patience of a saint... I'd throw the kit halfway across the yard if I broke something by accident...

Goon, I think you never showed us BN...

The Chinook isn't finished I'm afraid. I got distracted by shiny sports cars! I'll go back to it sooner or later.

Couple of 'glamour' shots as i seek decent lighting. Mostly all the one side just for lighting and colours comparison under different conditions.

I'm going to give her a break until i get my railings and 1/350 sized sailor boys, yoohoo boys! This morning was spent finallt sorting out the front mast rigging, which you can see in the 3/4 shot below were still off. The top rigging came off the front and rerigging that section carefully i pulled everything straight when finished, finally. The top of the mast has a slight lean rearwards, i'm ok with that as i don't want to risk a third break and another rerig. If i ever do another ship i need to pay a lot more attention to getting that right the first time around. Boats and rafts have all been added as have numerous winches and more deck fittings. Besides the railings and sailors there are still some life boat mounts to be added and i need to fashion up a front and rear flag pole as the kit ones are thick and ugly. I had my daughter parade it around the yard above her head today to get the cloud shot, nice to get the kids involved in projects.














Size compared to 1/35 armour and 1/48 planes





some average in the shed night shots, always seems to be the worst at capturing and washing out detail.












Hopefully it won't be too long before i can get my hands on some rails to really finish her off (expensive little buggers) i've seen a few ways of making them but for the moment i don't think i have the steam left to add 1/350 rail making to my list of diy modelling.

Congratulations on completing a superb and incredibly lifelike, detailed model whilst retaining a degree of sanity

Amazingly lifelike, especially in that cloud shot. Congrats on a great job!

In one of the earlier pics you had one of her Tenders in the water nearby... maybe give that a thought? I found it looked pretty realistic.

That's already marvellous, but the railings, and, especially, crew, will really bring it to life.

I can picture me getting even blinder trying to paint 1/350 crewmen.

Museum Quality in my opinion.

Build models of yachts in your water; for people of means (aka "money is no object), and you've probably got yourself a nice, stay at home, new career.

Can i put turrets on the yachts? A 20mm mount..a guy with a pistol maybe? I would like to do a dirty old trawler one day, maybe even a dio of Orca with a few guys having a beer whilst a large shark prowls around nearby.

Cheers all for following the build to where it stands so far, it's been quite a modelling journey and i'm rather impressed myself with how it all turned out. Shoutout to Goons more than impressive modelling talents that got me inspired to take up this frustrating awesome hobby again.