I've gotten a little start on the ship. Mostly some cutting, sanding and fitting. I cut out the keel, and all the bulkheads, sanded their edges, and sanded the joints a bit until they all fit together. I've also received the practicum course mentioned below, and have been reading and following that.

I did some cutting and beveling on the center keel and have just started to actually attach some pieces together. You can see below, I've glued the walnut keel pieces to the edges of the basswood center keel. Next comes more cutting and carving and fitting, as I need to be sure that the groove into which all the planking will later fit is the proper size and angle before all the bulkheads get glued in place.



On a side note, today I received the pegboard that I order a few weeks ago. So, I spent some time this evening organizing and generally pegging things up on my board. Really, the goal was just to get many of my tools up off the desk, giving me more work space.

This past weekend, I also spent a few minutes making myself a little foamcore shelf sort of thing that I could put all the plank wood on, to keep it out of the way and to keep it from getting broken. In the below photo, you can see the little shelf below the left side of the pegboard.



Next post will hopefully have the bulkheads in place, and the shape of the ship will actually be a bit more visible.

Tags: Armed Virginia Sloop, Wood, Ship, Model Shipways