The first few hundred plates

I did not intend to post an update for every row, but over Christmas things moved along nicely. And if I am doing something wrong, the people reading along will probably spot it sooner than I do, and I may still be able to put it right.

Johan Verschuren, who is building his Diana a little way behind me, asked whether the transom and the quarter galleries were giving me trouble now that the ship spends so much time upside down. Not really. The planksheer is not on yet, so the transom now rests on the part that will later be covered by the planksheer, and I always lay her on a cushion. Without the transom I actually broke off stern frames more often when she was upside down.

What I did pass on to Johan: the first row has to lie as tight together as possible. I have a small gap here and there and I am keeping those, otherwise the gaps add up and the plates start to shift. With the first row I made the mistake of pushing the plates against the hull too quickly, so they stuck immediately. Now I lay them on gently, so that I can still slide them about before pressing them down. Not for too long, though, or the glue dries.

On Christmas Day I decided not to carry the “gaps” between the plates across the whole hull. As a result the third row does not sit exactly below the first, shifted by about a millimetre in total, I think. My reasoning: a one-off shift this low on the hull is probably less noticeable than gaps running the length of the hull. Annoying that I did not do the first row neatly, but you learn by doing. After a few hundred plates you get the hang of it. Only a few thousand to go.