Letting the copper age

Made a start on the sternpost end. It is coming along nicely.

There is already a considerable colour difference between the forward and after ends, so I actually wanted to finish and treat the whole thing as quickly as possible. My idea, based partly on Mondfeld: clean thoroughly with Alabastine sticker remover, then rub down with very fine steel wool, wipe with a cloth and coat with clear metal varnish.

Piet would leave it alone and let the plates age slowly. Any kind of lacquer or varnish stops that, whereas the plates actually get better with time and lose their shine. He knows this from his coppered cross-section of the Victory: the slight colour difference at the start disappears by itself. Cleaning is still necessary, because glue residue leaves spots later, so all visible glue has to go. Danny Mulders added that the discolouration is probably mostly skin grease, which ends up on all the plates by itself. Glue residue has to come off because it keeps skin grease and air out; those spots then keep shining while the rest discolours. So: no varnish, but do clean.

A day later one side is nearly finished. A few more plates at the stern and at the keel. One more question: does the after face of the sternpost, where the rudder sits against it, get coppered too? According to Piet only the underside of the keel goes uncoppered, so that face does.