Hello Again Mates,
Well, what is that old saying? "If it isn't something, it's something else!"
With the stern structure all but completed and put aside until it is installed on the ship, I moved my attention to the beakhead. I was planning on following Tobias' recommendation to profile the tapers on the beakhead on the mill. Unfortunately, after a couple of tests using a blank piece of oak cut to the exact dimensions of the beakhead, it became clear this approach would introduce too much risk and near impossible to complete accurate cuts. This is partially due to the size of the piece and size of the mill's table. Also, each side would need to be cut, hold downs repositioned and cut again. No way.
So I went back to my original thoughts of elevating the side to be narrowed with a jig and run it through the Byrne's thicknesser. It worked great. EXCEPT!?!?.....
My inexperience came back to haunt me. When I pinned the pieces of the beakhead together for extra strength, one of them was done off center. Not thinking that I would later need to thin the beakhead and it was MOST important for that pin to be centered, I just let it go. Till it came back for a visit when I profiled the fore end of it.
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You can see the toothpick where it broke through. Well, one thing was certain. I was not rebuilding the entire beakhead for the 3rd time. I have two options; 1) repair to the best of my ability and leave the natural tone I was planning on, 2) Repair and paint the top half of the beakhead black along the lines of the main wales.
I'm not really sweating it, besides the toothpick being a wart on an otherwise beautiful face.
This is because most, if not all of that area will be covered by the lower cheek.
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Need to stop whining and get moving. With micro chisels from my Russian friend I cut out the entire toothpick and graphite tinted glue till I got to clean pearwood. I then took a few small pieces of pear from the same stock and made my own toothpick.
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Made sure the new toothpick was a tight, tight fit as gaps stick out like just another wart. Sand down slowly and carefully. With #3 scalpel blade, cut a join line through the filling piece and finish up with steel wool.
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I can live with the repair. The tapers are complete and I'll put this aside till it's ready to install, hopefully soon. I've had my fill of drama on this project. Any more and I'll have to move to Hollywood.
Ok, so I'm sure there are a few folks following my log thinking, " Ken, this is SoS (SHIPS), where's the ship?!? I'm getting there. Now that the stem and stern are done, I need to address that thing that connects them, and the fix I've been putting off for a while, the keel and the gap. Well, nothing progresses till I fix that now.
Another lesson learned. Where there is a will, there is a way. I'm not smart enough to quite.
Thanks for dropping in.
Till next time...
