Hi , Yes , I am still working on the ship.
I started the upper deck. The most difficult task was to place the beams exactly in the same position of the previous deck beams. In the near future, I will need to place the false ribs against those beams. So they need to fit exactly one over the others. And , as you know, this ship does not have a classical full hull. All is in the "air", if that is a way of describing it. Future builders could probably design a building jig, like the ones used on some POF kits models, to have all perfectly centered and less issues.
Well , moving on and beams on place, i planked the deck. Then I found I have used all the gratings, provided with the kit, on my previous deck. Why ? , because following the AoB book, I placed grating on openings that the kit suggest to leave fully open. Crazy, very dangerous for the sailors.
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Bottom line, I had to do gratings. I have never, ever done that. First tried with Cherry wood. And was a failure. Wood too weak and some teeth broke. Plus the cuts weren't 100 % identical. That increased the pressure, that ended with broken teeth.
Next day used Maple and was more detaile oriented with the cuts. And Bingo !!! Success.
I used now Maple. I resawed it to ~6 mm. It wasn't perfect. Then, using the Byrnes thickness sander took it to a 4 mm perfect pice of wood. Then using the Byrnes table saw with the help of the micrometer on it I was able to do the gratings.
Let's see some pictures.
Gratings need to be taken yet to their final size.
Till the next update...
Cheers
Daniel