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 Rank: Vice-Master     Groups: Registered
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February 15th, 2012 During these days I spent some time for planning the next macro activities, in the proper sequence. The planning can be summarized in the following list and sequence of actions:
- completion of the second planking in the upper side of the hull
- istall the gunwales and the remaining wales
- setup the elements of the waist
- install the visible guns of the upper gun deck, below what will become the waist
- install the waist
This is more or less the general plan for the next weeks. After, also if I don't know how much time I will need, I have to wait for new materials from De Agostini to continue . . and these shipments are a little late. But let's come back to February 12th. When I've simulated the positioning of the rudder with the "scratch built" pintles and gudgeons i discovered that the rudder I prepared was not good and was to be modified. The change was so conceived that I preferred to prepare another rudder, starting from a solid wood of mahogany. The problem arised was the difficulty to move the rudder with its current square shaped side adjacent to the stern. Here below the image of the wrong shaped rudder to facilitate you in identifying the changes I made in the new one. 01 P1080011.jpg  The new one also has a shape that is compliant with the rudders used at the times of Soleil Royal. Here below a couple of images where you can see how the side associated with the stern is not square but arrow shaped. The fact I used solid wood has greatly speed up the time needed to build it and keeping the same visual effect. 02 P1080012.jpg  03 P1080014.jpg  Last, yesterday I began to prepare the pieces that will setup the waist. The pieces are made with birch plywood covered with beechwood planks. The overal thickness of this element is 2mm. The image here below shows the raw piece I prepared that will next be cut to form the two pieces required. 04 P1080023.jpg  That's all for today, see you next time, Jack.Aubrey.
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Thursday February 16th, 2012 Working around my Soleil Royal is still in progress . . yesterday I completed the two elements of the waist and I resumed the second planking to finally complete it. At this point of time I was able to finish only the right side and then I take a break . . The image here below shows the finished side of the hull. Now there is to continue with the refinements of the circular gun ports, but they can wait . . may be tomorrow I will complete also the left side . . 01 P1080031R.jpg  And now I will show the pieces for the waist. The first two images show these pieces above and below. 02 P1080029R.jpg  03 P1080030R.jpg  In the next two images I have positioned the waist on the hull, just to show how they will appear once installed in place. They are now larger that needed, but the proper adaptation to the hull can be done only during the real installation. That's all for today, cheers, Jack. 04 P1080027.jpg  05 P1080028.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Thursday February 23rd, 2012 - Second thoughts about some planking . . One of the future task to be undertaken on the hull sides above the upper gun deck is, in accordance with the kit manufacturer instructions, to paint this area with a light blue paint. But I didn't like this approach. I like too much the colour and the grain of the wood to cover everything with paint . . and, after having spent weeks to achieve the result of carefully mixing different kinds of wood and taking also care to obtain a "perfect" work, I reached the same decision I took sometime ago to do not paint with dirty white the quickwork of the ship. So I will not paint in light blue the upper sides of the ship. In a store selling wood and related products I found a stain whose colour is blue, similar to the same, but red, I found for the Santìsima Trinidad Cross-Section. It is a powder to be diluted in normal water and its darkness/lightness is depending on the amount of water you use. 00 P1070807.jpg  Sometime ago I made a test to apply this stain over the chestnut veneer and the result was very good regarding the colour but the problem was another: being this stain dilutable in water, there were big problems when installing the plank using the vinyl glue. The colour had the tendency to melt and dirty adjacent wood, and this was not a good thing. I had to find a way to remove this unwanted effect. I have then prepared some sheets of veneer with this stain and after I applied a light coat of wood filler above them. When the filler was dry I was able to discover that the colour was stable and did not expand or melt. This was the result I was looking for, so I decided to go further. Then I started to re-plank the upper sides of the hull with this coloured veneer. But before starting with these new planks I had to install a wale above the gunports of the upper deck. This wale is 3 x 2mm ad was obtained by cutting in the right measure some strips of rosewood. Having mounted and glued this upper wale I installed some planks of the coloured veneer, eager to see the live result and to continue . . but the day was finishing so I shot some photoes that I immediately show you here below. See you next time, Jack. 01 P1080034.jpg  02 P1080035.jpg  03 P1080036.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Monday February 27th, 2012 - Last wales and blue planks During this week-end I have finished to install the "blue" planks and the last wales located from midship towards the poop. A relaxing task, without any kind of problems raised. One interesting and amusing point was the preparation of the wales using the table saw . . every time I use it, I become more experienced and I learn something useful new. Then I took the occasion of the nice weather to make photos outside. There are some tubes in the background that need some painting but the daylight helps very much to highlight the blue colour of the last work I made on this ship model. And now I cannot delay an activity I don't love too much: install 12 guns on the upper gun deck before continuing with the installation of the waist above them. To install these guns I think to transfer the shipyard (or better only the materials I need) at home, in order to manage this boring work in several short session during the day without the need to leave my home. See you soon, Jack.Aubrey 01 P1080037.jpg  02 P1080038.jpg  03 P1080042.jpg  04 P1080044.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Other three images of the Soleil, same day . . 01 P1080040.jpg  02 P1080043.jpg  03 P1080039.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Thursday March 1st, 2012 - Guns Today I spent some time to find the materials necessary for the installion of the 12 guns of the upper deck: gun barrels, trucks, ringbolts, blocks, rope, etc. These materials were shipped with sevaral issues of the magazine, so the search was not a matter of minutes but something more. Having collected all the materials, I started the venture of installing these guns . . and honestly I think this job will take a certain amount of my time and efforts before writing the word "END". In this first image you can see the main raw materials: 12 barrels and 12 trucks. Trucks are metal cast and I had to make some refinements with a set of small files and sandpaper to remove the many imperfections of the moulding. The image shows them already refined and you can also note that the metal used to cast them was in origin "aluminum" like and subsequently darkened outside. 01 P1080050A.jpg  Image 02 shows the blocks that I was able to find in a model shop. Again I discarted the blocks supplied with the kit because they were too big for this scale. The new blocks are 3mm wide and what you can see in the left envelops are one-way blocks while the others on the right are two-ways blocks. Another important point is that these new blocks are not made from wood but from plactic. Each gun needs six blocks, three of the two-ways type and three of the one-way. In addition I show the strings that will be used for the tackles. 02 P1080050B.jpg  Image 03 shows the string to be used for the recoil ropes and a reel of brass wire that I will use to prepare the ringbolts. Each gun needs six ringbolts for the tackles and two for the recoil rope. I will scratch build them because, again, the ones supplied with the kit are, for me, out of scale. I have a personal method to prepare them that I will show soon. 03 P1080050C.jpg  This is all what I need to start . . now I have to start . . see you next time, Jack.
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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. . Continuation . . Friday March 2nd, 2012 As I wrote yesterday, having collected the materials needed by the next activities and having rationalised my mind, I started to work. First of all the gun barrels: i mounted on my minidrill a wire brush and I cleaned all the barrels. This to remove any residual of filth from the object. The target was to make it ready to be immersed into the burnish solution. At the end of this task I immersed the barrels, all together, in the burnishing product and I left them there for about one hour. After this "bath", I washed the barrels under water to stop the process. The result is visible here below. It is obvious I don't want to use any kind of paint but to leave the barrels as they appear in the image. 01 P1080050D.jpg  After I started working on the gun trucks. I bored each truck three times in the proper position to insert in the holes the ringbolts: two on the sides where there are the wheels and the last in the rear. I think it is difficult to see this holes, may be in the high resolution images. Later I studied a solution that allows to fix the truck above the deck with a metal pivot. The objective is to fix better the trucks to the deck without having to rely only with the four bit of glue under the wheels. But this truck has no bottom useful to be bored to make the hole for the pivot. So I applied a small piece of hard wood 5x1mm fixed over the bottom. The solution is better understandable in the image. I'm sure it will work properly. 02 P1080050E.jpg  Then I started to build the ringbolts, or better one of the two pieces that make up a ringbolt. I used the brass wire shown in the previous message and I build them by using the minidrill . . to keep the ring diameter equal on all pieces I used a drill bit of 0,80mm diameter. Here below some of these pieces are shown. They have now to be burnished. 03 P1080050F.jpg  That's all for to day, see you next time, Jack.Aubrey
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 28/05/2014 Posts: 938 Points: 2,823 Location: Milan (Italy)
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Sunday March 4th, 2012 After having built some pieces of the future ringbolts I found the power minidrill too fast and I preferred an alternative solution that can be managed in a more confortable way. I went back to my workshop and I found a manual drill I used when I didn't have the power tool. It was a lot of time I did not use it but it is very useful when you need to bore in area poorly accessible, given its limited size. The manual drill is shown here below The process is the same than with the power tool, first of all you have to insert and fix inside the drill the to extremities of the wire. 01 P1080056.jpg  Once this task is done, a matter of few seconds, the ring is inserted around a pivot clamped in a vise. The pivot here shown is a drill bit of 1,5mm. Then you begin to twist the drill manually. 02 P1080057.jpg  And here below you can see the result after the twisting. At this point I remove the piece and the process restarts from the beginning. 03 P1080058.jpg  Today, in more/less 35 minutes, I made sixty of them. After, I started to think how to build some elements of the superstructure of the decks. Some of these elements are what we call in italian language " cavigliere" (pin rails?) and " pazienze". I don't know the right english nautical terms, so I hope in some help from you to identify the proper terms. Anyway, in the future messages it will be possible to find these pieces completed. Here below I want to show two kinds of head finishing for these elements. The first image shows the classical solution, also proposed by the kit instructions . . 04 P1080061.jpg  And here below an alternate solution to the classical scheme. The colour is not important because the final elements will be painted in red. The first solution needs more time and work than the second. I have to decide but I'm more interested in the first example. 05 P1080062.jpg  Cheers, Jack.Aubrey
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Sunday March 4th, 2012 . . "Pazienze" and "Cavigliere" (until I'll find the proper english term) The building of the "pazienze" and the "cavigliere" raise another interesting matter. Infact, the vertical elements of these details, in this case a 5x5mm wood strip, must be "carved" to receive another 5x5 or 2x5 strip. The achievement of these notches is not difficult to do manually, it needs only some patience, but this time I wanted to find a different path to obtain the final result. I'm slowly but relentlessy discovering new ways to use my Proxxon table saw and, for this task, I found another way to use it just to realise these notches. The next image shows a trial made to achieve this result: I positioned the height of the saw in order to protrude only for few millemeters and, by passing the table above I made what you see in the image. Obviously I made several tests until I learnt totally the lesson, with some waste of wood. 01 P1080063.jpg  At this point of the test, I went forward to the next step: cutting the 5 x 5 square strip. But this is a normal use of the saw . . 02 P1080064.jpg  After these preliminary and successful tests I started to do the real work with the proper wood and the result can be seen in the next two images, the first with the wide notch for the "pazienze" and the second with the narrow one for the "cavigliere". 03 P1080065.jpg  04 P1080066.jpg  Obviously they are not finished at all, I have to carve the head in accordance with my last message and cut then to the right length. But, again, I'm very satisfied because I made a new experience with the table saw . . experience to achieve step by step, error after error, until the final, successful way was found . . next time this experience will be ready for reuse in my mind. At this point someone will probably asks by himself: and the guns ? They are still in the process but, having in mind the same experience with another model, I know it is a boring task and so I mix the work on them with other more interesting activities like the one described in this message. See you next time, Jack.Aubrey
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Monday, March 5th, 2012 . . Today I built a "strange" structure (never seen on the naval achitecture books neither french nor english . . ) that has the role to support the ship boats. It will be located on the upper deck, just over the gratings of this deck. I had to built this element because, without positioning it over the deck, I can't identify the right place to install the ringbolts for some of the 12 guns. In fact this strucure interferes with them . . Here below you can see the boats supporting structure: it is built with 5 x 5mm wood. Again my Proxxon table saw had a key role in cutting the single pieces, giving the warranty of perfect cuts at 90° that helps very much their assembly. 01 P1080067.jpg  02 P1080068.jpg  Later I passed to the gun's trucks by painting them with red polyurethane enamel. I used a double adhesive tape to hold the trucks in order to paint them in a more comfortable way. 03 P1080070.jpg  Here below the trucks after the first coat of paint. It is surely necessary a second coat, may be a third. I'm seriously considering the purchase of an air brush. I already have the air compressor. With an air brush these tasks will be surely faster. I will see on the market . . 04 P1080071.jpg  Kind regards, Jack.Aubrey.
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Tuesday March 6th 2012 . . A preview of how the guns will appear on the trucks; the wheels are not yet painted. 01 P1080076.jpg  02 P1080077.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Friday March 8th, 2012 . . A quick update of the work done in these last days. First three images show the boats support structure, the pin-rails and the "pazienze" (I hope now that you can see them you can also name them corretly) after they are painted with red colour. They needed a total of three coats of paint to achieve a good result, So, just to paint then I took three days . . 01 P1080083.jpg  02 P1080080.jpg  03 P1080081.jpg  The pivots that come out from the bottom of these elements are the protruding part of brass nails fixed into the wood. They will be inserted in holes on the decks to increase the strength of the glue. What do you think about the two decker shown on the cover of the book used as background ? It is a very interesting book about the plans, contruction and history of a 3rd rate vessel of 1678 named Lenox. It contains plans that would allow to build a 1:72 model . . The problem for me is that I have a lot of shipyards open and I cannot open another one !! 04 P1080082.jpg  Kind regards, Jack.Aubrey
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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March 16th, 2012 . . Last week I had too many things and they were not involving ship modeling, so the productivity was affected. Result: production below my usual average, average that is often lower than the rest of the world because of my slowness . . Here I post some images of the work done, just to show something, anyway uncomplete. In the first two images the guns for the forecastle and the quarterdeck, different from the guns of the upper deck, with their red painted trucks. Again the wheel are not painted. 01 P1080084.jpg  02 P1080085.jpg  Then I started to build the four anchors. I'm still far from the end and here I show one anchor with the raw wooden stock and the other with the same element shaped and stained. Today I made all of them, including the iron hoops. For these last details I used a personal method instead of the one suggested by the instructions. I will explain better in the next message which will include finished anchors images. 03 P1080086.jpg  04 P1080087.jpg Kind regards, Jack.Aubrey.
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 Rank: Super-Elite    Groups: Registered
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Fantastic work Jack, she is really coming together nicely.
Keep the updates coming
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 28/05/2014 Posts: 938 Points: 2,823 Location: Milan (Italy)
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Wednesday March 21st, 2012 - last updates . . Here follow some updates on the new superstructures of this week. Not too much but the wheels are still in movement . . Two images of the anchors, 98% finished. To complete I have to cover the ring with a drawstring, in accordance with the books describing these details. To fix the stock to the shank I used a bi-component epoxy glue, which assures a much stronger adherence that the cyan-acrilate. 01 P1080096.jpg  02 P1080097.jpg  Two images of some superstructures red coloured and the two catheads. 03 P1080098.jpg  04 P1080099.jpg  Kind regards, Jack.Aubrey
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 28/05/2014 Posts: 938 Points: 2,823 Location: Milan (Italy)
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Friday March 23th, 2013 . . continuation . . I continue today the message I started two days ago . . I began the building of the ship's boats. I built a cuople of years ago two boats for another ship and I had the plan to reuse them, but I had to accept the fact that they were not of the proper size, one boat being too big and the other to small for this model. So I had to plan the building of two new boats: a not short and simple task ! I took into consideration a couple of methods, in fact there are several ways to build these boats, but at the end I took the decision to work around the material supplied by De Agostini. But this doesn't mean I will build these boats as described in the instructions, there are too many details made in a way that I cannot accept; some of them totally out of scale. But I can use the material provided for the initial structure of the boat, that is planned and made quite well. Anyway, before starting to use this material I made with a scanner a copy of the pre-cut keel and bulkheads to have, in case of failure of my project, the possibility to rebuild these pieces and restart . . a kind of backup . . I know this task can be quite long, and honestly I started it with the objective to mix this new activity with the others around the guns and the superstructures, this in order to differentiate the work and make it less boring. I'm also waiting for new materials from De Agostini, materials that arrived to me, by the mail service, in a very poor state that I requested a re-shipment to De Agostini. 01 P1080093.jpg  02 P1080094.jpg  On the fronline of the superstructures I started and finished the construction of the two privy (I hope the term is correct). They will be installed at the prow in the future. 03 P1080100.jpg  04 P1080101.jpg  Kind regards, Jack.Aubrey.
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 28/05/2014 Posts: 938 Points: 2,823 Location: Milan (Italy)
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Friday March 30th, 2012 The last week was a little unproductive . . The spring is coming and the fact I do not receive new materials from De Agostini has "iced" me, so, all what I made is to start planking the two boats, and nothing else of interest. An interesting matter is that the two boats are exactly the same, one is only a little smaller. Infact the same defect I found on the larger is present also on the smaller and this probably means that the plans are the same, just a matter of a greater reduction of the scale. Again, after having assembled the structure, I proceeded following my own way: instead of using the supplied planks (3x1mm), I used my veneer. For the large boat I used planks of 2,5x0,5mm while for the smaller I used 2x0,5mm. My intention is to plank the hull three times and then remove the internal boat structure . . As probably I wrote some message ago, the veneer I'm using has a very thin sheet of fabric on one side, so the first planking was applied capsized, with the fabric outside. I think the reason of this is obvious: the visible side will be the one oriented inside . . Yesterday, in addition to the work done for the boats, I finished to prepare all the single elements for the installation of the guns . . at this point I can proceed with different options: continue with the ship boats or resume the ship guns . . Cheers, Jack. 01 P1080110.jpg  02 P1080111.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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Wednesday April 11th, 2012 Again , also in these last ten days I was not much productive, or better, I made some important activities, but not too much visible and I can't show only few things. In detail I:
- Smoothed definitely the hull, after the application of the second planking, with sandpaper of decreasing grain. With this task I obtained two goals: smoothing the hull and reveal everywhere the same color for a given wood. In fact the color of the wood, in particular for the chestnut, was greatly influenced by the daylight and in this way I made the wood color homogeneous on the whole hull.
- Applied a coat of oil for wood on the whole hull, having in this way the possibility to admire the final colour of this ship after months of work . . and keep it stable.
- Installed the pintles and gudgeons to the rudder; next step is to fix definitely the rudder to the stern.
- Applied the second planking for the ship boats; I achieved a good result on the large boat, while I have to start the smaller.
Here a couple of photos of the long boat, still on the working basement. Cheers, Jack.Aubrey 01 P1080122.jpg  02 P1080121.jpg 
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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April 12th, 2012 The long boat is now ready for the third planking while the smaller is ready for the second planking 01 P1080132.jpg  I made a little error with the second planking of the long boat that I will correct with the third planking. But this will not happen for the smaller . . power of experience . . 02 P1080135.jpg  In the next image I show the pintles and gudgeons applied to the rudder. 03 P1080131.jpg  I have also taken some photos to the overall hull, where I applied some coats of oil. May be in the images it is difficult to understand the difference, but in the real world the difference is great . . specially over the mahogany. Image 04 shows the hull after the oil, while the 05 shows how it was just after sanding and before applying the oil. 04 P1080123.jpg  05 P1080031R.jpg Kind regards. Jack.
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
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April 13th, 2012 I take this opportunity to show some new images of the hull, after the treatment with oil for wood. Note that a kind of disappointment comes from the fact that the colour of the beechwood (Wales) and the chestnut (2nd planking), after the coats of oil, is very similar, and this was not what I expected !! I'm seriously thinking to paint the wales in black (or another dark colour) . . also if I foresee some difficult problems with this unplanned painting. 01 P1080124.jpg  02 P1080125.jpg  03 P1080126.jpg  04 P1080127.jpg  05 P1080128.jpg  Thursday April 19th, 2012 During these days I have mounted the rudder to the sternpost. It may seem a simple task but it is not exactly true. To finish this work I spent a complete afternoon . . Another work done was the planking of the ship boats. Each boat has now three layers of planks. I have also fixed the boat's keel. The next step is to detach the boats from their building base to allow working inside the hull. Friday April 20th, 2012 I selected first the long boat to work on the internal side of the hull. First of all I refined the external planking with sandpaper and then I detached the boat from the building basement. Here below two images of the external sides with the planking completed. 01 P1080136R.jpg  02 P1080137R.jpg  Here, on the other hand, you can see the internal side of the boat. Now I have to start the task to empty the inside to obtain a clear shell made up by the three layers of veneer. 03 P1080138R.jpg  04 P1080139R.jpg 
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