The diagonal planking has been tackled and completed, and I am happy with the result. The pencil lines are my attempt to get the plank lines to emulate the real boat's planking angles.

There were concerns that some minor bulging on the initial planks would cause a problem when sanding time came, as the planks (made from teak) were only 1.1 mm thick. They sanded ok 'though, at the end.

 The 30-odd planks towards the bow had to be planed into tapered shape, but there were no dramas. I found the Dremel ideal to cut the rabets.

Planking started off slowly – 6-8 planks at a time, but in the end the 2nd side was done in 3 days.The sanded end result looks fine.

I ended up re-sealing the interior of the boat with a thick coating of epoxy mixed with micro balloons, and now it looks like the inside of an abalone!

How many planks? 114 each side, an average of 6 pins per plank - 1200+ holes to fill!
Looking ahead, I suspect I’ve done the easy bits on this boat. Surely David, I hear you say, there has to be more to your lockdown than making a model boat!

Correct!.

Our lounge room has been enhanced with a table tennis table, and club members are able to while away the hours thinking of a time they’ll be able to beat Grandpa/Dad/spouse.  But that’s not all. With School holiday time upon us, it’s been time to dig out the pool table from behind the camper (where it has been stored for 6 or 7 years), and pretend we are world champions with the cue as well. Of course, there can only be one world champion, and modesty forbids that I share those memories.

Look at that! It looks as if the nesting dinghy in the background has also been worked on and has had its bottom fibre-glassed! Yes, multi-tasking has been occurring, but there’s a still a long time to go for both projects to be finalised.

Ooops! Looks like another challenge!