Let us begin

Today, I made a start on the Robbe Atlantis deck planking.

Began by using my palm sander to sand the gloss off the hulls deck, to provide a "key" for the adhesive.

As stated earlier in this diary, I have decided not to use the Robbe Atlantis kit spruce planks as provided, instead I opted for some high quality timbers bespoke cut by Keith Jewel of Modelling Timbers. http://www.modellingtimbers.co.uk/4520.html

I am using, Honduran mahogany 10mm wide for the King plank, with 7.5 mm outer planks of the same timber.This is a lovely timber, very warm colour and fine grained.
The main deck infill timber is "Lemonwood" a real high quality timber with the same qualities of the mahogany. These are the same width as Robbe originals 5mm.



The deck planking scheme, may not be prototypical, but what the heck, its my Schooner and I like it :)

My good friend Taylor Sparks http://www.sparksstudios.com/boatyard/atlantis.htm did mention I would lose my fingerprints ! He was right, the tips are now hardened with dry superglue :)

The caulking between the planks is simply permanent marker, my earlier research proved this was an easier method to achieve the individual planked effect, I desired.

( Sorry Keith, I know its not what you advised, but it works for me)

What you see here is about 6 -7 hours continuous effort from today !
I am reasonably happy with the progress and the effect and contrast between the timbers is spot on.

One of my other "essentials" that really worked well today, was the modelling guillotine.. far more accurate and cleaner cuts than I could ever make by hand..!