My grandmother bought me an antique wooden ship when I was fifteen. Even though she didn't build it herself, it still represents an extravagant gift to me (given her very limited income) that I still proudly display in my home 25 years later. She past away almost two decades ago, but I am so glad I still have this memento from her.
Inspired by this, I have often thought about what I would like to leave with my two daughters that they can pass down. Building small things is a big part of my life, but I didn't want them to be left with a bunch of 1:35 military plastic kits to deal with. Instead I asked each of my daughters to pick a wooden ship that I would build for them. These ships represent hundreds of hours of my time, pain, and as you will soon see, frustration. They are truly a part of me and represent who I am as a maker.
My oldest daughter, who was adopted from China about 8 years ago, appropriately picked out a Chinese junk boat. In November of 2018, I started work on the Red Dragon. This boat will truly look stunning when completed, but the Artesania Latina kit has caused me so many problems along the way.
I have had to make a LOT of modifications to this ship and basically tossed out the instructions completely. The biggest issue that has caused a rise in my blood pressure was that front side of the blueprints were printed at 1:1 scale and the back side of the blueprints where scaled up by 10-15%. I didn't catch the discrepancy until recently, but it is wrecking havoc on the build. I was attempting to put sails on this week, and discovered they were way too large to fit the boat. Now, I have to redo about a week's worth of effort to remake them at the proper size. EXPLETIVE!!
It's so frustrating to be approaching the end of this project and to have another big set back. I haven't decided whether to shelve this boat for a while until I am ready to redo a tedious part of the build. After I calm down a bit, I will have to make a decision. Either way, I need to buy some more thread since I burned through a lot making the first set of sails, and our fabric store is closed a few more weeks due to COVID.
Inspired by this, I have often thought about what I would like to leave with my two daughters that they can pass down. Building small things is a big part of my life, but I didn't want them to be left with a bunch of 1:35 military plastic kits to deal with. Instead I asked each of my daughters to pick a wooden ship that I would build for them. These ships represent hundreds of hours of my time, pain, and as you will soon see, frustration. They are truly a part of me and represent who I am as a maker.
My oldest daughter, who was adopted from China about 8 years ago, appropriately picked out a Chinese junk boat. In November of 2018, I started work on the Red Dragon. This boat will truly look stunning when completed, but the Artesania Latina kit has caused me so many problems along the way.
I have had to make a LOT of modifications to this ship and basically tossed out the instructions completely. The biggest issue that has caused a rise in my blood pressure was that front side of the blueprints were printed at 1:1 scale and the back side of the blueprints where scaled up by 10-15%. I didn't catch the discrepancy until recently, but it is wrecking havoc on the build. I was attempting to put sails on this week, and discovered they were way too large to fit the boat. Now, I have to redo about a week's worth of effort to remake them at the proper size. EXPLETIVE!!
It's so frustrating to be approaching the end of this project and to have another big set back. I haven't decided whether to shelve this boat for a while until I am ready to redo a tedious part of the build. After I calm down a bit, I will have to make a decision. Either way, I need to buy some more thread since I burned through a lot making the first set of sails, and our fabric store is closed a few more weeks due to COVID.
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