Hi all well I picked this up today from my brother (hes already removed the planking so that's saved me a job) the deck has to come off, that's the first problem as the frame is warped by at least 1/2 an inch (he said he had to cut some off the back of the deck as the prow was about 1/2 an inch from the point of the deck, I looked down from the front and said it wasn't the deck the top of the prow was leaning over to the side not vertical. Will post pics when I get time. Also he tried to remove planking on the deck (it's full of gouges where he tried) another problem to correct.
What an impressive kit, and very daunting. 1 very thick instructions manual and 5 full size sheet plans.

Thanks mate, it's a really complex kit I'm surprised my brother even thought he could do it (he is 49 but has the mental age of a teenager) I'm quite proud he looks up to me and tries to copy anything I do) mind you he is an incredible artist (I'm ok) he is incredible I think that runs in the family my dad was an amazing artist and my grandad worked at a place where he painted the hunting scenes and lovely cottages in the middle of a Forrest glade you used to see on buscuit tins and such.

Hi all here are some pics, I've managed to get the deck off fairly easily getting the wood off the deck and squaring the frame may be quite a bit harder.









Seems a bit like why use 1 nail when you can use a dozen, I think the pins hes used in the transom are way out of scale.

Hi all well I've removed the deck planking squared up the frame and are attached the front decking. I thought I would get away with doing nothing to the rear deck but on closer inspection I think he put the last 2 bulkhead the wrong way round since the second to last is narrower than the last (the phrase one step forward 2 back comes to mind) anyway I managed to get the rear deck off now I'm not sure what to do the frames seem to be impossible to unglue, any suggestions (I've tried steaming over a kettle but they won't budge) would it hurt the plywood if I soaked the stern in a bucket over night.

Hi alan he used a mix of glues including super glue(I think the latter being what he used here)
I have corrected the bulkheads next problem, now the side panels are correctly installed you can see the stern is too shallow so I will probably build this up with wood filler.

Well 1 step backwards leads to another step backwards, deck had to come off again. I was about to start planking it again and I thought surely that hump shouldn't be there.





Also I dont know if you can see it from the photo but there is a gap between the bulkhead and the deck (I thought the small oblong hole in the decking was a hatch or something at first but now I see it is a locating peg for the decking) another wrongly glued bulkhead. 

I managed to get the bulkhead off (it wasn't fully home due to wood dust and glue formed at the bottom of the joint) (all nicely held in place with dried glue) took ages to cut it all away, anyway as you can see it's all nicely flush and fitted now.





Hopefully I can now proceed as if it were a new kit (apart from the splits in all the bulkheads due to where it was planked before cant think of anything to do about that, if I glue them back together I think it will make it too hard to put new pins in) I'm hoping when its replanked I can drill holes for the pins (they will only be for show anyway) 

Ok so I've decided to start decking it, the instructions are not at all clear it shows you decking over the false deck by 2 mm for the first 120 mm and no longer mentions that afterwards (I can understand that as the planking for the sides is 2mm thick) but why stop that overlap at 120 mm, I looked at pics of the waterways on the actual ship and it looks like there is a wooden strip all the way along the ship from the front to the stern step so I decided to continue the strip all the way along, first problem was keeping a 4 mm wide strip at 2 mm on the deck and 2mm in the air so I decided to add the first plank on the sides and put the waterways over that, I figure the more accurate I can get the first plank the rest must be better so I took great efforts with the first plank.

Hi all whilst waiting for my planking to come I decided to start on some of the many other things in this kit, here is a start on one of the cabins.

It's like a kit in its self, I have a feeling I'm going to love this kit, for the calking between the planks I used a lead pencil and just ran it along the edges of the planks.

If it's anything like this kit and my missus would allow the cost I would definitely be up for it.

Have to agree with Martyn here Ken. Once you start building these ship kits the harder the bug will bite. Vasa is a wonderful kit to build but I would recommend you get some experience in ship building first before taking the Vasa on... ..

Cutty is coming along nicely, nice work on the cabin.....

Regards

Alan