Building the Frame

Having spent what seemed like an eternity making ribs and beams out of cardboard whilst miserably listening to the drilling and hammering of the builders working in the rooms above, dust and asbestos falling on my head (!)I have finally and triumphantly managed to construct the frame for the boat. Made entirely out of cardboard, the beams were constructed from carefully planned and measured templates with the four sections welded together with my new favourite tool, The Mighty Glue Gun. It has turned out much better than I was anticipating really, having ditched my original plan to use hardboard, this construction is lightweight and easily moved around, but also very strong and sturdy once fixed in place. The beams are all held together using dowling and the whole thing, once put in place, holds its shape perfectly. In addition, to disguise the cardboard and give the frame even more strength, I have used a layer of paper mache and a top layer of PVA to give myself a good base on which to paint. There is a lot to do still, but I think that this part was probably (hopefully) the most tedious and from now on, exciting things are going to start happening.