A close up of the detail on the stern
A view of the stern, the details around the doors and windows have been painted blue and then a gold applied, the stern was painted black in the correct place before gluing the windows in position.
The bow gratings, these were made with 0.5mm x 3mm lime strip and 1mm x 1mm walnut
A general view of the hull at this stage, I am very pleased with the construction so far.
I decided to leave the gallery unpainted (this will be blue eventually) for the time being while I worked on the rest of the stern, this will help avoid any marks on the finished surface.
Trying to decide on the shade of blue, I tried several types of paint both water based and enamel before I decided on the Mantua range, these are water based enamels, I mixed a blue with a white until I was happy with the colour. I made sure that I had mixed enough to do all the painting of the blue with some spare for touching up at a later date, hopefully avoiding the need to mix any more and trying to match the shade.
I decided to cut the rear supports for the balustrade's around the stern from solid as it was to tight a curve to bend successfully from 5 x 2 walnut. In the end this was a very wise choice and worked out very nicely.