Fiberglassed the deck this morning. Will trim it in a few hours. Went on easily. Peace!

It's sanded! Thank God... Finished with the planking and tonight I was able to sand the deck of the Sun Wind II RC Vintage Marblehead sailboat. It looks pretty good. This weekend I'll do some finish sanding, and then probably put some epoxy along the hull/deck joint to fill it in. Then will fiberglass the deck. Aloha!

It's taken forever, but I'm finally getting near the final deck planks. Just a few more to go and I'll be able to sand the deck flush. I've been using many clamps, as well as crosspieces to hold the planks down onto the plywood. Otherwise the clamps tend to pull up the inside edge. At this point, I really can't wait for this step to finish. God... but it should look good when all sanded down. Hopefully in a few days... Peace!

Planking on the Sun Wind II continues at a very slow pace. I'm only able to get about 1 plank per day. Ugh... But so far I've done the rudder access hatch, and several planks. Looks OK, but will look much better once I'm done and can sand the entire deck flush. Until then, I'll keep slogging away. The pictures below are obviously before I've been able to sand, so excuse the raised planks and such.  More updates later. Peace!

The deck planking continues. Had to make an additional investment in small bar clamps though. Bought ten at Home Depot, and then ordered another eight online. But, they work, so I can't complain. The planks are 1/8" thick x 5/16" wide, milled from Alaskan Yellow Cedar.  I'm making a curved plank deck, so the clamps are needed to hold the curve in the planks until the epoxy sets. This is going to take a long time! Peace!

Made a mast crane based on one that I have made in the past for my Star 45's. Works well for them, and should work well for a Vintage Marblehead Sun Wind. It's made from brass, with a bar for strength soldered to the top. The idea is that a slot will be cut into the top 2" of the mast, and the crane will be through-bolted. This link is to the original schematic of a mast crane that you can build yourself, courtesy of the Miami Valley Model Yacht Club in Ohio.  Here is my updated version. Click to see the full-sized image and then copy and paste it into Word. It "should" print at just about the correct size, but you may have to adjust the image a bit. Cut it out and spray glue it to some brass sheet. Cut it out on a band-saw and then sand smooth. Be careful when working with tools and metals!! This is what I ended up with for my Sun Wind HF. I decided to reinforce the crane with a length of brass bar soldered to the top edge. Back to deck pl...

Well, this is how I decided to solve my deck planking dilemma on my Sun Wind Vintage Marblehead RC Sailboat. The king plank and sheer planks are going to be mahogany wood instead of Jatoba (or whatever it is that I found at Edensaw Lumber). The Jatoba was just too hard and too brittle. Also, when it was cut thin enough to use, ended up being very wavy. The tension in the grain must be incredible, and the wood ended up curving in many different directions. Too much of a bother to use. So I switched to mahogany. It's traditional and relatively easy to work with compared to the jatoba. I'm using small bits of dowel as fasteners for the outer, sheer rail planks and for the king plank. They will sand down pretty easily. Yes, you will see yellowish dots, but that will only add a nautical look... right? Tomorrow I will start in on the main deck planking. I'm using Alaskan Yellow Cedar. Should look pretty nice against the mahogany. Cheers!