Hello Almal
From 6 o'clock this morning (it is now 23:59 in China), the day has been devoted to the Haarlem. The work today comprised of two sections. I wanted to start the verschansing of the fortuining on the Bakboord side and I wanted to see how far I could get with the galjoen.
To do the verschansing, the first step is to break off the spanten. This is done with a pair if fine-nosed pliers in pretty much the same way I would imagine a dentist pull teeth.
Grasp the spant firmly, wiggle it a bit from side to side with increasing pressure until it snaps. Hopefully - if you are lucky - you get a clean break, other times you are left with a lot of work to do.
Dit is nou net mooi wat ons NIE wil he nie!

However, all that is required is a good dose of patience, a very sharp X-Acto knife and a file.
Once the offending stujkes spant had been removed, we can now start the verscahnsing. These consists of a 3mm high and 4mm wide box which is built over the waterway and is placed at both the bottom and the top. The inner bracing consisting of 2mm x 3mm linden wood strips cut to size and which are glued to the bottom waterway box and to the inside of the fortuining. (Top photo)
This picture shows the one completed section of the verschansing being done with both top and bottom boxes installed. The ends are now trimmed to side and all that is left is to paint the whole concern black.
And that is what the finished assembly looks like. To the keen of eye - you will notice that there is a missing deck plank next to the waterway. When planking the deck, I leave these sections purposely unpainted so as not to run the risk of getting black paint on the deck planking. After the assembly has been completed, it is now just a case of gluing the appropriate deck plank into position.
Then it was time to start the galjoen construction - and man oh man - this is no walk in the park. On the Batavia/Haarlem, the galjoen is mounted by means of galjoen spanten which will later be used for planking purposes as well. (The sides of the galjoen assembly get planked later on).
Here I have just dry-fitted the galjoen with 3 of the spanten. These spanten are relatively straightforward to fit as they consist of a single piece which is glued onto the bottom part of the galjoen.
The three "easy" spanten are mounted. Obviously you first need to determine their exact positioning by slotting them into their respective slots in the sides of the galjoen. The straight line indicates the flat surface you have to glue on the spanten - no problem. But the other five spanten are split into two pieces each and have to be mounted against the flat sections as indicated by the yellow circles. This means there is absolutely no purchase for the glue to adhere to. So, I drilled holes in the spanten and galjoen, used messing, then applied glue and inserted them that way. It worked BUT the alignment was a nightmare!
While waiting for the glue to dry, I was continuing work on the verschansing.
And so we carried on, until - at last - all the spanten had been glued to the galjoen. Then I carefully removed the actual galjoen and then it was time for the old PVA diluted with hot water trick.
With a brush I carefully applied the mixture along the joints and seams and allowed it plenty of time to dry properly. On this picture, it looks as if the two front spanten do not align nicely with each other, but once the galjoen is in place, you will see that it is a perfect fit.
WORD VERVOLG