Here's Murray's update as it sits on the morning of 9/16/03:
The Ambrose is coming together, and things are starting to roll along pretty quickly now. My guess is that I've worked on it for about 5-6 hours in total and I'd say I'm about 75% done as far as appearance goes. The very bottom of the hull is not on yet, and the rest of the its and bits are very tiny and may take more time than I think.
I must admit that this is quite a bit harder than I thought. I made an early decision to go 'against the grain' and just build the whole thing out of paper, rather than get it transfered to some heavier cardstock or something like that. I see now that using heavier paper would have definitely simplified the building of the hull and the end product would have been much straighter and more solid.
Oh well, it is what it is and it's been a pretty good project so far. I have to give credit to whoever designed this though (www.digitalnavy.com), because it does go together fairly well. My initial look at the 'exploded' instructions caused me some grief because I wasn't at all sure where to start and in what order to do things. However, as I fuddled through building various pieces, I realized that everything seems to be numbered. And, if I would have assembled things in the sequence of the numbering, it would have gone pretty smooth!! Sometimes the most obvious things are totally invisible to me!!
It shouldn't take too long to finish it up, but I must admit that I don't really have intention of putting every last item on the ship (I spent about 45 minutes last night trying to put together the teensie-weensie little bell that sits on the bow). Unfortunately, my rough skills with paper have resulted in something that looks like... paper (unlike the one that was on the digitalnavy website!!) and therefore won't likely be put in a museum anywhere. There are some really fidly little bits that I think I'll just skip (the little handrails come to mind...).
Thanks to Ray (heylonghair) for suggesting the use of Rubber Cement. It's worked quite well for this. I used some craft glue earlier on in the project and it cause the paper to warp a bit.
If you're thinking of building something with paper, you really don't need any special tools. I've used scissors, xacto, a small putty knife, and a dental pic for applying glue, etc. I would recommend finding some sort of tapered dowel that you can use to wrap paper around. There are lots of shapes that need to be wrapped in a cylinder, and this becomes much easier if you have something the right size to wrap it around. Something like a long tapered knitting needle, or similar would work well. I'd also suggest that you print one copy of the pattern onto card-stock or heavier paper, and another on regular old printer paper. Some of the pieces need to be very thin to be shaped right. Others need the strength of heavier paper.
Well... I look forward to reading and seeing everyone elses progress. I noticed a few other updates, but haven't read them yet. Good luck to all! I'll post a final picture when I'm done...
Murray
Here's another pic more from the bow...
