Today marks the last day in New Zealand's four-week Level 4 lockdown, which means it was 4 weeks ago when I started a new project: Ironclads. It all started when my daughter pulled a big "picture" book off the self for me to read to her. After insisting it was definitely the one she wanted to read, we sat down and started reading about the American Civil War River campaigns. She a nd I were especially drawn to this illustration about the Battle of Memphis in June 1862. After

Its probably a bad idea to keep experimenting with mast solutions still half-way through the Jutland project, but I just couldn't settle on a good one. I started by using light wire, but they were always too thick and bendy. I also tried plastic broom bristles. These were straight and not as rigid as the wire, but they were too easy crimped and bent over. They also had inconsistent diameters, so finding a good number for all 200 ships was going to be a problem. So I needed to