lars_opland

Thanks Kevin, I was much impressed by the Indefatigable kit after scrolling through the slide show; that Chris Watten is really serious about this stuff! Cheers, -Lars

Hi Magpie, I see I never responded to yours from 2 years ago; sorry about that... Looking very good there; have you posted any progress anywhere? Cheers, -Lars

Hi Kevin, That link is to "HMS Enterprise" of about 1770, a very nice model, so I went to the Vanguard Models site & found no "Surprise" or any mention of future kits at all? Definitely not entry-level pricing for good wooden kits...& "affordable" wooden kits tend to resemble generic "ship models" of the interior decorating variety, not meant to portray anything specific or to be examined closely at all. Even when the wooden parts are usable, the detail castings tend toward the grotesque & absurd. Sadly, this is often true of seriously expensive wooden kits as well. L'Unite'/Surprise & her class were designed by Pierre Alexandre-Laurent Forfait in 1793, eventually adopted by Patrick O'Brian as the stage for some of his most memorable tales. I'm not sure why O'Brian chose this one out of all the Admiralty Draughts available for his literary purpose, but she was an adequate size for maritime adventure. Not reported to be a brilliant sailor, but good captains would experiment with stowage, hull & sail trim to get the best out of whatever they had.

Hi Knb451, Read the series 20 years ago & was more saddened that O'Brian had passed on before he could wrap it up. IIRC, they were going to get involved in suppressing the slave trade off Africa again, & we had already met the man Jack Aubry had fathered with that escaped slave girl he had smuggled aboard as a midshipman in the Caribbean, grown to become a Catholic priest & not yet re-surfaced in the series. It should have been interesting..... Speaking of new things, I would like to be able to report more progress on the model, but nothing yet.

Thank You, Killingholm, To correct one error, Eric was fishing near Whittier, not Valdez. Yes, modeling is often an effective form of meditation practiced by people who haven't gone out of their way to learn TM. I wouldn't have thought of it this way, except for that Buddist monk who interviewed me for about 10 minutes, many years ago, & then said I didn't need TM...& he was the salesman! Cheers, -Lars

Hi Knb.1451 & All, It's been another busy summer in Alaska...& I've been obligated to spend some of it sailing a 1:1 scale Hunter 22 on Big lake, in between everything else. If that sounds odd, you don't know my wife! "Model work" has the emphasis on "work", as my time in the shop is taken filling orders this year. Pandemics lead to people staying in a lot & some of them build more models that way; who knew? This morning, we learned that my brother's boat was found empty, afloat in Prince William Sound, & that a body has been found, expected to be identified as Eric. He had been fishing alone out of Valdez, so was at least doing something he loved. I still need to put up some more firewood this fall & will be throwing a little extra angst & energy into that task this afternoon..... Just got the ID confirmation call from my sister Tania; the sea claims another, a lot closer to home than usual. Rest in Peace, Brother. My Best to All, -Lars

Thanks All, Terry, flat toothpicks, round toothpicks & rubber bands have been part of my modeling tool kit for decades, but it was only the delicacy of that head rail assembly that demanded the clamp combination, invented last year here. Like the wheel, it may have been invented more than once & resembles much bigger long-reaching clamps used in wood work. Cheers, -Lars

Hi Stuart, This is more of a test to see if Flickr still works like it used to here (on another forum, Flickr image URL's currently produce images with the album scroll controls included, so posting one gives access to all, without even visiting the Flickr account). The last piece I glued to the roof of the starboard quarter gallery stayed with the sheet styrene bulwark when the aft end of that let go, so another toothpick clamp helped hold the break together from there, while a toothpick & rubber band through the last gun port added more downward pressure... Evidence of considerable force was visible in several places. I don't recall what was under this to make that gouge under the gun port, or to bash those wire belaying pins. Paint chipped away around several small cracks: Fixing the beak should be the easiest repair. You can just see another crack here between the 2 forward gun ports, where the round bow was added, already re-glued & ready to be smoothed out again. Then I can get the deck assembly sorted again.... Not what I'd call "progress" yet, but steps leading toward progress, anyway. Cheers, -Lars

Hi All, Currently working with Flickr tech support to re-gain access to my image hosting account. No spectacular updates yet, but nothing at all here until I get that little detail sorted. Repairs have commenced, anyway. Cheers, -Lars P.S. Finally sussed what "Sierra Hotel" stands for. Duh!

Hi J-W, My recollection of the kit part, without checking in the attic stash, is that the interior surface is a smooth curve while the exterior is faceted around the front as it should be, leading to the classic "Coke bottle" appearance in the windshield panels. The top is compound curved, as it should be. Careful sanding & polishing would make the Airfix part more suitable for an Empire boat than a Sunderland, I think.... Cheers, -Lars

This build was pointed out to me by "Moa" while it was still a work in progress; stunning! About scale antenna wire, "invisible thread" from any sewing shop or department store is also thin elastic monofilament & very affordable. Cheers, -Lars

Not hardly my favorite Waco, but a real fine build, Bill! Regarding the stripes, most were applied in a hurry, many in the dark. German recon planes (should any dare fly over by 1944) weren't supposed to see anything that looked like last-minute preparations for an invasion, & this was all done at the last minute, so nice straight stripes with sharp edges would be the least authentic way to portray them. There was a lot of variation in stripe widths & coverage was pretty slap-dash too. Cheers, -Lars

Just wanting to add that the Italeri boxing of the Hudson includes not only a civilian nose & a blank for the turret hole, but also a couple of different engine options on all those neatly-molded sprues. Cheers, -Lars

Even I have looked into these planes as possible modeling subjects in the past. The 2 points I don't see covered here yet: 1. The Empire Boat canopy was made up of "blown" panels, all one smooth compound curve shape, while the Sunderlands had flat windshield panels to prevent optical distortion during searches & attack runs. 2. The Maia had a very different fuselage cross-section, flaired wider at the bottom with hollow curves in the sides to support the additional weight of the Mercury. This is well-represented in the Contrail kit. Cheers, -Lars