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lars_opland

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Everything posted by lars_opland

  1. 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
  2. lars_opland
    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
  3. lars_opland
    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.
  4. lars_opland
    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.
  5. lars_opland
    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
  6. lars_opland
    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
  7. lars_opland
    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
  8. lars_opland

    Not wanting to wander farther off-topic on the thread, but the more common colloquialism that fits here is "s**t happens", which also applies perfectly to the tectonic situation around here...& the resulting current state of my HMS Surprise build.....

     

    Cheers, -Lars

    1. Ex-FAAWAFU

      Ex-FAAWAFU

      Ah!  Well I got the sh*t bit right!

  9. lars_opland
    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
  10. lars_opland
    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!
  11. lars_opland
    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
  12. lars_opland
    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
  13. lars_opland
    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
  14. lars_opland
    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
  15. lars_opland
    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
  16. lars_opland
    Hi Rob, There were some relatively stock PV-1's used in Canada in civil roles, IIRC; forestry, photo surveying, etc. Internet image searches rely entirely on associated text & many photos are wrongly captioned, so the hunt will be a matter of trying every possibility. Even "Airplane; Canada" (...& the same, using every Province in turn...) could yield something that won't show up with more definitive search terms. It's a jungle out there & some useful images can ONLY be found by accident, while looking for something else... Cheers, -Lars
  17. lars_opland
    Great choice of subjects, Iain. Having served a summer aboard USCGC Eagle & 2 years on a square topsail schooner out of San Francisco, I feel all kinds of connected to these old Revenue Cutters. Do carry on! Cheers, -Lars
  18. lars_opland
    Hi All, I just want to add that the head of Waco's design department was a Brit by the name of A. Francis Arcier. Also, Avro built a very similar plane called the Avro 641 Commodore, which never saw Waco's production numbers, perhaps in part because North America contained the largest existing market for such things. Canadians flew a lot of Wacos, many of them commercially, on floats in summer, skis in winter... Cheers, -Lars
  19. lars_opland
    You remain one of my favorite flightless flying birds, Moa! I love these models, in spite of the aesthetically-challenged nature of the (very) original design... The Wasilla Styrene Miner
  20. lars_opland
    Thanks All, The shop furniture is all set up again, & everything is secured to the walls now. Today things start going back up on shelves, but many, many tiny parts still need sorting. Meanwhile, the HMS Surprise project will be more like watching submarine races than any other sporting event, right up to the point it was at over a week ago, when actual progress can be reported again. Dafi, anyone who considers plastic modeling to be relatively boring hasn't tried to kill an afternoon watching TV lately. "Fifty-Seven Channels and Nothin' On". -B. Springsteen Professor, I can recite the phonetic alphabet, but don't recall the meaning of the acronym "Sierra Hotel". Never considered real wood veneer for this build because making plastic look like wood is just another painting challenge from my perspective, but thanks for the link. Cheers, -Lars
  21. lars_opland
    Thanks Ian, I'm very sure that by the time Endeavour was commissioned in the Royal Navy, "ship" was the correct term for her rig & "bark" would only have applied as a generic term for any vessel upon which one may "embark", as in all of them. Some sailors were known to refer to their ships as "the barky" in somewhat the same way as a modern biker might refer to his Harley-Davidson as a "scooter", as a sort of diminutive endearment. Just revisited your thread about the Mercury; thanks! Cheers, -Lars
  22. lars_opland
    Hi All, In case anyone noticed the news about the quake here on Nov. 30 & was wondering how well the model rode it out, "it could have been worse". The deck assembly fell about a meter to the floor & will have to be reconnected, but the catwalk didn't re-break & only 2 ladders were spat out from between. Both hull halves fell about 2 feet to shag carpet & a pile of rags...but then got the full force of several parts bins full of stuff, plus several 3-ring binders full of printed reference photos & other odds & ends on top of that. The port half escaped unscathed & the starboard half suffered only a couple minor cracks & lost the end of it's beak head, which has been found during the clean-up & put safely away for now. Currently using this opportunity to move some shelves, better secure them to walls & generally improve the shop's floor plan, cleaning as I go. The house is okay, but image-search "Vine Road earthquake damage" for some disruption that appeared less than half a mile from here... Cheers, -Lars "A sailor's work is never done."
  23. lars_opland
    Stop the presses! Here's how NOT to do research. I was gifted a copy of Steel's "Elements of Mast Making, Sail Making and Rigging" but hadn't studied it very closely until now. One of the large "plates" folded up in a pocket inside the back cover shows a fighting top for a 36-gun frigate...with only 2 long cross trees underneath, just like the kit parts were molded. Thinking maybe the other 2 weren't counted as part of the platform assembly, I image-Googled both HMS Trincomalee & USS Constitution for views of this detail & sure enough, just like the kit moldings again (minus the round hole for the kit's vinyl shrouds) so out came the #11 knife & away went an hour's work. I was looking up the appearance of the cheeks under the trestle trees when that issue came up, so that's done, anyway...or will be, once the bottom ends are tapered down some: The quarterdeck rail had dried with a bit of a twist in it, so this lash-up was weighted with clothes pins while more liquid cement was applied at the bottoms. I don't think that changed much, but it was worth a try... This last ladder was installed with the deck assembly stood on it's side between rubber molds; a bit of a battle, tweezers my only weapon.... Until next time, again... Cheers, -Lars
  24. lars_opland
    Hi Ian, Looks like you're doing this the real way; I salute you! I must ask though, what is "HMB" supposed to stand for in the subject title? I see "Brigantino" on the box but it's not a brigantine...& Endeavour wasn't a brig or a bark either; the 3 masts with square sails on all of them makes her a full-rigged ship, even if the mizzen carries only the one square topsail. I've seen the phrase "His Majesty's Armed Transport" used in conjunction with both Endeavour & Bounty, but never in the acronym "HMAT" that I can recall, & "HMAB" for "His Majesty's Armed Brig" or "...Armed Bark (or Barque)" in cases like Fitzroy & Darwin's Beagle (which was both at one time or another)...& internet searches for correct usage will only get whatever others have posted on the internet, not necessarily the right answer.... There's a question for the better informed among us! How many different "HM..." acronyms were used in the Royal Navy, & for what? I hope this isn't considered "thread hijacking"! Cheers, -Lars
  25. lars_opland
    Neatly done, Sir! Now I wish I had picked up one of these last time they were in circulation... Cheers, -Lars
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