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Literalman

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    www.stevedunham.50megs.com

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    Upper Darby, PA
  • Interests
    Naval history, railroads

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  1. This book is now available as a free download on Project Gutenberg at Sea life in Nelson's time by John Masefield - Free Ebook (gutenberg.org). The first chapter has many details on ship construction and what colors were used on hulls, gunports, etc., in different parts of the 18th and 19th centuries.
  2. When I was a kid, the church hall had those balls of fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. They never went into action, fortunately. Around 1998 I went to work for a government contractor in Virginia, USA. (Is there another Virginia? I don't think so, but in the Philippines you can buy Virginia hot dogs, which I've never seen in the USA.) I worked in the publications group, and I had to wear a tie. Although I was an editor, I sometimes worked in the print shop like everybody else in the publications group. Around machinery, I would tuck my tie into my shirt, something I think I learned from Navy movies or photos.
  3. Decades ago, I was talking to an old-timer who said he had flown the B-26 Marauder. I said I had heard it called the Widowmaker (maybe in a Wings documentary). He told me you had to fly it, in contrast to some planes that were easy to fly and almost flew themselves. He said that their saying in training was "One a day in Tampa Bay." These points are noted in an article that someone posted a few pages back.
  4. For scratch building or kits, I think I've used only one power tool ever: an electric drill. I'm sure that with other power tools I could mess things up faster and more thoroughly than with hand tools. 😉
  5. Regarding plexiglass cost: when I lived in Boston (more than 40 years ago) there was a plexiglass dealer in South Boston that sold the scraps left over from cutting. I was able to get pieces big enough to build cases up to about 2 ft x 3 ft x 1 ft. The dealer sold the scrap by the pound. I would pick out the pieces I wanted and carry them to a big scale. It never cost much. If you can find something like that it makes the plexiglass affordable.
  6. Inside a B-24: one of my uncles died in a B-24 in World War II some years before I was born. In the 1990s, probably, I was at an air show and saw a B-24 on display. Although it was a big plane for its day (considered a heavy bomber, I believe), inside it seemed small. I could imagine going into battle in it with nothing but sheets of aluminum, I suppose, between the crew and the flak.
  7. "old, old … from the 1960s": hmm, yes, that's when I was building plastic kits as a kid. Mostly Revell, as I recall. I started on wooden models when I was in my 20s: a couple of kits and a scratch build. I have a mostly untouched Model Shipways Harriet Lane still in the box, and I will attack it again one of these days. Being old, old, and retired about a year, I have more time but less energy and eyesight not as sharp; however, I intend to do it.
  8. Looks good! I like lightships. I've seen a few and imagined I would have enjoyed serving on one.
  9. Some materials are free and worth it, but I'd like to point out that U.S. Govt. publications and photos are issued without copyright. The Naval History and Heritage Command, for example, has information that may be useful to some modelers. As someone who spent decades in publishing, I agree that good work usually has to be paid for. A long while back I saw a proposal for micropayments to view articles and news. It seemed like a good idea to me. Pay 10 or 15 cents to view a news story. I would do it. I think that unless you're on a really tight budget you would pay it without counting the cost. But most paywalled news sources want you to sign up for a subscription.
  10. The US Coast Guard cutter "Modoc, in company with cutters Northland and General Greene rescuing survivors from torpedoed convoy ships, … witnessed a large part of German ship Bismarck's last battle 23 to 27 May 1941," according to the Wikipedia article on Modoc. Modoc was so close to the action, she almost got hit. The Wikipedia article is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Modoc. Chuck Hill's Coast Guard blog has a detailed story at https://chuckhillscgblog.net/2013/05/24/the-coast-guard-and-the-sinking-of-the-battleship-bismark/. I've read claims that the Modoc shadowed the Bismarck and helped the British find her. An article, "Americans and the Bismarck," at http://www.avalanchepress.com/Americans-Bismarck.php says maybe. Although US battleships were involved in the North Atlantic neutrality patrol, I don't recall any reports that there were any near the Bismarck action. Maybe the cutters grew into battleships during retelling of the story.😀
  11. Welcome to the forum, Brian. I too have some family connections to the World War II U.S. Navy. One was an uncle who died a few years ago. I'd known since I was little that he had been in the Navy in World War II. When I learned his age, I did the arithmetic, and I realized that he had been 17 years old in 1945, the last year of the war. He must have enlisted as soon as he was eligible.
  12. Well, it's been a month. Repairing the rigging, which I thought would take a few minutes, I cracked a block but managed to glue it back together with the cord going through it. Then I snapped a spar, and to fix that I had to drill out a mast cap, but all all my drill bits smaller than 3/16" had long since broken. However, I found a hardware store that sells single drill bits, and now I have a full set again. So here's a photo. The topmasts appear to have warped or bowed a bit over the years, but I'm not ready to take that on yet.
  13. Hello, everybody. I'm somewhere between beginner and master model builder, as the home page says, though I've been away from the hobby for decades, so I'm probably closer to beginner. I never lost my love of ships, though (I have a few ship pictures on my website at http://www.stevedunham.50megs.com/photos/Afloat_photos.html). I built a few models, both kits and from scratch. My first one, the Model Shipways Phantom, is in a display case in my apartment, and I noticed that a bit of rigging had come loose. I figured I could fix it in a minute but had some trouble, and I was intimidated by all the tiny bits of wood and wire and cord, as if they'd been done my somebody else. I was probably 23 when I built it, and now I'm 63. ("Cry me a harbor," you might be saying.) Anyway, I'll manage it, and I have the Harriet Lane kit that someone gave me as a gift long ago and that I barely started before having to put it aside, and once the Phantom is repaired and back in the case, I'll try to pick up where I left off. I look forward to learning from all the great material on this site, and I'll post again now and then if I have anything sensible to say.
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