Louie da fly

Unless you're flying a Hawker Harrier. In which case they "viffed" and caused the opposing pilot to overshoot, with predictable results. Speaking of getting hooked on books (not to derail the thread TOO much) I just finished "My Mystery Ships" about the Q-ships of WWI (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship) by the most successful of the British Q-ship captains, written about 10 years after the war. Fascinating stuff about a lesser known aspect of the naval service. Steven

Thanks everyone for the likes. A little more progress. I've recycled the old fighting tops from the fore and main topmasts. Even though I'd made a new fore topmast I was pleased to find that I could salvage the old one - though it was broken into three pieces, they were all intact so I could glue them together again. I'd far prefer to keep as much of the original build as possible rather than replace it with new. I'd also made a new main topmast, but in that case the old one was past saving. So here are the old tops in their new homes. And here's the old fore topmast rebuilt, and the broken off stump still attached to the lower mast. It might be a bit of a problem to hold the two pieces in alignment while I glue it together again, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I won't be doing that until the hull planking is complete, possibly later. The main sanding of the upper deck is done. Only a little tidying up to go. The foredeck is proving a bit of a devil to clean. When I was a kid I slathered white glue everywhere, including on this deck, and the dirt is ingrained in the glue. So I have to carefully remove the glue within a pretty confined space. I've tried slicing it off with a blade, scraping it off, and removing it with isopropanol. None of those techniques is perfect - I'm just having to wing it. I'll probably have to remove the foremast bitts to get at the front of the deck, but there's a great glob of glue at the base of each upright anyway, so it's probably just as well. Steven

Of course, if the Pelican had any sort of decoration to go with her name, it would be a pelican "in her piety" - see http://www.thewestologist.com/symbols/the-symbol-of-self-sacrifice . These representations often looked completely unlike a real pelican - the artists had probably never seen one. According to that great authority Wikipedia: "The legends of self-wounding and the provision of blood may have arisen because of the impression a pelican sometimes gives that it is stabbing itself with its bill. In reality, it often presses this onto its chest to fully empty the pouch. Another possible derivation is the tendency of the bird to rest with its bill on its breast; the Dalmatian pelican has a blood-red pouch in the early breeding season and this may have contributed to the myth." As Michael Caine famously said (assumes cockney accent) "Not many people know vat" Steven

Thanks for the likes. Druxey, I think it would end up more as a helmet than a hairdo - or like the women's hairstyles of the 60's with all that hairspray; if you flick your finger against them, you'd get a "clunking" sound . . . (not that I ever tried that . . .) Steven

Thank you, Thunder. That's something I'd never known before. Chris, that's a beautiful model and very believable (though I love Patrick's as well). Steven

I've been unable to cut out any more oarsmen for the time being - I broke the only blade I had for my coping saw, and I have to wait till we can schedule a visit to the hardware shop - not going to make a special visit just for that! In the meantime I've been tidying up the existing ones - I wasn't happy with some of them; I'd cut the heads too narrow so I couldn't give them the full head of hair that was normal in Byzantine times - several of them had short back and sides and a few were bald! I'd resigned myself to not being able to fix that, then I thought maybe filler would help. I stored the residue from sanding the bamboo of the Great Harry's decks and mixed it with white glue. Turned out to work very well - much finer than the usual sawdust, though I had to remove random bamboo fibres that had got into the mix. The first iteration had them looking like 1950's starlets: But after the glue started to dry and I manoeuvred the filler around a bit with a toothpick, they looked surprisingly good. Note Harpo Marx at the far right, Harrison Ford far left . . . Steven

Finished the planking on the upper deck. A little difficult at the end because the frames were so far apart there was no support for the "pointy" end of the last couple of planks. I got a bright idea - glue two planks together for each side. That seemed to make it possible to cover the gap - that plus friction against the adjoining planks held them in place well enough to glue them in. So that's done. It has to be sanded down and then that will be complete. I'm pretty happy with it - it's in keeping with the existing decking but can be seen to be different. My next major job will be planking below the water line. Wish me luck! Steven

Lou, the cheapest one (reportedly in good condition) is on ebay though there are several out there at similar prices. Just google Book Storm Over Kokoda Steven

I came late to this build - it's looking fantastic! The detail is far and away better than the old Airfix 1:72 models I made when I was a kid. I've always loved the P-40; it just seems such a beautiful aircraft. I made a 1:72 Airfix model of it back in the day. I read a book a while ago- unfortunately I can't remember its name and the library I borrowed it from has closed for the duration - can't even access the catalogue online - about the Australian pilots in the New Guinea campaign, who were fitted with P-40s. They independently evolved the tactic of attacking in a dive and built up a respectable score against the zeros. Then along comes one of the high brass straight from his comfortable office in Melbourne, several thousand miles from the front, who accused them of cowardice for not dogfighting with the zeros. So the CO went up to dogfight with them and was shot down and killed. Good one. They fought under terrible conditions, always short of equipment and replacements, and under continual pressure under attacks that never seemed to let up, they performed magnificently. The book is well worth a read, if I can figure out what it was called. Steven [edit: The book is called "Storm Over Kokoda" and is by Peter Ewer. The book review says "Most of us have heard of the battered and muddy troops who 'saved' Australia on the Kokoda Track during the darkest hours of the Pacific war. Far fewer know of the Australian pilots and aircrew of 75 Squadron who first checked the Japanese advance into the South West Pacific, in desperate air fighting that swirled over the jungles of New Guinea and the base at Port Moresby, fully six months before the land campaign began. Storm Over Kokoda tells how Australian crews, in a handful of Hudson bombers and Catalina flying boats, took the fight to the Japanese. Peter Ewer draws on eyewitness accounts and combat reports to shed new and exciting light on a neglected episode in Australian military history. This is not merely an 'aviation' story, but a compelling tale of men at war - on both sides - in a harsh physical environment. This was a time when every flight proved an epic, and every man a hero."] Strange that it doesn't mention the P-40s, which was what 75 squadron was equipped with.

It's been a while since I've checked on this project. Beautiful work. I particularly like your machicolations, but everything is really well done and amazingly lifelike! Steven

Well, just down the road from Hedland (in terms of North-west distances). I can think of few things better designed to take a person's mind off work and lockdown than ship modelling. The Lady Nelson is a very attractive ship, well worth the effort. Looks like you've already got a good start on her. Steven

Sorry you haven't been able to the instructions so far - I see masa might be able to provide them. You might also care to look at which though it's of the earlier version of Bluenose II might be of help to you building the later version. Steven

Hi Stu, and welcome. Where are you? I used to live in Port Hedland in the north-west of W.A., but it's a big State so you may be nowhere near there. Looking forward to your build log. Steven

Continuing to add the upper deck. Bamboo is a dreadful thing to make deck planks out of - the grain forces your blade to go where it doesn't want to, so getting parallel sides to your plank is quite difficult. The only reason I'm using bamboo is that I'd used it when I first made the model. I thought it looked cool, and the grain made it seem that there were lots of narrow planks instead of a few wide ones. Never again. Nearly finished. More on this in due course. Here is the last of the new tops - this one is for the mizzen topmast. The central wooden rod kept it together better than in my previous attempts, and was removed once the top was finished. Still not a perfect method and if I wanted to make more I think I'd have to work out a better way of doing it. Lateen yards for the mizzen and bonaventure masts. And I've started cleaning the existing decks. I've been using sandpaper for the main gundeck, but the forecastle deck is too small for that to work, so I've turned to the use of cotton buds and saliva. You can see the clean patch compared to the rest of the deck which is still dirty. Yuk! Assuming the rest of the ship is equally dirty, it looks like I've got my work cut out for me. Steven

Coming along nicely, Termi. But it looks like the lower gunport frame fourth from the right is a little out of square. Might be worth checking. And it might also be worth making sure that they "run" in a smooth line with respect to each other, to avoid problems further down the track. Corel's method of doing gunports seems rather strange, but if it works . . . Steven

Jacques, here is a French-English "Dictionnaire des Termes de Marine" which I have found very useful with translations. https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedes00tiregoog/page/n4/mode/2up I know automatic translations can sometimes be very wrong, particularly with maritime terms - for example the French term "cap de mouton" becomes a "deadeye" in English (because the holes look like the eyes of a skull). I hope this helps. Steven

That's a beautiful model, JR. Start a build log so we can all follow along. There are quite a few restorations among the build logs that might help you as you go. And don't forget to ask questions. There's bound to be someone out there who's been in a similar situation and can give advice if you hit a problem. Steven

Bienvenu Jacques! Votre maquette est déjà belle. Go to the page "Build logs for SCRATCH SHIP MODEL PROJECTS" and follow the instructions at the top of the page to start your build log. I look forward to seeing your log on our forum. We have many members who use a translator to post on their logs. Feel free to ask questions. The members are very helpful. Steven

Good news - this has been a fascinating journey so far and I for one am looking forward to seeing more. Steven

Yes, but the crew is obviously made up of pixies, so you could fit more of them in than if they were full-sized people . . . Steven

Thanks. Just a supplementary note: some of the shields were rather difficult to work out. For example, there's no way of knowing the correct colour scheme for the shield mentioned above: In the original manuscript illustration the shield is shown as gold, which I have interpreted as yellow. But it's more likely to have been multicoloured - because the illustrator used gold leaf for everything - clothes, armour, shield, shoes - what the "real" colours of the shield should be, we'll never know. And my favourite shield had its own difficulties: The picture on the original ikon I took it from is pretty tiny. Try to get closer detail and it goes all fuzzy. Plus the shield is shown in 3/4 view - partly side-on - so I had to change the proportions (stretch it out sideways) and guess what's on the bit you can't see: Well, I did say I liked the detective work as much the build itself, and for me this diversion into shields has been a fascinating journey, as well as a bit of a respite from the carved figures. But now - back to carving . . . only 24 oarsmen to go . . . Steven

Thanks for all the likes and encouraging comments (blush). I'm rather fond of it, too. It comes from a picture of David and Goliath in a 9th century manuscript called the Sacra Parallela. That "rosette" motif recurs over and over again in Byzantine decoration and often appears on shields. I have my own personal favourites, of course - probably the one I like most is the third row, third from the left. That's from a big 3D gold ikon of St Michael currently in St Mark's, Venice. Very colourful (and very difficult to paint!) Well originally he was going to be the captain and would be sitting on the kravatos (day-bed) under the awning on the poop deck. That was before I decided to change it from just a normal dromon to the Emperor's personal skaphos. I carved an Emperor figure (Alexios the First, actually, based on a picture of him from the time), and a portable throne, some courtiers and a couple of bodyguards. And painted the ship red and yellow, as befits the Emperor's personal ship. Which meant the captain had nowhere to sit. So he's unfortunately at a bit of a loose end. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with him . . . Steven

How about as an e-book? Almost no outlay to publish . . . Steven

I'm having trouble getting a mental picure of this - did they lie on top of each other? Let me see: allow 6 feet in height per soldier, and say 18 inches wide - that's 9 square feet per person. Then divide that into 17 feet long and five feet wide, which is 85 square feet; as I calculate that, there's room for probably 2 soldiers long and 3, maybe 4 wide. Which makes 6 or 8 soldiers. Divide that into 100, makes it 12 layers of soldiers high! Can someone check my maths? It just doesn't seem to work for me. I didn't know you could get fake bone back then . . . Steven

And . . . FINISHED! Here are the last seven shields: And here they all are together - 48 of them. Another thing to tick off the list. Nice to have them all done. Steven