Ryland Craze

Oh, crap...!! 🤷‍♂️😬🤣

Half of the louvers are done. The other side will be harder, cuz I have to remember not to squish anything on the finished side!
 

thank you!

Fantastic work.

That looks just perfect...I am so thrilled all those window inserts worked out.   
 
Chuck

That's a flawless collaberation between you and Chuck. If you were going for that contemporary ivory look you nailed it!

I’m at a loss for words, Mark, but you know how I feel about the project.  Just awesome!

Very inspiring. Can’t wait. Perhaps background checks should be done on customers lol.

Oh you will soon find out…LOL.  I can tell stories about some folks that would make your head spin.  
 
I had a guy that was so excited to get my blocks that he tore open the package at his mailbox at the end of his driveway.  He actually admitted this…the blocks flew all over his front lawn.  He couldnt wait to get to his shop or even in his house.  What a dummy.  
 
So he emailed me and asked if he could replace the two packages….literally $11.
 
I said sure and they were in stock and he could reorder them.  He got
all mad and wanted me to ship them for free at my expense.  He reported me to paypal and everything.  Long story short…he did not win that dispute.  
 
people are crazy!!!
 
They think every company is Amazon and they will get an immediate refund or new product.  LOL
 
Its insane out there as a retailer.  
 
I have dozens of stories like this.  You will soon find out.

Wow. For real? Who does this? It’s not like your rope is going to break the bank.🤦‍♂️

Holy "fish" what a joker and scammer at the same time.

That's disgusting!  Sorry to hear that, Chuck. 

No I didnt refund him.  But I almost did…i was literally just sticking them back on the shelf when I noticed it.  
 
 

'Hope you didn't refund what was NOT the product you sent.  If he contest this, you have a case for customer fraud/theft.  Stunts like this were why my Admiral put a no return-no exchanges policy on her ETSY shop.

I sincerely hope you didn't refund this clown?

Wow sorry to hear this Chuck - and people wonder why model companies go under.  Disgraceful behaviour and I believe it was right for you to share.

Ok I feel compelled to share this story with all of you.  Just when you think you have seen it all…
 
I have had customers who were so cheap and dishonest but this takes the cake.   And he WAS a member of this site.  
 
This guy bought a crap ton of one size of rope.  Literally a hoard of it which I hate.  18 packages of .030 brown rope which takes a long time to make and costs a pretty penny.  This Guy is building an Occre kit which I hate as well.  They literally put only two sizes of rope in a kit which is garbage.  So instead of buying a handful of many more different sizes to rig his model he insists on following the crappy kit…Instead of figuring out what the proper sizes should be.  
 
This happens a lot with Occre kits which wipes out my inventory so nobody else can buy that size until I make more which takes time.  I had a guy do that yesterday with .012 tan rope. 
 
Anyway…I digress.  So this guy contacts me and says he bought the wrong size and wants to return it all for the next smaller size.  A pain in the butt but OK…no problem.  
 
But he insists that I mail him the correct size right away and not wait
till I get the return.  OK…I will actually do this for folks I know but luckily I said no this time.
 
So today I get his return package of rope.  Can you believe that this guy took the time to coil up and switch my rope for what I can only suspect is the crap that came with the Occre kit.  He literally restuffed my packages …all 18 of them and thought nobody would notice.  
 
look at this…LOL…can you guess which rope is real syren stuff and which is the crap he tried to return?  Some people are evil…it was not a good master plan.  Its not even a close color to my rope. 
 
well…no more soup for him.
 

You had one picture titled HMS Bellerophon.jpg that was not in an album.  When I looked at your profile, I saw that you had an album titled HMS Bellerophon, so I moved that picture to your Bellerophon album. You had set up albums correctly for all of your other pictures, it was only this one picture that was not posted in an album.

Time to bump this topic again. Your gallery images must be placed in albums -- loose images are periodically deleted. This means that:
 
@Menne Kosian@Captain.Jack.Sparrow@John Cheevers@Jeddahbill@tony1745@Rick Abramson
 
You are at risk of having your beautiful images removed! Please put them into albums at your earliest convenience.
 
Thank you!

HI everyone,
A long time since my last post. I realized that I was getting to far ahead of myself, building up the stern with everything just pinned. I needed first to paint the lower and upper counters before I could actually start assembling things.
 
And learning how to paint the friezes was a major learning curve!
 
I greatly followed David Antscherl's advice on painting in the Fully Frame Model, vol. II section 7.26. It was exceptionally helpful for everything from paint and brushes to technique.
 
Alas, I discovered after a great deal of experimentation that hand painting alone did not work well for me. Particularly for the background Prussian blue and the letters "Bellona" on the stern, I needed a way to get things sharper and more even in tone. So, I turned to my airbrush. I masked everything but the counter and sprayed away.
 
 

I glued artist's frisk onto a print of the upper counter letters and frieze elements (a woman riding a sea monster, a man riding a galloping horse). I could then turn the frisk/print every which way on my light table, and very carefully cut the frisk with a scalpel. I then attached the frisk and sprayed everything that would be the yellow ochre base for all of the frieze work:
 

I then used white graphite transfer paper to trace the rest of the pattern onto the surfaces:
 

Then following David's advice of painting highlights and shadows on the basic forms, I eventually got to an imperfect copy of the original Bellona model:
 

I learned to admire those original model builders for their painting skill. Try as I might, I just could not get to the same level of skill. But as good as I can do! So, moving on to actually gluing together the stern!
 
I did learn a few good things that I will pass on for anyone else attempting these kinds of friezes.
 
First, after trying a number of airbrush and hand paint brands, I settled on Golden. They have the same colors in different densities, for airbrushing and hand painting; the colors match the historic colors I was looking for; they come in plastic bottles with ball bearing inside, for mixing. They spray without problems through my airbrush. And they are highly regarded in the artist community.
 
Second, I struggled with the acrylic paint drying too quickly on the palette when I was trying to mix colors. My son introduced me to the model gamers' favorite tool, the Army Painter Wet Palette. This tray holds a water saturated pad, upon which is placed a parchment sheet. Paint mixed on top of the parchment can stay wet and mixable for as long as 48 hours. A huge help!
 
A glass of wine tonight in celebration, and on to assembling the stern!
 
Mark
 
 

 
 
 

A quick update. I finally installed all of the upper deck lights, with the red cover plates holding them in place with the help of a little LockTite Extreme glue. This was necessary for bonding the plastic window frames to the wood, giving a few minutes repositioning time to settle everything in the right location. I had considered using superglue, but it has no leeway with repositioning time.
 
I placed mica behind the frames for the glass. It was easy to cut, and as thin as the windows ought to be in scale, greatly facilitating the construction details.
 
Chuck's laser cut window frames look fantastic! Thanks so much, Chuck.
 
I still have to construct the architectural columns in the centers of the red cover plates, and I am showing here some paper placeholders for later carvings.
 
But I have decided to move onto the balcony for now, which will probably be the most challenging part of this build. It has open fretwork between stantions, and the whole thing is a serpentine curve, as seen in the original 1760 model (here the fretwork is carved out of a solid blank; they are open in the second model which I assume is the intention of the model shown here).
 
Mark
 

 
Chuck already laser cut the fretwork for the side panels, as seen best in the last photo below the curved top window. This again shows the beauty and delicacy of Chuck's work. this same pattern will hopefully run across the balcony, and then around the quarter galleries at the same level.
 
 

Thank you Alan, the Martini´s are in the books, or better said, I prepared Tuxedo´s yesterday. I liked the looks of the car from the beginning, but even more in the white livery than in the red one, which actually raced. I will add some outdoor pics later, when the weather is fine and I can tame the cats.

Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, I was a bit surprised myself, how fast the BT45 went together in the end. It was not that I spent the whole day in the cave. I will be traveling a bit, so maybe a short summer project, until I start something serious again.

Cheers Rob 

This Stranded Sailor finally re-floated from the shoals of life.  
 
A few years ago my wife gave me this model of the USS Enterprise in paper and foam.  While on vacation in a cabin in northern Minnesota, I determined to complete this model.  During periods of rain, it became a reality.  It took only four and a half hours.  It was an enjoyable and fulfilling endeavor!
 
It reminded me of the times serving on aircraft carriers as a sailor.  The USS Enterprise CVN-65 was not one of the carriers.