BobG
-
Content Count
1,495 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Calendar
Everything posted by BobG
-
Would Port Orford cedar be a good choice for model ship building also? Is it readily available? Bob
-
Thank you, Joe. Yes, the Vietnam Era was a tumultuous time for the country. I remember vividly hearing an announcement on the radio that the United States had begun bombing raids in North Vietnam. I had been hanging out with several friends at a local gas station and standing by our cars when the announcement was made and one of my friends said, "I guess we'll all be going to war in the jungle pretty soon." All of a sudden, life got very real for a bunch of us 18 and 19 year olds. Bob
-
Hi Don, Thanks for the compliments. There's something about the simple lines of a canoe that makes them so beautiful. I nearly ruined mine though. I had carefully sanded and primed the hull several times because I wanted to get the smoothest surface I could before spraying it with the gloss green. After several coats of green it looked fantastic. It was cold in the garage so I brought it into the house to cure and, wouldn't you know it, I managed to drop it and ruin the paint job. I had to sand it down again and start over! Maybe I'll post a couple of photos of some of
-
Thank you, Allan. The Coast Guard has a lot to offer. It certainly launched me in the world beyond the flatlands of central Indiana. We had frigid weather in Indiana but nothing like it was in Cape May or Alaska in the winter. The Coast Guard has come a long ways since I was in it. The new ships and aircraft are so much more technologically advanced and the even the personal equipment for individuals is so much better. For example, we only had 1/4" wet suits to wear under our orange flight suits in Alaska when we were involved in a rescue from our small boats. I remember just freezing and my h
-
Thanks for the welcome, Fitz. I've been reading the forum for a long time and figured it was time to participate more since I was benefiting so much from so many others. Bob
-
Thank you, Duane. I love the Indian Girl Canoe as well. It's a simple kit but it wasn't without it's challenges for me. There were so many tiny planks to glue and lots of small frames to bend. I found out that I really like to use medium viscosity CA while building it. I know a lot of modelers hate CA glue and advise against using it but I've found, that if you are careful and precise, it can make things go much faster without a lot of complicated clamping. I've glued my fingers together occasionally, of course, but I have found that, if I work on a piece until it practically lays perfectly wh
-
Thank you, CDW. Several of my former Coast Guard buddies ended up stationed in Florida. I have relatives in the Tampa area and have visited there quite a few times. I'd have to own a boat if I lived in Florida! Bob
-
Thank you, Scott, and thanks for the heads up about looking for plans early. The idea of building a ship from scratch kind of makes my head spin at my level of experience but it is very appealing to me. Bob
-
I've been through Mariposa many times on our way to Yosemite. Lovely community.
-
Thank you, Chris. I think that I read somewhere on the forum that you had ties to the Eureka or Crescent City area. My wife and I love it up there. The great redwood parks are some of the most beautiful parks in America and the rugged, northern California coast is wonderful. The Storis was a great ship and Alaska was very rustic and undeveloped back in the 60's. We would make ports-of-call in far flung places like Nome, Dutch Harbor, Adak in the Aleutians and the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. These isolated places were remote and ramshackle back then and had some real rough
-
Thank you, James. The Bering Sea was certainly wild and tough going at times but, as a kid who grew up in the flatlands of the midwest, it was an exciting adventure. I became a bit of an adrenaline junkie aboard the Storis. One of my assignments was going over the side in the motorized life boat or zodiac boat during rescue operations. It seemed like the more perilous the rescue, the more I loved it. That sense of adventure carried over into my personal life for many years as I got very involved in wilderness sports like rock climbing, mountaineering, mountain biking and backpacking. I've hung
-
Thanks, John. The Storis was a very special ship with a long storied history in the Coast Guard and it was hoped that she would become a dockside museum in Juneau, Alaska. Unfortunately, that failed to happen.
-
Hello. My name is Bob Garcia and I live in Sacramento, California. I first joined MSW way back in the fall of 2014 and, although I've been reading the forum since then, I only but began posting recently. So I thought it was time to properly introduce myself before I try to start a build log. I'm 73 and, like many of the older members here, I enjoyed making plastic models as a kid growing up in a small town in central Indiana. I usually made cars and hot rods but also airplanes that I would hang from the ceiling in my bedroom. My favorite classes in high school were machine shop, me
- 39 replies
-
- 15
-
-
I'm so glad to see you are building this model, Leukutus. The Calypso is a model that I'm very interested in and I will be eagerly following your build. Jacques Cousteau was a hero of mine. Someone I looked up to because of his fantastic documentaries that educated millions of people about world beneath the seas and our need to preserve it. During part of my 4 years in the US Coast Guard as a young man, I was stationed at the Captain of the Port Los Angeles/ Long Beach for a 2 1/2 year period from the fall of 1967 to my discharge in January, 1970. At one point the Calypso was docke
-
Thanks so much, Don, for the detailed information and photos. I'm swimming along in your wake and am staying afloat from the ideas I'm gleaning from your build log! My idea to of using the curled shavings on the mast to enlarge the base a bit came to me when I remembered reading a build log where the author had made wooden mast rings by laminating shavings together around something that was the diameter he needed for the rings. Then he just finished them off with a hard, clear finish. They looked great so I thought maybe I could use my shavings in a somewhat similar way to save the
-
You're getting close to completing her, Don, and she's looking great! I finally got all the thwarts in and the metal work done that holds the mast. I also painted the knees and got them installed. Then I hand made the roller and glued it in and assembled the fixed block at the stem and glued it in place. All those thing went pretty well for me. Then I shaved the mast into an octagon and mounted it in my electric hand drill just like you did to taper it. I had to control the wobble like you did as well but I finally got a nice taper from 3/8" to 1/8". However, when I tes
-
Thanks, David. My wife just told me that we have one of those up in the broom closet. I got it out and the brand we have is Pur Steam and it looks very similar to yours. I've been using a small, non-steam, travel iron and just barely wetting the planks with my finger before using the iron to apply heat and bend the wood. I'm looking forward to trying your steamer method now as well. Bob
-
This is a very interesting build and it looks great. Can you elaborate on your "steamer" that you use for bending wood? Is it a steam iron or something else? Thanks. Bob
-
Fantastic job, Jason! It's a beautiful boat. The quality of the deck fittings look great. Are those the stock fittings that come with the kit? Bob
-
You are making this ship so appealing and tempting! Museum quality 100%!
- 1,384 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- syren ship model
- cheerful
- (and 3 more)
-
Beautiful dory...very nicely done!
-
Hello Chris, you've received some good advice here from some very experienced modelers. I thought I'd add my two cents worth since I'm a relative beginner and I am currently building the Medway Longboat. The Longboat is a beautiful model with the high quality materials, instructions and support that you can always expect from Chuck's kits. However, I agree with Chuck and most of the others here, that it would not be the best first model for someone who is just starting out in this hobby. The Longboat is actually my 4th model but it has been quite a step forward in complexity over
Our Emblem
