Jerry's Admiral

Hi Phil.. Many thanks for your post and message to Jerry. He felt a lot better yesterday as the medication must have kicked in. Hope you have nice day. Charlene

Good morning Kevin.. I'm up early this morning so I have a little time to catch up on our log. Many thanks for your wishes for jeerry; he'll appreciate knowing you wrote. Have a wonderful day, Charlene

Good morning Gerhard and Popeye.. Thank you Popeye for your remarks about our Bounty and thank you both for your concern about Jerry. It turns out that his situation is not disasterous but it is serious and will require medication and some rest. His vision is limited so the work on Bounty will be excluisively mine for the next week or so when I can find some time, I don't know how much I can get done since I'll need Jerry's help but, knowing him, he won't sit still and will try to help me get some construction accomplished. We'll see. Charlene

Lawrence, Sorry that i didn't get your message in time to wish you greetings before the holiday. I think you need to take a break. From what you have told us, you're working way too hard. None of us are getting youinger. LOL Thank you for complimenting our work on the bounty. Jerry is taking a leave for awhile as his eyes are giving him an awful lot of trouble. He has an appointment today with the opthalmologist. Bounty will have to wait. Our best regards to Bernadette, Charlene (and Jerry)

Gerhard, The very next time Jerry uses the rigging tool we will take a photo which hopefully will explain how it's used. In the meantime I will try and explain it verbally. The tool was made from a darning needle and a piece of 4mm dowel. The 1.3 mm black thread was used to securely bind the glued needle to the dowel which becomes the handle of the tool. The eye of the needle was snipped to form the "v" notch. One places the thread (or line) that is to be attached to the bottom portion of a belaying pin in the tool's notch and guides it to its proper place. The notch of the tool allows the thread to slide as the tool is moved closer to the pin and helps to hook the thread around the bottom of the belaying pin. It truly is very simple and works quite well. It's a must because one's fingers can't usually reach the pin with all the rigging in the way. As I said, we will post a picture the next time we use the tool. Hope you are having a great evening. Charlene

Hello Kevin, I can assure you that there's plenty more of the 1.3mm black thread where that came from (to use a cliche.) Take care, Charlene

Gerhard and Bob.. You are both so nice for your kind words. Thanks so much for taking the time to visit us. While I'm at it, here are a couple of pictures of Jerry's home made rigging tool... Charlene

Good morning Bob, Brian and Dr. Per. It was good to hear from you. Dr. Per, maybe you can explain to your "dearest" that time is so precious and that any of it that is spent together constructing a ship model is time with special meaning. I know that Jerry and I are so much better off for the laughs (and snarls) created by our dual endeavor. And I also know that I am learning something which may keep be happily occupied for many hours to come. It's difficult to believe but Jerry has never had to smack me, even once, LOL.. Brian, There are still two days left on my spring break but unfortunately I need about that much time in order to complete the project (the Year Book) I'm working on for school. So, I suppose I'm going to have to leave it to hubby to work on Bounty over the weekend. We began to outfit the Main Mast's lower yard but it looks like this task will fall strictly to Jerry. I look forward to getting back to the build next week. Jerry explained that he was going to do something different with this build. Instead of mounting all the yards before beginning the running rigging he has decided to attach and rig one yard at a time. Now here's where the learning process has taken hold. Before this mutual endeavor, the only "yards" I knew about were the front and back yards of our house. Bob...With respect to the steering, I still can't figure out how the crew didn't get tangled up in the ropes. Jerry said the Captian Bligh made them step lively.. Come see us again. So until then, I hope everyone has a happy weekend. Charlene

Hi Kevin, Bob and Popeye. Thank you so much for visiting our site. It's always so encouraging to work on when receiving nice comments as we have from you all. Please come and see us again. It feels so good to see the progress on our Bounty. Being home from school during this spring break has been real enlightening for me. I've stood by Jerry and watched for hours as he explained the work he was doing unconcerned that my questions slowed him down. But truthfully he has a tendency to get a little sloppy when he works too fast so i'm sure there are some positive sides to our teamwork as well as the negative ones. (I hope he doesn't read this.) We have now completed the running rigging (I think) for the lower mizzen yard and look forward to beginning on the lower Main yard. This spar requires a lot of work such as bumpkins and their guides, the foot ropes, and many blocks. The plans call for rope foot line holders but Jerry is thinking about making them out of wire. This will require drilling holes into the yard which I'm anxious to see. In the meantime here are a few more pictures as to where we stand. (I stand; he sits.) Charlene

Hi Keven... It isn't fair for you to visit us and for us not to reciprocate. I'm very happy that I did see your site again and to see what a beautiful job you are doing on the Victory's rigging. Jerry went through hoops and I learned a lot of new naughty words when he was rigging his Victory so I know that you must be having a "good" time. Seriusly though, your build is definitely of superior work and when you finish you will have so much to be proud of. It's pretty far from the display case but I'm sure you're thinking of that issue also. Best regards, Charlene (and Jerry)

Hello Gerhard and Bob, Gerhard, your Dad was a good teacher. As I said before, your build is definitely exceptional. And again, many thanks for your kind words regarding the Bounty. Actually, what is different these days is the fact that Jerry is really taking his time as opposed to the past when he was working very quickly. I've been able to hang over him and ask a lot of questions since I'm home on "spring break" which is a holiday for us. Bob- I hope there will be more progress to show you for your next visit. Thanks for stopping by again. And here are some more pictures as to where we are at..

Hi Gerhard, We sincerely appreciate your taking the time to visit our site and hope to see you more often. NRG Model Ship World has so many beautiful and interesting logs to see and we hope you get a chancce to visit many of them. We have visited your site to see what a magnificent job you are doing engineering and fabricating the parts for the model you are building. Jerry said that even as an engineer he wouldn't attempt to do what you have started and accomplished. What a terrific piece of work on your behalf. Have a wonderful day, Charlene P.S. I have posted a few more pictures of our progress on Bouty. It seems we overlooked the bowsprit stays and so we spent several hours making them and placing them in place. Now we are truly ready to shape the yards and boomkins and begin the running rigging once these parts are made.

Hi Greg, Nice to have your visit. We are having a decent time with this build and time is moving along. Please check in again and let us know what you think. Charlene

Hi Brian and Grant, Thanks for your much appreciated comments. Jerry told me a long time ago that we would make a good team but i never dreamed it would be building a ship model. I'm so glad that I decided to give this hobby a try. I believe I'll really enjoy helping with the running rigging. I wish you both a great weekend, Charlene

Hi Phil.. Take your time and take it all in... Happy to be of help.. Charlene

Hi Everyone.. I'm really excited for a couple of reasons. Spring break is starting and we have completed the standing rigging on our Bounty. Unfortunately we are not very good photographers but when all is said and done we will find some good beck ground material and take a lot of closer and better (we hope ) pictures. Jerry decided not to glue the stays between the masts as they will probably need some adjusting when the running rigging begins. It's amazing how easy they lose their tension. Therefore, you may note little thread ends at different places where the stays meet the masts. He thought it would be better to leave a small tail of thread in case these adjustments had to be made. So, it's also off to the drill press and make the yards and boomkins.... Of course the other thing we did was to attach the jib boom to the bowsprit so we are probably in deep trouble now. As Shipyard Sid (David) says, now there's a "pointy thing" to break all the time. I promised Jerry I'd be careful but truthfully, it's not me I'm concerned about, if you know what I mean. Jerry broke the "pointy thing" on the HMS Victory numerous times so I hope he learned a lesson. As I said the photos are not very good and we'll do much better later on becasue we'll get some type of background that will be a good contrast for the details. Talk to you all later, Charlene

Hi phil.. Yeah we know the book; it's sitting right here on the table. Let us know when we can be of help. (we of course being Jerry) Take care, Charlene and Jerry

Hello Lawrence, Sorry to hear that you are still suffering from that cold. Hope you get well soon. Yes, we have been looking at the other builds that we can find and managed to complete the futtocks and their ratlines. We are now checking McKays book in order to verify the rest of the stays. The plans are worthless so we have to rely on McKay and Navis Factorum's beautiful but incomplete log site. I haven't found any other Amati builds on the forum. Anyway, here are some more photos as to where we are presently. Have a great day, Charlene and Jerry

Hello Popeye. Thanks for your comments. The Futtock shrouds and their ratlines are now completed so it's back to the stays in order to complete them before starting the running rigging. That means shaping the yards and the rest of the bowsprit. Coming along. Hope you are well. Charlene and jerry

Good morning, Lawerence. Nice to hear from you. The rigging would be fun if the plans were informative and clear. But somehow, we'll figure out what to do. Best to Bernie and have a great day, Charlene and jerry

Good morning, Phil.. We appreciate your quick and informative response. It's too bad that retired military personnel are treated the way you have said. In the States it's really different although a lot of people complain the the Vetrerans Administration is really screwed up. I, Jerry, am an army veteran. I was an officer in the US Army Corps of Engineers and spent my time at the Army Engineer School at Ft, belvoir, Virginia teaching combat engineering. Fortunately i had a little athletic talent so I also played baseball for the Base and that allowed me a few more perks than normal. Two of my children were born at the army hospital at Ft. Belvoir for a total cost of $11. The veteran benefits here are excellent. The medical facilities around the nation are state of the art and available at no charge to all veterans. I pay very little for my various medications. Now back to the Bounty... The main rat lines are finished and all that remains in that catagory are the rat lines for the futtock shrouds. I plan to make the futtocks today and attach them to the shrouds soon after. Here is a picture of the Bounty with the completed main shroud rat lines. I hope you continue to enjoy your build and I wish you a great day, Jerry

Phil.. Just a quick remark.. If I ever build a nother ship model it will only probably be from caldercraft. (Jotika) Jerry

Hello Phil and many thanks for coming to see us. Let me start by saying that we wish you the best and hope you will visit us with any questions or information you may have. So, in answer to your questions. I have asked Jerry to take over this post because his experience is much greater than mine... Hi Phil...this is Jerry speaking.. Yes, it is definitely worth it to use the balsa blocks forward and aft as the surface gained for the strip planking is imperative. The sharp angles at these points in the model make it difficult to strip plank without a surface to glue to. The hull is double planked as the instructions call for except below the waterline. Since we chose to use copper plates in this area we felt it unnecessary to double plank the bottom of the hull. We were lucky to obtain the copper plates from Herman in Germany who is building the HMS Victory and chose not to copper clad his hull. So when I heard him say this I offered to purchase the copper plates from him. I did, and they're now on the HMS Bounty. While the scale of the Jotika HMS Victory kit is different than the Amati HMS Bounty kit, the difference is not that much so the Victory kit copper plates worked out well. You can buy these plates from Cornwall Model Ship Comapny in the UK. These plates are already dimpled and one doesn't have to do anything except glue them (we used CA cement) to the hull. Even though we are not British, Charlene and I wish to thank you for the service you and your admiral have given to your country and please feel free to contact us if we can be of any further help. Charlene and Jerry

Hi Bob So nice of you to "pop in" to our site. Jerry and I welcome you to visit us more often and to comment on our progress as we proceed with the construction of HMS Bounty. There are some very big differences in the two manufacturer's kit of Bounty and it's just a matter of taste as to which version one prefers. I can say one thing for sure...The Amati kit is made very difficult because there have been a few parts, both wooden and metal, missing and of course, the instructions are in Italian. We did manage to get some of the directions translated but so much is still in Italian, the degree of difficulty is higher than usual. In any event, thank you for your kind words regarding rhe progress of our build and the best of luck to you on your HMS Bounty. Charlene

Good morning, Dr. Per.. We really appreciate your visit and positive remarks. McKay has come in very handy and will be very important, according to Jerry, when we get into the running rigging. Thank you so much for stopping by and have a great day. Charlene