Chuck

Ooofff!!! $1700 for that. I feel so much better now. That is a really peculiar looking model on so many levels. If you are gonna leave that much space between frames they should stick to POB. For that much $$$ and it looks so Kit-like…its doubtful any bashing can fix that. Unless you fully plank it. I hate to say it. Bit then what can possibly be done to fix the rest. Oh the headrails…I cant look it anymore, LoL Good luck to those building it. It will certainly be interesting to watch.

Nope…those are gone once deleted. Sorry

That can be easily rectified. .....in fact its done along with a few other fan favorites. Now in nautical general discussion. As for the remaining....stick a fork in my eye....do I really have to go through this nonsense? I could be model building instead? Literally dozens more posted every few minutes....sometimes I hate my job. 150,000 posts to weed through.

Stevinee...yes you are correct. But it got out of hand. We thought it would be used by members to showcase other hobbies....The gardening....maybe astronomy or photography among birthday greetings etc. Maybe a few fun topics. But as with all things a few bad apples even after being warned used the forum for their own personal facebook site. Posting bad jokes and memes and minions....by the thousands. That is never what we ever thought it was going to turn into or become. A distraction. So no harm done. There may be a few members that are so put off by its removal that they leave....but remember they never posting anything else but that stuff. So no great loss. I hope this rebalances the site and maybe in the future we can bring it back. But I fear it would be impossible to police and moderate properly. There will always be somebody that says his love of funny traffic signs is his other hobby and just as important as someone's other hobby of gardening. And thus we will always end up with talking and dancing cats....bad jokes and quirky "doctors office moments" or "your funniest cooking mistake...the list is endless. That is called facebook. Back to model building!!! Chuck

The non ship model builds are still there. In fact its more prominent. That section has not been removed at all. AND it wont ever be removed. Just the meme forum was temporarily removed!!! Its still a model. I think dancing cats and bad dad jokes are a far cry from other model building content. Not even close or fair to compare the two...where many of the same techniques are used and described which helps folks. You guys would not believe that as much as 45% to 50% of the posts made every day were of dancing cats and funny signs. Somewhere many of you have lost your focus of what this site is all about. Many of you post upwards of a dozen useless jokes and cartoons each day while not posting anything else ship model related. This is NOT that kind of site. Stick to model building stuff!!! Its great to post a few off topic posts...but too many of the usual suspects took the site for granted at everyone else's expense for their own personal gratification. I have been one of the longest members here being member number tTWO actually. I might have 100 topics that I have posted since then...but we literally had two guys that havent been here half as long as me who have posted HUNDREDS of these meme topics. Hundreds if not thousands of copy/pasted photos of nonsense. AND zero.....I repeat...zero stand alone topics that have anything to do with model building. Funny thing...I spent a half hour pruning about 30 photos that literally had copyright watermarks on them. When I returned to the shore leave forum after that, I discovered that the same freaking guy had posted about 40 more new ones. How is that even possible? I could just give that guy the boot and maybe a half dozen others as they were warned many times. But it always ...always goes back to the way it was. This unfortunately snowballed and encouraged many of our members who do actually post model stuff to also pile on and post a several nonsense topics. The sheer number of these topics/photos and distractions are NOT good for advancing ship modeling as a whole. And its not fun for our moderators and admin. not fair to compare to this.....I have 150,000 of these useless posts and topics to wade through...Thanks guys.

Lots of cat memes and funny sign photos to prune for copyright infringements and yada yada... Over 150,000 posts of "what folks had for dinner" and "Old guy parking quirks" This may take a while. In the meanwhile....direct your attention to the other forum areas dedicated to the wonderful world of ship modeling!!! AND please.....do not post one Minion meme in any of the other areas.....wink wink....you know who you are...resist the urge. And yes we still do have a Nautical General discussion forum that should fit your needs for most other stuff other than topics about "those old jokes" and the likes.

That looks very good so far.

Beautiful progress…and its good to see you back at it. if the museum would be up to it…ask them if you could post progress on the restoration. Sounds like an interesting project.

Lovely design...I am eagerly awaiting your progress. Chuck

Unfortunately when you are using the woods we use it becomes impossible to outsource. That creates another huge problem. Getting enough wood milled in Boxwood or Yellow Cedar is tough enough. Having it shipped to supply another laser cutter is impossible. The costs would increase by another 30 to 35%. I Have gotten quotes for laser cutting and its ridiculous. In fact I do outsource some laser cutting where I use plywood, the Winnie bulkheads for example. But the limited woods they carry are problematic unless I start using Basswood like every other manufacturer. I may laser cut one Speedwell in Basswood just to see how it looks. But I have to find someone willing to build it. If it works I could have a dozen ready to go in no time at all!!! But if someone is spending this money they dont want to use basswood. If I were to use Basswood or any other wood not suitable for better ship models it would be an easy solution. I would be cutting more Speedwell parts right now if I had the milled wood on the shelf. Logistics are awful. But like I said…I wont limit the number of Speedwell kits but they will be slow in the making. Getting regular shipments of 100's of milled yellow cedar sheets or Boxwood sheets is not an easy task. And its super expensive. I will always keep one or two of each chapter on the shelf. Remember at the same time I am still laser cutting Winnie parts and Cheerful parts and a whole host of others. Laser time is the easy part...getting material is another.

Beautifully done...

Looking great…and that is some fine looking rope.

Absolutely beautiful!!!

Thanks...I am really happy with the frieze thus far in the project. Just a quick update that I have finished the port side molding and friezes which is nice. That completes chapter 3. Next up I will start work on the outboard stern details and carvings. That will fill up chapter 4 so I can start work on the interior in chapter 5. Have a great week guys!!!

Excellent progress. And your carvings look fantastic. I too got stuck with those poor chisels from micromark.

That looks very good. You have been busy. Chuck

Looks good to my eye.

January….but maybe earlier if I can get enough milled wood.

I am not sure yet. I may actually just skip the POB all together and if I only sell a handful of Speedwell POF kits then so be it. And then move onto the smaller subjects I started. It is what it is. I am still mulling it over. Its a big decision. But so far there are about 9 pof kits reserved. I will just keep a couple on the shelf after making those first 9 and see where it goes. I decided not to put a number on how many POF kits I will eventually make. I will just keep one or two on the shelf and if they ever sell thats fine. If they do sell I will just make one or two more. Some other smaller prototypes in progress below. Hudson River Sloop and Block Island Fishing Boat. chuck

Just beautiful. Well done.

Thank you all who have contacted me. I have a grand total of 8 people who have reserved the first two chapters of the fully framed kit. I will laser cut those 8 and another 2 additional to keep on the shelf. Just in case. I am buying all of the supplies needed to complete them now and also getting the plans printed and starting to write the monograph chapters. Should be a fun project for those who are taking the plunge.

Its sadly not…that would be an entirely different model needed to be started from scratch. Just to let folks know because that request comes up a lot. Not just of me but I see folks ask other mfg’s as well. You just cant increase or decrease the size. Any change in scale requires quite a bit of redesign…as if you were starting from the beginning. Wood thicknesses and sizes will get too screwy and you couldnt use nominal common sizes. It would be such a headache.

There are so many cross sections out there already…good…bad…and ugly and everything in between. Two chapter one sets almost complete If I only sell 5 of these that will be fine…if I sell more, thats great too. But I am not gonna worry about it too much unless the Admiral finds out how much $$$ I lost on the project, LOL I might just push ahead with the POF only and just cut my losses…and move on to another project once this is done. That would be the smartest thing to do. LOL

Remember that is just for the first two chapters....although I have been discussing with Joe my wood supplier and we have come up with a plan to make things a lot more plausible. Yes its about $500 my cost for those first two chapters after its all said and done....Plans, Licensing fee, packaging, laser time and wood. This doesnt include the design time or time to write the instructions etc. Its really not a smart business decision...its more of a labor of love and I really wanted to build it for myself. So there is that satisfaction. That is pretty much the only way to do it. I couldnt possibly ask Joe to mill the hundreds of sheets of wood needed at one time. So I will be making just one or two chapter sets at a time as my wood supply allows. I will of course make the initial 5 sets of chapters one and two to start. I already have two sets laser cut....three more to go. Chuck

Yes indeed it does Greg And just to clarify...when I say POB it isnt the traditional POB. I have known for some time that few would ever pay this much money for a quality POF kit. I have planned for the last year to make sure that I could recoup my initial investment. I have had a design in POB made and ready to go for a while now. Just in case. Forget everything you know about previous POB designs. This version will look identical to the fully framed version. But it will let you fully detail all of the interior. It is basically the same kit with less than half the frames.