Keith Black

Say what! And I thought building from photographs was hard

Pierre, welcome to MSW. I look forward to seeing your Bonhomme Richard.

Keith, I hope everything is good with you and yours, I'm looking forward to seeing a update.

Pat, thank you for your support and again for all your helpful links. Mark, thank you and I agree. Brain, thank you for tagging along and your continued support. MCB, thank you! Glen, thank you for stopping by and thank you for the complement. You make me laugh Mr. Keith, there aren't enough diplomas in the world to remove my 'Scarecrow' stain. Gary, that from one of my heroes means the world to me. Rob, thank you so much. I have no idea how many times I've gone to and through your Great Republic build rigging phase for insight and inspiration. A great big thank you to all for the likes and thank you to all for dropping by. After months of inactivity and setbacks, I'm finally making progress! Initially, stropping a single block was taking me almost 10 minutes, I'm down to two minutes at most with one minute being average. In time one develops techniques, fingers learn their respective rote, and a rhythm ensues. Therein lies the pleasure of the task for without that pleasure stropping some 400 to 450 blocks would become a burden destined for failure. I'm far for from completion but I'm out of the gate at a good clip. I'm currently working on the foremast and respective yards. The foreyard takes 18 blocks, the topsail yard, 14 and the topgallant yard, 7. I've attached some blocks to the foremast but many remain needing to be attached. The topsail yard needs to be painted, foot rope strung, and blocks glued in place and all the foreyards need to be sealed. At this scale, compromise is a necessity. I'm not using eyes and hooks, once the wire is wrapped round the block I twist the wire at the end and snip to length required and glue in the block's location. The reasons I'm not using hooks and eyes are, scale, my clumsy left hand, and tight working quarters. If I used hooks and eyes and during the final rigging stage a hook stretched or came unhooked, it wouldn't take but about fives times of that nonsense before I lost it. So to negate that outcome I'm just gluing the little buggers in place. I wish I had Eberhard's skills but alas....... I'm pleased with the scale of the blocks in relationship with the surrounding components and the coloration of the blocks. In my next post I'll go over the way I'm stropping blocks and how they're installed in detail with 8 x 10 black and white glossy photographs. I would have done so now but my camera needed to be feed right after the attached photos were taken. Thank you again to each and everyone of you!

Keith, the reason for the question........... as the real Germania is up for grabs for a little over five mil, I thought, what would your 36th scale be worth in comparison. 5,000,000 divided by the 36 scale = 138,888.00 which sounds like a ton of money for a model but considering the quality and detail accuracy, is it? 138,888.00 divided by say 3,000 hours is 46.29 per hour and divided by 4,000 hours = 34.72 per hour. Is your work worth 34.00 to 46.00 per hour? I would think that's pretty close to going rate for a high end machinist in todays world and Mr Google agrees. Could you get 138,888.00? Is it worth that much? More's been paid for a heck of a lot less, Jackson Pollock comes to mind.

David, may you heal quickly and completely. Hopefully your Mayflower build keeps you joyfully occupied.

Keith, how many hours including research (roughly) do you think you have into the Germania thus far? 2,000??

Fat chance of that happening, you have a captive audience. Keith, lovely work as always.

Eric, I'm not greater at anything above you or anyone, I am the lesser cog on the big wheel. The only advantage I may have is experience. Your idea is not stupid, I've tucked it away in my 'experience bag' and will undoubtedly someday pull it out and use it, thank you.

Mark, I think that would work as well as long as there wasn't any bow in the ply, in fact it might work better.

Eric, good tip but how do you keep the cap rails the same height from stem to stern when sanding the cap rails individually? Maybe another way would be to span the two cap rails with a smooth 10 inch flat file and work back and forth while gently exerting force in the middle of the file. This way you don't have to worry about pitch and the two cap rails are the same. Of course this method would require the hull to be rock steady.

What beautifully made hooks and that you were able to make working swivel hooks is incredible. Johann, your work is always the gold standard of ship modeling.

Shane, welcome to MSW.

Mark, welcome to MSW,

I see skirts and I don't think they're Scots. Pretty forward thinking for 1843. The male crew members will surely be impressed whether you are or not.

Keith, clever work and the band turned out great!

#'s 17 and 18 are also great blades

Steve, the hand that holds my X-Acto knife is almost 75 years old, can you beat that?

Lynn, reading ahead makes for planning ahead and that's a very good thing. Keep at it.

David, my best wishes for you. I'm almost 75 and feeling a sense of urgency to complete my model projects. Unfortunately, time is an unkind master for all of us.

Mike, both are 1:50 and the 401 has the winches. I searched everywhere and this is the only thing that even came close to the 476.

Mike, did you see this one? I checked my area Craigslist and Marketplace, nada. https://www.ebay.com/itm/383633084709?hash=item5952505125:g:cJEAAOSw~U1fDk8T

Jesse, welcome to MSW, I look forward to seeing your work.

Eric, I've just come across your Perry build. Please consider a 'thumbs up' for all post up till now. Nice clean work, I look forward following to the finish.

Not to rotate on but to help keep it held in position after glueing. A pin is just insurance to help make sure it doesn't come loose.