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Looking real good Dennis, nice and fair. Sam

Hmmmmm. perhaps we should all buy stock in Charmin? Sam

Well done Rich! You are an inspiration to us all. Sam

Ron, So if you brushed a very thin coat of clear over both the bare wood and the masking at the same time that might stop the bleed. I am a fan of shellac, maybe a 1/2 pound or one pound cut in this instance. Sam

J, Our comments crossed in the either, I agree, that is the fiddly part. Sam

Thanks everyone and to all who hit the Like button. Carl, agree, its not quite as bad as the picture makes it look, the angle I shot from exaggerates it, but it is a bit short. Then again, I could always put the taller hands on that side..... Mark, I did something similar, rather than white glue I used artist matte medium. The thing I am really struggling with at the moment is getting the horses to hang straight for some reason. My Fore Top Yard is better, but still some flaws. Like Carl said, I have plenty of time to re-re-redo things, however what I dont have is rope to keep re-doing and finish without making another purchase. Dennis, It has calmed down here a bit, might get crazy again come the weekend. We will be ok, Better Half is still working, for the moment. She works at a school that teaches cinematic makeup, prosthetics etc. They closed the classrooms and sent all the teachers home Monday but there is a skeleton crew holding the fort down till at least the end of the week. We will be fine; I was watching what was going on in China way back in early Feb. and started buying some extra shelf stable goods, a little bit each week just to be ahead of the freakout if/when it came. Glad I did, on Saturday when I went into my local neighborhood grocery store for fresh produce and meat for the week there was a feeding frenzy going on. It was two hours before I got out with just a basic purchase of meats, fruits and veggies. Oh, and for some reason I felt the need to buy a 5 pound package of American style Swiss Cheese.....! Not even the real thing. 😂😂 Fortunately almost everybody was being pretty stoic about the whole thing, extra polite, very little cutting/pushing/shoving. However, there was one guy, every time I got anywhere near him he was ranting about how this is all this political figures' fault. Broken record, he was worse than me complaining about not being able to work on my build!😂 Other than that, we have a saving account and an earthquake kit, we wont starve. Now, does anybody know where I can get a years supply of toilet paper???? And, who wants a grilled cheese sandwich with me??? Current progress on the Fore Top Yard. You can see what I mean about the Horses not hanging straight. I clipped a alligator clip to the ring adn painted it with matte meduim but they still want to go screwy on me. I need to spend some more time with PS Elements, apparently there is no way to write custom actions, sub-optimal. I have to go poking around my old PS folders and find my actions and transfer them over. Sam

Thanks Gents. I will be fine, I have a build to finish finally! :) Sam

J, You could say that. I am healthy, no quarantine or anything like that. Just laid off do to all our projects being closed down.

Well, this virus is causing all kinds of havoc. My work closed yesterday for at least two weeks. I am expecting it to be more like two months. The two theme parks that provide the bulk of our business are both closed and since all of our current contract are onsite we can't work. Probably better that we are all home with family and staying away from others for a bit. The up side is I get time to work on my build again!! I spent today redoing the foot ropes on my Fore Yard as well as working on the Fore Top yard. The first round of foot rope came out all wonky and I have been staring at them for the last year whenever I was in the office. They are better now, not great but better. I also inadvertently upgraded my MAC OS to the latest version. The downside to that was I lost Photoshop, IView Pro and a couple of other programs. I found through the forums here that PS Elements was available as a non subscription download. (I really HATE subscriptions/cloud based software) So I also spent some time playing with that. Time will tell if it will be a replacement to PS or not. I dont need much. The same forum topic has some other options I can try also, we shall see. Below are a few picture of the "progress." Before After Not outstanding, but better. I will sleep on them and see how I feel about them in the morning.

I have been watching yours too Dennis. Just getting caught up with everyone now that I have some un requested time off. Sam

Hi J, You snucked a new build in on me!! Looks good. pulling up a chair. Sam

Ron, Its coming along. Regarding the bleed, refresh my memory, does the blackening react to the wood tannin in some way? If not could you do something like our scenic painters do? They will mask an area and then shoot a light coat of comparable clear over the area to be painted as well as the masking, then lay in their color. would that be an option for you to stop the bleeding. EDIT - I see you tried something like that. Missed it in my first read of your post. Although it appear you cleared up to the masking, maybe a bit of clear over the mask would help. Sam

Good Lord Mark,that is a visual I really didnt need. But I did need the laugh,thanks. I wont post it here for obvious reasons if you choose to look it up, but for some disturbing reason that old Sean Connery movie Zardoz came to mind with his red suspenders when I read that. 🥴 Sam

Mark, I could do both at the same time and STILL have that problem!!! 😀😀😀 Sam

Lou, I have the same problem with hearing. Its kind of nice when I dont want to hear what Better Half is saying....... It does suck when we are out and in a restaurant though, she has to yell at me err, raise her voice for me to hear her.😁 For your magnifier, I have been using one of these at home for my build: https://www.riogrande.com/Product/Megaview-Pro-LED-with-Three-Lenses/115719 Pricier than the Optivisr yes, I do like it better though. I have an Optivisor at work, I dont like the way it creates a tunnel vision with the sides; I like seeing what is coming at me from the side. Optivisor is what they buy so unless/until I choose to buy another one I will be an Optivisor user at work. Sam

Well Done Rich!! Sam

Rowboat, I just recently found your build and the time to post, nice progress! May I offer a suggestion if its not too late? Redo your stem so the grain the length of the stem rather than parallel to the water line. I am concerned you will forever be breaking and repairing it as you build. Looking forward to your progress. Sam

Mark, Great to see you back and on the upswing. Sam

Ron, Always a pleaseure dropping in on your build. Good to see you back and your usual outstanding workmanship. Sam

Well now, I guess this is what I get for not being around much, I have missed another cool build!! Crew and interior look great Lou. Sam

Well done Mark. Thanks for the build an the stories. Sam

Thanks all, and to all who hit the like button too. Continuous baby steps it seems like. One day.....One day she will be finished. I am to ornery to quit!! Carl, fortunately only one was left in the solution so there was only one to remake. No more progress other than a couple of blocks stropped. Got a call from Better Half this morning, her car wouldn't start. Its been pretty cold the last couple of mornings and her commute is only mile or two now that she is taking the train to work - a tank of gas lasts her all month. I dont think she is driving it enough to fully charge the battery during the week. It was at 12.15v when I got home, once I jumped started it it was showing 14.2 at idle so I am assuming the alternator is ok. It was 12.5 with the motor off after driving it for a couple of miles. We will see what it does after sitting on the charger overnight. The battery is less than 2 years old. Good times! LOL Sam

Well now, 4 weeks turned into more like 10 or 12. We delivered the project to the buyer and finished up some details on site. The last week was intense; start at 5 am work through to 8:30 PM to get out of the building we were in before a nightly fire works show. The entrance to the building is 75 feet from the main launch tubes so the building gets closed off for two hours. one night we decided to just work through as we had a final acceptance test the next morning. Holy Smokes, when those first rounds went off I about jumped out of my skin! We finished up took a couple of weeks off for the holidays then went back to it. Been driving down to a project location again 5 days a week. Start at 5am leave at 1:30pm. Its amazing what a difference a few hours makes; I can make it to the site in 30 minutes but it takes an hour and a half to get home sometimes. OK, enough rambling about non build related details. Last weekend I made my boom irons and blackened them. Apparently I left one in the solution and wandered off to do other things. When I went to clean them up and get some wax on them I could only find 3. HHmmmmmmm. Where on earth did it go, I know I made 4. Looks in the jar of blackening solution. Whats that line of black fuzziness? I bet thats my other iron, lets get the tweezers and dig it out. Hmm, cant grab it, whats up?? The wire I made the standoffs with had completely dissolved into powder, all that is left is a lump of brass ring that was the hoop. Ok, time to make another one, it just came out of the solution a few minutes ago. Three irons and a lump (sounds like a song), still need some clean up: Current state of my Fore Top Yard. Not much different than a few(?) weeks ago. Got the bands on and primed as well as moved the 4 stops to a more accurate position, apparently I had them too far out. Looking at the pictures I posted back in November I have shaped the Fore T'Gallent yard, now, where is THAT disappeared to?? Perhaps its time to clean the work bench? Nah, I would rather blame the dog..... Sam

LOL Mark. I use the dog as my excuse for build mistakes as well as other more "aromatic" occurrences. Sam

Mark, Nice progress and good to hear your sinuses are clearing up. HHHmmmm.... Any possibility this was a coincident? They "Just Happened" to have a light flash on just in time to land at a nudist camp??? I mean, a crew of lonely young testosterone laden men in or just out of there teens flying over a nudist camp? Seems like a fairly creative way to spend an hour or two. 😁😁 I was at work the other day and the subject of the blimp hangers came up - one of the guys parents live over that way. He mentioned they are so large they have their own weather system inside them??? Seems unlikely to me, do you know of or recall anything like that? It gets cold and misty in Orange County where these hangers are, perhaps its condensation forming on the steel and dripping he is referring to? Sam