Snug Harbor Johnny

Glen, If you want exposure to the best dramatization of the true Essex story, just watch the movie 'In the Heart of the Sea'. If you have to pay per view, it is WELL worth it. I found it a gripping story not just because of the 'main event' - a whale sinking a whaling ship - but the entire milieu of Nantucket whalers and their often precarious and always hard lives. Then AFTER the main event is a heart rending depiction of those who perished horribly on the whaleboats or on a tiny island waiting to be rescued, and those who survived ... and were evermore haunted by what they had to do to survive. You can stream it online, but it is far better to watch on a home screen at night. If you watch the trailer, you'll want to watch the film. And if the film doesn't inspire you to take on the SIB Essex challenge, nothing will. https://www.google.com/search?q=in+the+heart+of+the+sea&sca_esv=3d3f4dbf6750febd&rlz=1C5ZNUK_en&ei=ICsBaYacOYesiLMP8KCt0A8&ved=0ahUKEwiGrN2i4ceQAxUHFmIAHXBQC_oQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=in+the+heart+of+the+sea&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiF2luIHRoZSBoZWFydCBvZiB0aGUgc2VhMg0QLhiABBixAxhDGIoFMgsQABiABBiRAhiKBTILEC4YgAQYkQIYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyHBAuGIAEGLEDGEMYigUYlwUY3AQY3gQY4ATYAQFI_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&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3e6e3650,vid:K-H35Mpj4uk,st:0

Ahoy, Glen ! After wondering how to (possibly) top or at least equal the feat of you Queen Anne's Revenge spewing fire, I thought of something as a suggestion. How about a sperm whale striking the Essex? !! You might use a somewhat larger bottle and model in a larger scale for effect, so the ship can be at an angle inside and heeled just after the whale strike. The stove or depression would be just above the water level with the head of the whale also above water in contact with the hull, with waves and spray pushed out on either side of the white whale's head. Semi translucent blue water would show the body of the whale still under water, but the flukes of the tail could come out of the water - possibly flicking one of the whaleboats. The reason for an angled ship would be to allow the long whale body to be 'fore-and-aft' within the glass container - possibly a half gallon cider jug. The ship had stopped to harvest whales from a pod, so the sails would be hauled up to the yards, and there could be a couple more whaleboats watching the scene in horror - with small figures in the boats and also on the ship. I looked for some period images and pasted them below a imagination starters. Another option would be to have the ship be the Pequod and the whale Moby Dick.

Of course, straight files are the old-school standby.

'Don't know how anyone can top this cool project ... you've raised the bar for the rest of us mortals. Kudos !

I know what you mean about a parent throwing out stuff. Before I left for 6 months of payed internship in another state (yup, in the 70s they payed interns ... today companies get them for free - 'just for the opportunity'), I was told to organize a number of fossils collected over several teenage years (now unattainable due to privatization of sites and development) and pack them in a box. I did this with care and padding, taped the box and marked EACH of the six faces of the box with permanent black marker "FOSSILS" and placed it on a shelf in a basement storeroom where I was directed to keep the box. There was a next to last college semester after that and then another 6 months of payed internship, followed by the last semester (so the degree took me 5 years to earn). While packing my car ready to leave home and 'seek my fortune' I looked for the box of fossils ... but it was gone, along with most of the stuff that had been in the storeroom. Dad claimed never to have seen it when he 'organized and cleaned' the room - so it was said. He also didn't know what happened to my bike either ... until reminded by Mom and a brother reminded him that he'd donated it to Goodwill. He was angry that he was 'busted' about the bike, so I just let it (and the fossils) slide.

If you need narrow widths of relatively thin brass stock (still available in sheets), you can use a heavy-duty paper cutter (one-arm shear blade) to slice off thin strips.

I wonder if suitably sized 'hardware cloth' (metal mesh found in home/garden supply stores) could serve as railing. GREAT job on the pre-dreadnaught, Gramps ... and someday I may do a paper USS Baltimore seen in a MSW topic last year. I bought a downloaded version from the designers, then enlarged to the biggest size I could print.

Kudos, mate ! A great job in a challenging scale ! 253 hours over 121 days is a respectable pace. My side project was started the weekend before this past New Year's, and I logged 60 hours of actual work (in one month) before I set it aside to do the Admiral's list of jobs - as well as being 'stuck' on how to proceed. So the elapsed time since starting is over 9 months, but the work log has only 60 hours (I'm not counting the couple hundred hours spent thinking about it and looking it over from time to time). I'm guessing my work log hours should be about on par with yours in the end - whenever that might be. Fair sailing ! Johnny

'Heard that after 43 attempts, someone found the perfect mix for a toning stain for this kit ... They call it Grecian Formula 44.

Blame some sub-contractor. Or perhaps a plan or sketch got wrinkled or folded a bit after being approved by the King. Not wanting to offend the King, the construction went right-on ahead. I found a more recent 'example' of something like this from a 60s issue of Mad magazine: The bent fuselage of the Snud U-14 stood for many years as a Soviet military secret; only after the last example of this little-known type had safely crashed was it revealed. During the design stage in 1938, a blueprint had been wrinkled accidentally and because nobody would own up to responsibility-since damaging state property carried the death penalty-the mistake went unchecked and into production.

Thanks, Chris ! It worked like a charm. From time to time I learn new things about the MSW site - like moving the cursor over 'Everywhere' at the right of the search tab reveals all the topics that can act as a filter for a search. Johnny

New update on this project: I was asked if I'd sell the Sergal 1:65 Great Henry kit in a private message, and with mixed emotions I agreed to the request since: 1.) The original kit components had not been compromised - just a trial fitting of the hull frames, with a few pieces cut from the printed sheet stock; and 2.) he seemed to desire the kit either to build out of the box (or possibly to collect?). I did advise him of the large size of the kit model - some 51" in overall length and 36" keel to mast top. That was far larger than I had ever anticipated, ergo my desire to do a model in a more manageable size at 1:88 - so I could use the kit cannon/fittings. So I let go of the kit for someone who wanted it for what it was. That leaves me with my own drawings and hand made frames that are substantially different than the shapes of most of the frames that were in the kit. All the kit drawings and fittings went with the kit, of course. So what I have left is a scratch build, or at least one that may incorporate bits and pieces of commercially available fittings ... I don't intend to re-invent the wheel or do crazy things like making my own blocks, deadeyes, etc. Nor do I intend to go out and cut my own tree, saw into rough planks, age to dry, re-saw into stock that can be further re-sawn into planking wood. And forget trying to locate a source of metal ore, then smelting and purifying brass and iron to make metal stock that I can fashion metal fittings and cannon from. THAT would be "true scratch" building. I'd like to edit the title of this build, but don't see how at this point. Whatever ... the Sergal kit was an 'inspiration' that got me out of the starting blocks on a build of my own in a scale of my choosing. Seeing Baker's Mary Rose scratch build and Louie da Fly's re-build of a Great Henry (wow, and in a small scale no less) also influence what I can do on this project. Johnny

I bought the Khufu Solar Barge kit a few years ago (zootoys) with no problems, but that was pre-tariff. The engineering is good, as I covered in my MSW build log, yet building skills are still needed on a boat model. The instructions are all Japanese, but with patience I was able to translate with my phone and the Google Translate app. This helped explain the many pictures of assembly steps that came with the kit, as well as a couple other build logs and my own judgement - on a few things to do differently.

You could make it easier to do these details in 1:24 😉

Baggy-wrinkle : The effect of sun and salt spray on your face.