Hello everyone!
I am a new member from land-locked Utah (presently, at least), but have lived on both coasts. As I mentioned in my profile post, I am a university professor and professional artist, and have extensive experience in construction, carpentry, and woodworking. I have been building models since I was very young, almost always modifying them and often scratch-building them.
Life in miniature is a constant source of fascination for me. Probably my most ambitious project was a scale model of the Verazzano-Narrows bridge I scratchbuilt as a 15-year-old out of wood, metal, and heavy thread—from plans I drew myself with the help of library books and long-distance snail-mail correspondence with some very kind and patient engineers.
I started a wooden ship model (a Bluenose) years ago, but soon realized that I lacked the knowledge to build it well, and doing anything halfway is not in my nature. “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing to excess” is the dictum that rules my life, much to my family’s frustration at times. So, I returned to building scale airplanes until I could acquire the necessary skills for ship modeling. In the meantime, I learned to sail and have spent years reading books (and lately forums) on ships and model shipbuilding (and am thus familiar with some of your names from your plans, designs, and publications—and am grateful for the learning you have generously shared!). As I am now nearing retirement, I’ve been actively perusing this forum and model-building again for about 6 months (starting with the excellent Model Shipways shipwright kits,) and feel I am ready to start posting (assuming that I can learn to navigate the bewildering technicalities of an online forum).
I look forward to “meeting” you all, drawing on your experience, and hopefully contributing one or two things that might prove helpful to others. Thank you in advance for your friendship!