JP01

 Hi all; I am a Canadian born and presently retired financial analyst
 living out my retirement years in my newly adopted country of choice; 
Australia.  Yeah I am an immigrant just like those foreigners from 
Melbourne and I fell off the proverbial boat about 14 years ago after
 passing that great 4’ statue of “the bronze kangaroo” while coming into
 Freemantle harbor.  Presently  I am living in Perth which is one of
 the world’s great hotspots for money making but my eye is wandering
 and thoughts of moving to the Gold Coast on the other shore only a 
few miles away (by Perth standards) are growing daily.  Remember when
 you live in the most isolated city in the world, being Perth  then 
places like Bali , Singapore etc. are closer than the next big city 
of Adelaide; really.  Talk about the outback! 

Getting down to the business at hand; like most youngsters I went 
through the model stage with cars, planes and what have you but when 
it came to ship models their anchors seem to have hooked my heart. 
 Being brought up in an old fashion wood ship building shipyard in NS
 Canada it was only natural that my first major ship model in my early
 teens was, of course, the Bluenose.  My dear father who possessed
 over a hundred real half scale models of ships actually built from 
them was so proud he gave my Bluenose center place on the fireplace
 mantel.  Truth be told it was a piece of crap.  A few other plastic 
ships later and then along came that Cutty Sark by Revell 
(I think that is how “Revell”  is spelled).   What a ship! 
What a disaster!  That was a bit of an overshot for my abilities 
and if anything that retarded the construction greatly but after years 
of persistence and perseverance I finally got it completed.  I still 
have it and even though I have been offered to sell it I prefer to 
keep it around to remind me of all the mistakes I made, not the least
 overstepping my abilities, so I could constantly be reminded and 
become better in the future.  It’s a piece of crap also but it does 
not look that bad (on first glance, at least) lol. As they say 'in
 order to be able to write a good book you must first have to
 write a bunch of crap'. 

Business then caught up to me and that lasted for more than 
twenty-five years.  All the while I was buying tools etc. for the 
great wooden scratch build I was planning when I retired.  Most of 
those tools I probably will never use and given my financial 
background I kept a ledger of every penny spent and I am sorry to say
 I am now at round $23K spent and I am desperately in need of a 
Sherline mill and a better table saw not to mention …… you know the 
rest!

Well the big retirement finally came but to say I was burned out 
would have been an understatement and I paid for it dearly with about 
five years of medical blowouts and recoveries.  But throughout it all
 I spent my time thinking and researching modeling.  

I never realize what a wonderful  life I had being brought up in an 
old fashion wooden shipyard until someone recently asked me to write 
 a book about it as there are not too many of us left that can remember
 those days.  Every day after school and every weekend I was in the 
shipyard playing and had full run of the place. Please don’t ask why.
  I got to meet and become friends with the old time shipwrights, 
naval architects, blacksmiths,chaulkers and the list goes on and they
 continually taught me without me even realizing it. I remember 
spending hours standing there motionless and silent watching some old
 guy (probably 35) doing his trade, studying their ways, their odd 
tools and not saying a word as it was all going in.  Not a small feat
 for a kid of 10 plus years old.  Given the shipyard was in Lunenburg
 County Nova Scotia it is plain to see that during my time
 shipbuilding was mostly relegated to fishing ships.  I seen over a 
hundred real ships built from scratch.  The sailing ships of the past
 ended just before my time but I clearly remember seeing old pictures
 of  schooners and clippers built in that shipyard on the office walls 
but unfortunately built before my time.  The shipyard made just about
 everything for the ships except bolts and nails and engines. 
 Everything else was pretty well made in the various buildings and
 parts of the shipyard even down to the mutton bars for the ship 
“windows”.  Yes, I know they have another name in ship terminology
 but I always liked to keep it simple and follow the adage that if 
one cannot speak in a manner understandable to all present then he 
probably doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.  Of course 
when you are in the presence of similar minded people then a higher
 terminology than the man on the street may perhaps understand is 
rightfully in order and in that case being in the presence of model 
shipwrights in MSW then they are called “lights”.  Portholes, the 
shipyard did not make and to this day I never can figure out why we 
have portholes but not starboardholes.  Goes to show what I learnt 
and know.   I still remember and miss the great wall full of wooden
 shaper planes of just about every kind back in the days before routers
, shapers and mills.  The shipyard even had its own saw mill and I 
remember they had one express man whose sole job was to go out in the
 woods and just find knees.  Yes they still used wooden knees in my 
day.  It was all very mesmerizing, interesting, enlightening and 
memorable, to say the least, for a young man growing up.   Anyway , 
as they use to say in Lunenburg County  back then; “Nuff said for
 today on that”.  

Now that my health is back on even keel and I am finally getting 
real retirement time I hope to begin actually making sawdust shortly 
in the new year of 2020.  First the paperwork.  I want to try my hand
 at a true miniature model beginning at a scale of at least 1:200 
and see how those sizes work for me.  I propose to start off with a 
skipjack and slowly go up from there.  I propose to make a build log 
at the time but will probably post it retroactive, at least, for the
 first one. One could say 'I'm the shy type'!
 
I am the type that either talks too much or not at all.  Presently 
in MSW I am not talking much as there is really nothing for me to say
 or contribute to in light of so many experts on site.  Most of my 
reading on MSW relates to finished models so there is no talking on 
those sites even if I had something to contribute or to compliment. 
  In any event I will continue to prod along and hope to slowly get
 to know most of you over time.   All the best.  I remain,


JP

12SEP2019