Here we go.. New modeler; new member.

[Achu]

Greetings to all! And, especially to those who have unknowingly helped me already, as I've been looking through past posts and tutorials for the past two weeks. You all are so kind! 

 

A quick about me: Born and raised on the New England Coast. I do contract work, so I have gaps of time that allow me to step aside and focus on hobbies, reading etc. When I was younger I made airplane models, but never at any great detail (glue, brush some paint on, stick on the decals, voila). But I got the itch to return to modeling over the winter, and I've been reading Patrick O'Brian so I thought, "hey, why not a ship?" Well, after two weeks of working on the Constructo Albatros I can give you a lot of reasons.

 

Just kidding. I'm having an absolute blast! I'll post the first in a build log as soon as I'm done with the introduction here. Even just getting ready to start the build had me working on my "shipyard" so I'll show a little of that.

 

 

Picked up a street-side plywood table for a few dollars, planed, sanded, filled, sanded, filled, sanded, and varnished. Put about 6-7 coats of poly on the top and got it nice and smooth. Tools purchased for the "yard" so far: Small plastic squares, small rulers, sanding sticks in various grits, the Zona mitre box and fine-kerf saw seen above, and various clamping devices. Oh, and that big new xacto mat. (Had to protect the new table!) Dug out the old xacto handle and got some new #11s as well, and also some glue: Loctite CA, Elmer's white and TB II. 

 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the help that I'm sure is soon to come. It will be needed!

 

 

 

[mtaylor]

[DaveRow]

Good desk, refurb.

I used an old T&G toilet door as my desk.

Dave R

[Jim Lad]

Helloa Achu, and a warm welcome to the forum from 'Down Under'.

 

John

[geoff]

Welcome to MSW "ACHU" (bless you)! All the best, Geoff

[John Allen]

Welcome,

 

Looks like your ready to go. Was your contract work with a secret government agency?

 

John

[EJ_L]

Welcome to MSW! Nice job on turning that table into a shipyard. Looks like you will have a nice place to work on your Albatros. Best of luck to you on your build and I look forward to seeing your progress.

[husky1943]

Howdy Achu! 

 

Welcome to the forum.  I really like the desk.  Now, put that bad boy to good use.  Look forward to seeing your work!

 

Ciao for now

Rob

[Baker]

Welcome,

 

 

Groetjes

Greetings

[markjay]

[Ulises Victoria]

 from Monterrey, Mexico

 

The most important thing I see in your setup, is that mug of coffee. 

 

Best wishes on your project.

 

Ulises

[Anja]

Welcome aboard Achu,

 

Good luck with your Albatros.  If needed, you'll find plenty of advise, help and encouragement from everyone.

I wish you smooth sailing and happy modelling.

Regards,

Anja

[Guest Riccardo1966]

Hi Achu, I'm new here also and am learning a great deal already. There are some hugely skillful model makers here who are generous with their knowledge and advice.

All the best Richard

[pirozzi]

Welcome aboard mate. 👍😃

[Nirvana]

Pacific North West says

[vossiewulf]

Welcome Achu! Being a hardened, grizzled, steely-eyed veteran ship constructor with like three months and one third of one ship under my belt, I can say do as much girding of thy modeling loins as possible, both in terms of tools and knowledge.

 

And the single most important thing I think I've learned is that this is not a craft where one even considers leaping without looking. You look. Then you do it several more times. You walk across the valley to see what the leap looks like from that angle. And three or four more places around the area, including renting Mr. Henderson's hot air balloon for an aerial view.

 

A bit of laser range-finding later, we know exactly how high cliff is and the angle of the leap, the effect of the updraft on final impact velocity, and exactly what bones you will be breaking and in what order.

 

At that point you're sure you're ready for the leap. You're wrong :). You have to then make sure you'll get the best ambulance service and that the road into the quarry is clearly marked and level enough for a standard ambulance to navigate. And then because you'll be unconscious you tattoo on your chest to go to Mercy hospital and take 82 because 95 is down to two lanes near Simpsonville.

 

Click on the link in my signature and you'll see me make a series of mistakes, every one of which can be traced to not following some part of the steps above- either not looking long and hard enough to see a problem that already exists or not walking through the next steps in enough detail to see that my cunning plan had not been thought through.

 

Then go read some build logs from one of the master scratchbuilders and watch those things not happen because there are no ambushes or surprising events for which they weren't prepared. And that in the end they make progress faster even though they're spending five times as much time preparing and double checking than less experienced builders.

 

The wonderful thing about this site and the community is that if you feel the slightest doubt or aren't sure if you're seeing all the woods that that need to be checked for hiding bears, just pause and ask a question. You'll get an answer from minutes to a few hours from people who've already built the kit and know three ways to handle whatever has you bothered.

 

I have a friend who wants to do ship modeling and asked me what tools he needs; although I'm new to ships I've been building aircraft and other things for a quite long time and I'm pretty well equipped. Instead of trying to list many things I just put everything I had been using to build the hull on my workbench and took some pics. You don't need everything you see here, for example you can probably struggle by with less than four knives and only one rotary tool. But you will find everything here useful and they will make many tasks easier and faster. You'll soon figure out which ones you want/need most and can set a priority order for buying. You'll of course get good advice here on what exactly to get and who has the best prices.

 

Only thing hard to see is overflowing clear stand top left, inside are like 8 kinds of scissors including tiny Castroviejo ophthalmic surgery scissors and lots of forceps and tweezers and splinter forceps and diamond files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pierretessier]

Welcome to MSW

[Achu]

Thank you to everyone. I've started my log and it can be found here.

[KingDavid]

Welcome to Model Ship World ! and the best of luck!

 

[Eddie]

Hey howya goin mate welcome.