Zebulon B Vance by ESF - FINISHED - Dean's Marine - 1:96 - PLASTIC - RADIO

[Rcboater Bill]

Steve,

 

I may be too late now, but if I was doing that, I would have used strips of clear plastic to do a whole row of portholes, instead of cutting out individual pieces.  

 

The other thing you might want to consider is to randomly "close" some of them. Think of the windows at a hospital -- not every patient room has their blinds open at the same time of day.

 

Most portholes have an inner hinged cover that can be locked in place over the glass-- a damage control feature.  To close them,  I would just put a piece of what plastic over the clear from the inside.   From the outside, that will look like the glass, with a closed cover behind it.

 

One other thng to you might want to consider--  adding a light block to some of the cabins.   In most places, you should not  be able to see through the model.  Putting a thin piece of (dark) plastic down the centerline on the inside of the superstructure will block that.   

 

Finally, to your question about the bulwark braces--   it is very possible that they are not uniformly spaced on the real ship.  There will be deck fittings coming later, such as the chocks and bollards for securing mooring lines.  That might account for some of the unusual spacing....

 

Hope this isn't too late to be of help....

 

-Bill

Edited January 19, 2019 by Rcboater Bill
fix typos

[lmagna]

13 hours ago, ESF said:

might trigger a porthole competition

If it does Steve then count me out! I have already done all the continuous portholes I ever want to do. Doing that many without a break to do something else is pure masochism at the very least, and about as exciting as watching grass grow. That is why I have not even taken any pictures as yet. Unfortunately there can be no shortcuts as the hull will be lit and they have to be right. A few more and some interior work and I will at last be able to move on to something actually resembling model building!

[cog]

2 hours ago, lmagna said:

A few more and some interior work and I will at last be able to move on to something actually resembling model building!

Is that what you're doin' ... I thought you to be a porthole piercer  

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Well Lou, it looks like your pre-emptive and massive porthole strike created so much shock and awe that no one else is coming forward.  You are the porthole king.

 

Carl, I’ll be piercing portholes a while longer.  Hang in there, and thanks for staying around.

 

Roger, thank you for your very kind comment.  If I had 10% of the skill of the real scratch builders I’d be very happy indeed.

 

Bill, thank you for your suggestions.  Strips for glazing could be a challenge in this build because of all the support angles, door recesses, bulkhead stiffeners and such.  The light block is a good idea but it would have to be coordinated with the removable deck units and installed in such a way that it would have stiffness and structure when  the decks were out.  Perhaps not on this build but I will keep it in mind for future work.

Almost portholed myself into a corner.  After using up the kit sheet, I finished the glazing with the acetate sheet from the art supply store.  The kit sheet had a colored protector sheet to peel off one side.  When I started with the new sheet it didn’t occur to me that it might have a protector sheet on both sides.  I was about four portholes into it when I looked closely at the sheet edge and noticed the telltale extra lines on either side.  Sure enough, when I poked at one of the installed pieces of new sheet it popped right off since the CA didn’t adhere to the cover.  The good news was that the other three popped right off too.  After removing both protector sheets the remaining glazing stuck well and was finished up in sort of short order.

 

I started on the wing dodgers - tricky bits that follow a tight compound curve, must be held tight to the bridge wall, and must be glued flush with the bottom edge of the bridge deck.  After  wrestling with the first one I realized that if I ran hot water over the second one it became very flexible.  So I bent it into a tight curve, taped it and let it sit overnight.  The forming made it easier to fit and progressively glue the second dodger.

Using my experience with the main foredeck bulwarks, the dodger bulwarks went smoothly.  I found that if the deck to “wall” is not perfectly 90 degrees, a tiny angled slice across the bottom of the bulwark triangle puts the two legs flush to the deck and wall.

A view of progress on the dodgers and doors.  Rightly or wrongly, I’m considering the double doors into the personnel cabin areas to be of a different type than the watertight doors at the utility and control rooms.

Along with the dodger bulwarks I had to add a few at the forward end wall of the boat deck.

I installed the sunshade over the bridge portholes after filing a small groove along the bridge wall to top deck intersection.  If anyone has any suggestions for supports under the sunshade, or blocking to strengthen the joint please chime in.

 

The top two decks are getting closer to gluing together, after more painting is done.  I had to add some additional strips along the underside of the top deck to align the glue surface with the bottom edge of the bridge cabin walls.  The joint between the top and bridge decks needs to be strong since they are removed and replaced as a unit when servicing the RC bits.

[Kevin]

coming on in leaps and bounds now, lovely work

[Rcboater Bill]

Robert,

 

I’m really enjoying your build- it is looking great, and will surely be a impressive on the water!

 

I am a little surprised by the size of the triangular braces on the bulkheads/ spray shields around the bridge. I’ve been on a number of ships, and have never seen braces that big!  Standing a watch at sea there would be a challenge- those things are tripping hazards!  Makes we wonder if Deans had a drafting error...?

 

-Bill

[ESF]

Kevin, thank you for your kind comments.  I've only been a member for a year or so and I'm catching up on other builds.  When I clicked on your HMS Fife I was blown away.  Simply magnificent.  Makes the Vance look like a rowboat.

 

Bill, the size of the dodger/spray shield braces surprised me too.  Since I'm basically ignorant of how the real ships were detailed, and since this is only my second build, I tend to rely on the instructions and laser cut pieces to be accurate.  The instructions are limited to a single line drawing with no scale, showing a triangle to be placed inside. The installed triangles were the smallest ones in the carrier sheet and the long leg matched the height of the spray shield.   Looking back through the various prototype build photos  included with the kit, I found that the triangles were smaller in one picture, in another picture they were vertical strips with a short taper at the top, and in a third photo they were straight vertical strips with no taper.  I guess the choice is to leave the tripping hazard, although I thought it had a nice, if non-functional pattern to it; try trimming back some of the horizontal leg, or rip the whole thing out and do-over.  This news is coming on the same day that the admiral called to tell me our formerly pristine ceiling in the TV room was dripping due to a roof leak after a driving rain on top of the 14 inches of snow that fell over the weekend.  I may take the easy way out, but I'll have to mull it over and thank you for bringing it to my attention.

 

To everyone else, thanks for all the likes, and thanks for stopping by.

 

Steve 

[Kevin]

Have you tried to obtain some decent plans, from the likes of the company that built her

possibly the uprights were changed over time, loads of steel triangles certainly add to top weight, and nothing would show lumber holes, to allow water to pass through, 

Certainly dont compare it to my builds, lol thats a recipe for disaster 

 

sorry about the water ingress

Edited January 25, 2019 by Kevin

[cog]

Looks to be going real smooth. Your doors turned out rather good

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Kevin, thanks for the roof leak sympathy.  It must have done something because the drip has temporarily subsided.  I looked for plans but was unsuccessful, at least without traveling 6 hours to check some unknown drawings near the National Capital.  The Vance made home in at least three shipyards during its short career, starting with its original construction as a Liberty ship in an extinct North Carolina shipyard, to it’s conversion to a hospital ship in Boston and finally to its quicky retrofit in Brooklyn for war bride use.  When I found the kit of its sister ship St. Olaf I figured I was home free and stopped looking.  But I see from your build that detailed plans may be out there if you know where to look.

 

Carl, thanks for your compliment.  I think the huge expanse of white walls tends to minimize the darkness of the door highlights.

 

Steve

During the requisite mulling over on whether to attack the oversized wing dodger braces, I stood up a spare triangle to see how much effort would be involved if I tried to pare it down vertically.  With a new chisel blade in the large X-acto I pushed down and was able to cleave the toe (actually a good part of its lower leg) off.  Not too much effort and it looked doable on deck.  Then I realized I could use the test piece as a template by tweezering it against each brace.  And it worked!  There’s a little chiseling and sanding to smooth out the deck, and painting for the deck and dodgers, but the little sailors can take comfort that the trip hazard is removed but they still have something to hold onto😊

On a roll now, I installed the breakwater.  Not wanting to encounter the same size problem I decided to trim back the triangles so the base legs were all the same length and the vertical legs would follow the top slope.  Once I got the cut order figured out the braces were fitted without incident.

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Steve

I added some simple brackets for the sunshade.  The bronze look to the door opening is a light reflection on the black surface.

A photo of the ship  showed the edge of the extended top deck over the bridge doors to be deeper than just the thickness of the top deck so I'm adding a fascia around the edge.

The bridge and top decks are painted gray.  During the painting I managed to drip a large blob down the side of the cabin wall, even extending into a porthole.  Fortunately some quick work with thinner cleaned up the mess.  I’m debating whether to paint the sunshade topside to match the deck color, or white to match the cabin walls.  The sunshade underside and brackets will be white.

The half round trim thqt I pre-painted white will wrap the bridge and top decks.

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Steve

Decks are painted.  The half round edging work was a bit fiddly at the aft bridge deck.  Thankfully I had just enough - about an inch to spare - to finish the perimeter of both decks.

I cleaned up the navigation lights and gave them a coat of brass paint before adding color for the lenses.

I mixed a little black with the green and red at the nav light recesses to tone down the look.  Still needs dullcote, but the navigation light housing assemblies are now glued in place.  I'm working on the oops at the forward end of the join.  The promenade fiberglass was fat in this area, and the curved forward end of the promenade wall didn't quite align with the forward corner of the nav light assembly.  After the schmooze is smoothed we'll see how it looks.

The drawings and build photos show a spare prop mounted on the foredeck.  Since I purchased a real brass prop for sailing I used the kit metal prop for the spare, painted brass.  I think it needs dullcote too.  I anchored it with a short wood peg set in a shallow recess in the deck. Would the prop have been covered in canvas, or tied down in any way?

The funnel comes in two vac-formed pieces that must be cut from the sheet, trimmed and sanded.  Tabs must be added to the inside of one piece to help align with the other piece, but at the curved areas the tabs seemed to get in the way, with the end result being a need for auto glazing putty to fill and smooth out the joints and unintended overlaps.  The completed funnel is then fitted to a recess in the radio room after much sanding to match curve to curve.  The joint will get a piece of trim.  The top deck is still not glued to the bridge deck, hence the gap.

An overview of progress to date.  It's a challenge to get all the ship in a photo, but the strongest light is in the narrowest room.  Most everything is still loose and in need of paint.  Besides the funnel/radio room, the top deck work so far includes the lift machinery room with a locker at each side.

 

Below are a few more views.

The circles are raised pads that had red crosses during hospital use.  I’m assuming the quickie conversion to personnel carrier left the pads but painted out the crosses.  There will be several more structures aft of the funnel, and a forward compass platform directly above the bridge.

[Kevin]

now looking like a ship, she looks great, are you happy with the progress made, and would you recommend this kit to others

[cog]

Steve,

I'm drooling ... marvelous build ... I would expect the screw on the deck to be fixed so heavy weather wouldn't make it run on the deck. Come to think of it, it may be on top of an axle like mount and fixed as if on the prop shaft ... you need to find out unfortunately I can't help you out just now

[Rcboater Bill]

Steve

 

That is very unusual- I have never seen a spare prop carried on the foc’sle like that - on any ship, any size.  (Real or model.).   I am really surprised the Dean’s kit tells you to do that.  As a former sea-going officer, it just doesn’t make sense to me - it is not like a spare tire on a car.  Props for a ship that big are huge, heavy, and expensive.  A ship needs to be in dry dock to swap it out- it is not something the crew could do while at anchor.  

 

If a spare prop was on board, it would likely be crated, and stored in the hold- no sense in having all that extra weight topside.  If it was carried topside, it would have to be very thoroughly tied down, so it can’t move. 

 

I’m curious, does the kit kit include a photo or other evidence this was ever really done on the Vance or her sisters?  As I said, it seems odd to me, but it also seems unlikely that Deans just made it up.   It is possible, I suppose, that an empty hospital ship on its way to the war zone could be used for an urgent delivery to a forward base. But that would be a very unusual...

 

Do any of the photos in your Hospital Ships book show this?   

 

You’ve got me really curious......

 

-Bill

 

PS-  I am loving your build- you are doing a fabulous job, and   I think it is looking great, and will really be something on the water.   You even have me looking at photos onlin, thinking  “Maybe I should build a hospital ship out of my extra freighter hull.”

Edited February 9, 2019 by Rcboater Bill
Fix typos

[Kevin]

carrying a damaged one, is about all i found so far

Taiwanese ship Wei Lee in Sydney HarbourDamaged bronze spare propeller January 17 1983

[Rcboater Bill]

Kevin,

 

That is an interesting photo - thanks for sharing it.  You can see that a prop is going to be there for a voyage- you can see the anchor points on the deck for each end of the tie downs that go over the prop blades. 

 

This is what I love about forums like this- you can learn something new from people all over the world.  

 

I couldn't find any info about what type of ship the Wei Lee is, so I’m not sure how relevant it is to my earlier question.  But I did say I had never seen a prop stored like that, and now I have!

(I still think it is a weird thing to put on a hospital ship!).  😎

 

-Bill

Edited February 10, 2019 by Rcboater Bill

[cog]

40 minutes ago, Rcboater Bill said:

What ship is it from?

look at the image's subtitle: Wei Lee from Taiwan. I have to admit it is rather hard to see at first glance, especially when you see something unusual in the image

[Rcboater Bill]

Yes, I missed the name.   (In my defense, it comes up as tiny grey text on a black highlight on my tablet.)  

In light of this, I have edited my previous comments in post #107, so  they make more sense..

Edited February 10, 2019 by Rcboater Bill

[ESF]

To all who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Kevin, thanks for your compliments.  I'm pleased with the work to date, although there are many areas to do better or learn something new.  I don't progress as quickly as I'd like, but must balance shipbuilding with full time work and family.  I think the kit is generally well made, but have found some inconsistencies in dimensions requiring some splicing in of extra material, and there's a need to thoroughly read, read ahead and ponder what you have read when navigating the instructions.  Some pieces that are shown are not in the kit such as the microstrip for trimming the deck edges.  If you choose to build as an RC model you should purchase a well made rudder arm with integral set screw when you are buying the RC bits, because the cast metal one with the kit cannot be secured properly - a self tapping screw strips the threads it cuts in the soft metal.  But in general I'm enjoying the build and looking forward to the day it sails in the local pond.

 

Carl, I truly appreciate your hanging in there and your very kind feedback.

 

Bill, thanks also for your compliments.

 

To all:  The photo below from Emory A. Massman's wonderful book Hospital Ships of World War II - An Illustrated Reference, McFarland & Company, Inc. 1999; and courtesy of the United States Army Transport Museum, Fort Eustis, VA, shows and notes that spare propellors were stowed on the foredeck.  Of course I also see that I put too many braces on the breakwater and those on the bulwarks are too big, the wrong shape and too few!  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

 

Steve

[cog]

It looks like it's on some kind of squarish rack the blades tied down like on the Wei Lee. The hexnut haas been removed, as it will be used either on the axle, or has been stored elsewhere, and the hole has beentopped of by somekind of disk, no solid state it seems

Edited February 10, 2019 by cog

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, thanks for your picking up on the storage rack for the propellor.  I’m not sure if that is in cards since the prop is anchored with CA and a large wood peg glued into the prop and partially set into the main deck.  Maybe I'll look into tiedowns into deck eyes.

 

Steve

Not a whole lot of work this week - family duties and a nasty cold that makes my nose run all over the worktable.  On the plus side I saw light at the end of the cabin construction tunnel.  In addition to four sides and a roof that must be cut from the laser sheet and sanded all sides, each cabin gets 2 stiffeners at each corner and 2 at each roof/wall intersection for a total of 16.  Each stiffener must be sanded on both sides and the edges to remove the ridge where the laser melts the styrene.  Then each cabin is positioned on four more strips glued to the deck.  Since they are almost all basically cubes it seems they could have been supplied as blocks of wood - but then again the portholes would be more of a challenge, and it probably would put too much weight up high - bad for stability.

The engine room vent is built but unpainted.  I had to fabricate the exhaust cap since the kit piece, which didn’t fit the plastic tube anyway, made a brief appearance and then sailed off into parts unknown.  The exhaust pipe seems tall but photos of the ship show it well above the vent roof ridge.  The vent hatch covers are either too thin or the etched layout lines were too widely spaced.  If the primer doesn't cover the lines I'll need to fill and sand.

I purchased some clear waterslide decal paper and ink jet printed a strip of depth markers, with a coat of dullcote for protection per the manufacturer’s recommendation.

I also printed up the ship’s name on clear decal.  The historic photos show the text about half the height of the promenade openings.  Does the position/size/font look about right?  I'm wondering if the text should have been white - the black on dark gray may not be very legible.

The circles on the top deck shown in the last update were taken off and I forgot to replace them before taking the pics today.

 

Since I’m getting perilously close to the railing adventure I did a takeoff to see how much railing will be needed.  Allowing for three bars at the perimeter, and one bar along the cabin walls, I need about 880 inches (22,352 mm?) of railing.  After cleaning out the LHS twice I think I have enough.  One question is whether I will need an angled strut every so often to stiffen the long runs of railing, or whether the medium CA will be sufficient.

[cog]

With regards to tying down the prop, you could use eybolts, this may be a source. You will probably be able to make something yourself based on these

 

Now I see her at dinner, Steve, she does match your interior quite well 

 

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, thanks for the link to the eyebolts.  If she sails in for dinner she better bring the food - otherwise there will be no room for it!

I’ve been squeezing in work on the top deck, around trying to recover from bronchitis that doesn’t want to quit.  I scraped within the footprints of the top deck cabins and the painted over red cross circle plates to get glue bonding, and added strips under each cabin to provide secure anchorage.  I also painted the cabins and cabin roofs, added glazing for the remaining portholes and installed doors at all top deck areas, and I painted the sunshade over the bridge.

The ship photo shows three stripes below the funnel top.  I’m assuming the funnel top is black and I surmised the three stripes might be red, white and blue to celebrate the war victory.  I have found no color photos of the Vance, but some other ship photos show red at the bottom.  It seems consistent with the photo since the bottom stripe is a bit lighter than the top stripe.  The middle stripe is wider and appears to be white.  So I masked the funnel and painted a blue top stripe, proportional in width to the one in the photo, left the middle stripe white, also in proportion, and finished with a red bottom stripe.  The result is below, although it hasn’t received its dullcote yet.

After stripping the masking the red stripe appeared to be swimming in a sea of white.  Returning to the photo I noticed that the funnel below the bottom stripe is something other than white, but not as dark as the bottom stripe.  This makes sense since the funnel had two large red crosses when in hospital mode that needed covering up during the quickie update to bride transporter.  So the question is, what color is the base of the funnel?  I’m thinking gray but if anyone has any insight please chime in.

I built a little jig for the multiple railings that go between the lifeboats on the boat deck.  Ship photos appear to scale about 8 feet wide, and also appear to show the railings lining up above the solid areas between the promenade openings.  To confirm the spacing I cut out the vac-formed lifeboats, cut some strip into 8 ft wide pieces and lined everything up on the boat deck.  As the photo shows it was too long, pushing the last boat all the way to the aft bridge, nothing like the real ship.  I started wondering if the lifeboats were too long and briefly looked into replacing them with something shorter, but there are 16 of them and I can’t justify the cost of that many replacements.  So I experimented with narrower railing sections and at 5 feet wide the layout seems much more workable, as shown below.

 

And yes, I know the lifeboats are upside down

[cog]

The funnel colour ...most probably a light grey, something like "off white"

 

4 hours ago, ESF said:

And yes, I know the lifeboats are upside down

And I thought it was a cover up ...

[ESF]

I'm having the same -200 upload error for photos as are many others.  I'm trying one of the suggestions, to upload text, then edit the text by adding photos.  We'll see how it goes.

 

Well, not only didn't it work, the attempted photo upload hung up and wouldn't do anything, not even a -200 error.

 

I have offloaded the text since it is boring without the pics.  I'll try again another day, but if it keeps up like this I may just abandon this whole posting thing altogether.  There's enough aggravation elsewhere in the world without having to get frustrated trying to share a model boat pic.  Rant completed.

Edited March 1, 2019 by ESF
being a glutton for punishment I tried uploading pics again - no luck

[cog]

200 shouldn't be an error but success in browser responses. Must be something else Steve. Something for the nerds to solve. maybe rights on the filesystem after an update or so ...

Would miss your rants though  

Edited March 1, 2019 by cog

[ESF]

Well, I am trying it during my lunch break and the pics have uploaded.  Not as sharp since I downsized them to email to myself.  So thanks for the likes, and Carl thanks for the paint suggestion on the funnel and for your moral support.

With construction of the top deck cabins complete I added the roof edge trim and doors.

I finished the engine room vent roof and added some highlights at the vents.

Then I started spraying dullcote to flatten out the funnel paint and the black infill at the open doors

Guess what - "Permanent" black marker loves to dissolve in Dullcote lacquer.  I now have about 4 doors that need paint restoration on the frame and surrounding wall.  And a question remains - what can I do to flatten the remaining black marker without having it drool all over?  Non-lacquer matte finish?

[cog]

I think you know the answer, but I'll just tell you: Matte clear varnish, either oil based or water based. You could do it with a rattle can ... Vallejo, Tamiya, Etcetera (Never tried the last brand thoug)

[ESF]

To those who gave likes, thank you and thanks for stopping by.

 

Carl, thanks for the matte varnish suggestion.  It worked well on the remaining doors, and the paint touch-up went without incident.  Lesson learned - if I muck up paint, give it a chance to dry rather than trying to wipe it off.

 

Steve

 

Bitsa this, bitsa that this week.

I fitted the PE ladders for the top deck cabins after giving them a shot of gray paint.  I need to work on straightening them out after some exuberant pressing during the installation.

The plan shows a circle near the front of the funnel, labeled with the steam whistle part number, but doesn’t show how it is installed.  Various ship photos typically show the whistle up tight to the funnel, but this would imply the bent pipe coming from within the radio room.  Alternatively the pipe could be flush with the funnel as shown in the pic.  Any votes on which way might be correct? Or should I snip off the angled part of the pipe and mount the whistle at the funnel front?  I’ve seen some mounted on what appears to be a pair of angle brackets fastened to the funnel.

The ship’s boats (16 of them) are vac formed.  I cut one out and after trimming the surrounding flash I installed a rub strip along the top edge, and added a seat support strip 4 mm down from the top.  When I test fitted the seat piece it appeared way too small.

This got me thinking about using covers in lieu of finishing the 16 interiors.  After checking several logs for ideas I experimented with several techniques.  First up was using an old handkerchief, stiffened with diluted PVA and sprayed with olive drab.  Before the glue and paint I wrapped the unfinished test boat with wax paper to keep the handkerchief from sticking to it.

The diluted PVA seemed to raise the grain in the cloth fibers.  When I pulled the wax paper off it seemed to take some of the fabric with it, leaving the cover somewhat transparent.  But the paint seemed to take some of the curse out of the raised grain.

Next up was using 3M tape made for sealing heating ducts.  This is a thin, foil faced material with good flexibility.  I applied it to a piece of copy paper, and then painted the tape.  The tape/paper combination proved quite strong but also quite smooth and less than flexible.  But I gave it a shot with lashing only (no glue).

The last test was 3M tape applied directly to the handkerchief, the thought being to get some texture but eliminate the transparency and add some strength.  I painted the handkerchief but avoided the dilute PVA.

The texture was better, there was good flexibility and by applying the tape in two pieces the assembly could be bent over the centerline of the boat.  If I go with covers I may use this method if I can figure out how to glue the shiny tape surface to the side of the boat.  The first try with CA pulled loose but that may have been a question of cleanliness, or lack thereof.

The tape/cloth combo seems much more presentable than the cloth/PVA attempt.

 

While working on the tests I mulled over what could be causing the mismatch between the boat and seat dimensions.  I saw that the boat looked quite deep and without a noticeable sheer line.  It occurred to me that the trimming might not only be for the horizontal flash, but also some vertical flash.  Looking at the boat closer I saw what appeared to be a faint sheer line, down about 4 mm from the top.  Casting caution to the wind I applied scissors and file to the boat and trimmed off everything above the line.  Voila, the boat proportions looked much better, it had a nice sheer, and the new location for the seat support  was at a narrower part of the hull - giving the seat a better fit.

So, now the decision is to either install the kit seat and floor boards, paint it all up and call it a day, or start working on covers.  Since I won’t be superdetailing the interiors I think the level of effort may be a tossup and I’ll probably go with the kit parts.  And from what I have read I believe the boats would have been uncovered while underway anyway.  If I don't use covers now at least it was an interesting learning experience.