Ramble Intro

[Mowzer]

 

After lurking on this site for a few months now, I read a feature in the paper over the weekend saying that lurking on social media is bad for us. Apparently, it’s rather like going to the pub on our own and standing at the bar with a pint, watching everyone else having fun enjoying animated conversations, but not joining in and feeling increasingly sad. 

 

So- maybe I should introduce myself.  

 

Ok, deep breath-

 

Hello everyone, my name’s Gareth and I’m an alco-

Wait, no, wrong group. 

 

Try again.

 

So a bit about me. I think my story is going to be familiar to many of us here. Many years of working for a living, and then having an urge to return to the simpler pleasures of when we were younger- model building- but now, instead of pocket-money models, we now have the rewards from those years of work to be able to pick the big expensive kits off the top shelf. 

I made a lifestyle decision to take a sort of early semi-retirement at 55, feeling horribly burnt out, and started to find that a bit of model building was hugely therapeutic. I don’t think I’m the only one here who has a tendency towards stress- but who also finds that sitting down with their modelling project is hugely calming.

Over the last few years of stressy work, I self-medicated with Lego and paint-by-numbers, but with a bit more time on my hands, I wondered if I could relive that feeling of being in my early teens with nothing to do all day but building airfix kits? A couple of aircraft later, and I was hooked. But then, you will all know how it goes, once you’re on that path, you find yourself craving a bigger and bigger hit each time, and I quickly needed to get my fix from larger, more expensive kits, and then wondered if it was possible to build one of those tall ship models with all the complicated rigging and stuff?

I’ve done some cabinet making in the past, so had a bit of faith in my ability to work with wood- but had no faith in my ability to do the rigging. But then again, I could spend days and days on Model Ship World learning about the techniques...

Much internet-based research was done and Occre’s Beagle arrived on my doorstep.  A few months later, and I can confirm that these ship kits are indeed the crack cocaine of model building. There is no going back now. 

 

In hindsight, I should have jumped in and done a Beagle build log here, if only to list the errors and mistakes in Occre’s instructions. I’d opened the box assuming that a kit's instructions would be comprehensive, or, at least, correct.  Neither is the case. I was annoyed right from the first page, where I was trying to distinguish “lime” from “sycamore” strips in my kit (there is only one type of pale wood in the box), right through to the rigging, where the written instructions show one thing, the video instructions show something entirely different, and the picture on the box shows a third way. Other ropes have no indication at all as to where they should tie off. 

Discussing these points in a group like this- or at least ranting about them- would have been helpful. 

 

However, I’ve been hugely wary of these online forums and social media. I’ve been put off joining in by a certain sort of expert on modelling forums who feel the need to criticise every small detail in others’ work. I remember one guy on another group who had posted up his progress saying how much he was enjoying putting together one of the bigger plastic aircraft kits, but then other people said he’d be doing better if he modified everything to enhance the historical detail; he replied saying that the pleasure he got from the hobby was constructing the kit as it was, out of the box, without having to think too much. One comment on this was “so you’re not a modeller, you’re just an assembler.”

 Someone else asked for some help and advice on a plastic model aircraft facebook group recently and got told by one of the experts, “put it back on the shelf and work though a simpler kit until you can learn to do it properly”.  On “another wooden model ship forum”, some of the most experienced modellers tell us that while their scratch-built models are the correct way to do it, us kit builders are “just doing paint by numbers”. 

I’ve seen dedicated kit builders ridiculed because, for example, the hinges on their ship's cabin doors are on the wrong side and “if you're not going to do it properly, you shouldn’t be doing it at all.”

 

So I’m going to say something now which might have some forum members throwing chairs around in rage and getting myself banned before I’ve even begun: I just like the quiet craftsmanship of assembling a kit. I’m just not that interested in precise historical accuracy. My only actual experience of tall ships was a visit to the Trincomalee in Hartlepool when my partner was onboard telling Halloween stories to schoolchildren, in character as the “Dread Pirate Jemima” (how many of you feel a little bit sick at lack of historical accuracy here?) 

Also- compared to many of the beautiful precision builds I've seen on the build logs here- I’m just a bit rubbish. When I was baffled by the Beagle’s non-existent rigging directions, I was happy to tie off ropes in vaguely the right area and tell myself “that will do.”   I read some useful advice on another forum for these times: we can ask ourselves, “Is this model going in a museum?  Are you building this to impress others- or just yourself? And most importantly- are you enjoying building this?"

 

So can I issue a rallying cry to all the other lurkers here?  We might not be expert modellers. We might not get the details right. But maybe the joy of the hobby is just in heading to our man-caves and sticking bits of wood together. 

With this in mind- I’m going to set up my next build log as soon as I’ve posted this- fully aware that mine will never reach the standards that others have set. And that’s ok. 

Join me! Who else wants to share their less-than-stellar builds?

A useful phrase that I tell myself when building is, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.  My efforts will never be as good as those of people who have been honing their skills over years, so I’m not going to beat myself up about it. The danger is that if we chase perfection, we give up, or perhaps get discouraged and not even make a start. So- “that will do” and “that’s good enough” are useful phrases to work with. 

 

As for this intro, that will do.  

 

As the Beagle sails off into the sunset-  onto my new build log. 

 

 

 

[ccoyle]

49 minutes ago, Mowzer said:

A few months later, and I can confirm that these ship kits are indeed the crack cocaine of model building. There is no going back now.

 

Tell me you haven't tried a card model without telling me you haven't tried a card model. 😂

 

51 minutes ago, Mowzer said:

I’ve been put off joining in by a certain sort of expert on modelling forums who feel the need to criticise every small detail in others’ work.

 

We take a dim view of such experts at this site.

 

52 minutes ago, Mowzer said:

I just like the quiet craftsmanship of assembling a kit.

 

I have said this of myself many times. I feel no great urge to scratch-build something, although I greatly admire the artisanship of members who do. I just like to put things together.

 

So, welcome aboard!

 

 

 

[AJohnson]

Welcome to MSW! 
That is a fine looking Beagle you have made. 
Using your going to the Pub analogy, I am sure you will soon be a MSW “Regular”! 😆

[JacquesCousteau]

Welcome! Very nice work on the Beagle (despite the kit's issues). I hope you'll do a build log for your next model!

[Baker]

Very nice model 

And 

[Keith Black]

 Gareth, welcome to MSW. Love your humor,  you'll fit right in. Glad to have you aboard.