Another Black Swan & thanks DavidK

Hi Tank, They are fun & easy. The Cairo wasnt easy tho, but it is a beautiful kit. I think about $125. They are a great little company & put out nice kits. I believe it is Flagstaff. 

    I have never built a card model, but they show a cute little Riverboat on ebay. Might try it.

Hi Gene ;

   Listen , I love your Ironclads . I have about eight of them all referred to as " Card " or " Paper " models .They all built up to about the detail you have . I did cheat by using plastic boats , davits and other fiddly stuff .

 The fact of the thing is about small boats in card , they just don't seem to shape out right . Loved all your Pics . T.B.

Once again, a great collection of some of your models. Excellent work!!! I love your Constitution as well as the collection of ironclad ships. Fantastic and thanks for sharing these on this post. 

jtilley & goldhammer, Thank you very much. I just enjoy it all so much & move from one thing to another. I was on train layouts for years. We spent 25 years traveling all over the western US & Canada in the mining & logging areas. I designed & built houses anyway so I just designed & built logging & mining stuff in miniature.

      When I saw the work you all do & what David-K does , I knew this was home. I have never shown what I do other than send out pictures now that I know how to work a computer.

    You all on this site are the most gracious & helpful of any model form I have ever looked at. I still have a big collection of Fine Scale mags that if any one wants any let me know.I might even have them all the way back to the start.

  If anyone needs any info on building anything , I might be able to help. I have books on everything. I must have at least 200 fighters in 1/72, 1/48 & 1/32. I  have about 200 cars in varied scales, & still have 3 rigged sailing ships & 3 riverboats left. I meant to tell DavidK, when I read him say that he might sell his Black Swan & didn't want to many, with his talent fill up the house. I have a very understanding wife of 50 years, but I do have a few territorial limits.  Thanks again guys. 

                                                             Gene

Very impressed by your models.  You do museum quality work.

Gene 1, I can't recall the last time I saw such an impressive set of model photos. The combination of variety really is amazing. You seem to have mastered just about every genre of modeling there is.

Fox,  Jim, I just was able to see a lot of your great pictures, but still not the Duece. Try it again.   

   By the way, I just finished this 1/270 Heller Santa Maria last night in preperation for the big 1/60 one. It's not great, but I had fun & found out some things I can use.

Hey David, What kind of Race cars do you build? I have been going to races since I was 6 years old in 1936. We went to all the Daytona 500's & 24 hour races for 30 years. Here is a picture I took of Lorenzo Bandinni at the 24 hour Daytona he won. He was killed at Monte carlo in May 67.

This is a Rolls Balloon car I love. An old 1/16 kit.

Rob & Chuck, Thanks for the kind words. I have had, & still do, a lot of fun building every kind of model. Chuck, like you did I started my best friends son in law, a young lawyer, in model building . Just like DavidK did he passed me in about 5 minutes. He won a bunch of Best of Show & First Place at the Tamiya Tokyo shows.

    I wanted to put on some of my Ironclad models because , except for Flagstaff kits, the Verlinden kits are cheap & easy. About $25 to $35. Here they are. They are waterline kits.

    I built some more but I can't find other pics. Just they were fun & different.

gene1

 

Thanks again to all of you. You do make an old man really happy. I will send those boat pics  now.

 

 

 

Hey Gene, that's what it's all about...I come to this forum to share what I'm doing, and to marvel at what others are sharing...there's something really great about the sense of community that hobbies create.  Cheers.

Dave

those last 2 ships were just beautiful , especially the ironclad with the

mirror to show the drive ,

steve5

This is Flagship models resin kit of the US Ironclad Cairo. I have seen her raised at Vicksburg. She was the first ship sunk with a mine. 5gal. bottle of black powder with an electric line to shore

This is a special that squadron put out . It is Dewey's Olympia from Manilla Bay. It was an old kit they put wood decks, PE & other details. I believe it was about $60. It went togeher great.

David, Thanks again for your help & I will scan the sail cloth & send that to you. I also got all your paint colors & you have been a big, big help. I even got a little Heller 1/270 SM & have tried out my oil colors on it. It is really neat. I seem to be like an old hound dog following you, but I did pick a winner.

I saw the pics of your SR & it is unbelievable. I dodn't envy your rigging job. I am glad I didn't try to do another rat line job. I have done enough of them & get a little shaky. I am going to put on some pics you might want to try for something a little different in ships.

  Don, on the Marmon Wasp I made everything on it. I will send you more pics if it will help. I carved the body out of Bass wood, the wheels were plastic rings I cut out & the bolts were HO plastic bolts. The wheels were big O rings that I cut & fit on my wheels. It was not hard. The decals were 1/24 from , i will get the name as he does Indy decals . He might not do 1/16.

Thanks again to all of you. You do make an old man really happy. I will send those boat pics  now.

Gene, this 74 year old kid really appreciates your beautiful models!  When I was a teenager, our next door neighbor had been building ships like yours for many years and I was fascinated by them.  I used to hang out in his basement and learn by watching him work.  This is what fired up my interest in model building,  and I am still going strong at it now, some 60 years later.

Thanks for sharing your work with us!

Chuck

Gene

While ships are my specialty I also do other things, and am finalizing plans now to do a scratch Marmon Wasp.  Found plans posted online with a Google image search.  Plan to do it in 1:16 as I have a set of wheels that will work with the addition of streamlining plates.

Anyway, the ship looks beautiful!

Gene, you have done some amazing work!  Very cool!

Not sure where you can get vacuum formed sails for that old SM kit...my best suggestion would be to keep searching online (forums such as this and maybe eBay?)...OR, you could find another similar scale/style kit from another company and buy that kit and just repurpose the sails.  You may be in for a challenge to find something suitable, I'm afraid.

I may have some leftover vacuformed sails from a previous kit...why don't you measure the dimensions of the cloth patterns (width at yard, width at bottom, and length of the sails you need (it's only a few, right?)....maybe, just maybe, myself or someone else may have some spares that can be made to work?

Dave

TB, I just went down & checked the kit box for the Robt. E. Lee & it was an Amati 1/150 scale kit. The box must be 20 years old. I think I saw this in a new add & I think it was over $350.  There is a big wood kit I have been tempted to do by I think Model Shipways. It is a small sternwheeler in a large scale. I think it is over 36".

Fox, Your picture didn't come thru & I would like to see it. I built several of the Pocher kits & traded them off to a Ferrari collector. He had a real Ferrari & sold all kinds of model parts for Ferrari. He took me for a ride & I have always loved Ferrari's, but that was one rough riding devil. It was an 82 or so Testarosa.

   I must have at least 50 Ferrari models in 1/43, 1/24, 1/12 & 1/16. I loved to see Phil Hill & Pedro Rodriguez race the 250's at Daytona & Sebring back in the early 1960's.

This is it to date.

 I was also up in Marrietta, Ohio & got in touch with a real Riverboat Architect I knew & he got me in touch with an Architect in Ca. His grandfather owned & ran an 1898 Riverboat the Betsy Ann. He sent me a 12 page set of 24"x36" plans to the  Betsy Ann that he drew. I have been scratch building it but got held up on the photoetch. He drew the plans in 1/8" & I had them blown up to 1/87 HO scale so I could use HO details & Evergreen plastic. This is it to date.

Hi guys, Thanks for the compliments. The Robert E Lee is a large wood kit. I built it a while back & it really had nice details. I will get the kit name. I built those Lindberg riverboats in the 1950's. They had the Natchez & the R.E. Lee, but they were about the same kit. That was a big,big thrill back then & you will still enjoy it.

 This is another wood one I built, the River Queen. It was a nice kit & I added a lot of HO brass details.

Some mighty fine work there Gene!   

Jim  

Hi;

 Based on his photo , I would say it's probably the plastic kit .This is based on details I detected in the photo . I will await his answer . T.B.

love your work gene .,particularly the robert e lee ., is that plastic or wood , just curious as I have just purchased the lindberg 1/163 kit , still waiting for it to get here , you really do have some beautiful models there .

steve5

This is all for tonight.

I had to add some more varied pictures. You can do a lot in 85 years. This is a couple of my 7 train layouts & some boats & my latest 1/32 planes.

Eagleston was my CO in 49 & 50. This was his WW2 P47 in 1/32. He flew mostly P 51 B& D.

These were my Christmas present's from my wife, love her.