my armada

the victory" />

" />the black pearl

" />the constitution

le superbe 1/150

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my first go at the soleil royal

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second go at the soleil royal , this lot is about 4 yr's worth

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Really great Steve, this made my morning. You have been busy as a beaver. Boy, that is a lot of beautiful ships. I just read your message & came right here. How long have you been building those? 

  You are a super rigger, & all else. One thing that will help your pictures so I can see more is try Google Photos. All my pictures were just switched from Picasa to Google Photos & my editing was improved 200%. They have an editing there that includes light & color & something called Pop thatreally pops your pictures out & improves them. I am a terrible photographer so I can really tell. You can email right from there. Show us more of the Armada. I never get tired of looking.    Thanks.   Gene

 What are the sails on the last SR ?

gene

they took about 4 years , the sails are made from modelspan , it's a very strong tissue , as most here will attest , I'm not that good with a computer , will try and look into google photos , finger's crossed lol .

steve

Steve, Hi, Tell me more about your ship models, anything as you have done a super job. I also don't know anthing about computers as I just learned to type again. I always did all my design work with a pencil & not on a computer. I always had a secretary or my wife to type & I drew plans & built houses for 40 years.

     The Google picture thing is really great, Picasa just switched me to Google, as I couldn't do it.  I know because I have been on Firefox for years & my S O L is a prof & told me to go to Google & my kids (53 & 59) switched me over. Most of my computer problems ended there. The google thing rates a look. Like to hear from you and Bakster .

gene

as I said ,I have been modelling for a bit under 4 years ,it has been a very steep learning curve for me , as I can be a bit like a bull in a china shop , all my other ship's , except for the black pearl , are pretty rough really . took me till then to learn to slow down , could you tell me how you get your photos from google to this forum please ,

steve

Steve, When you are on Google Photos click on the picture you want to send & it will come up big. Right click on the big picture & a list will come up, left click on   copy image address, or copy image location on Picasa. Go to  the reply site & left click on the mountain square, then right click in the square at top & mark  paste, Then I think OK.

   I will do one. Boy, I am having a ball with the Wasa. Airfix kits do turn out nice, better than I thought & they are at least well designed to go together well. Let me know if it works because it does clear your picture up great.

took a while but I got there , you'd love this kit gene , the rat lines are easy

you should see davidk's , go at this kit , he did it as the black swan  , in proper colours . it's great

your right gene the quality of picture is far superior on google .

 Hi Steve,  Your pictures are really improved & much clearer. Glad you could do it. I really like the Black Pearl in her work mode. That is neat. I built the Swan with David K's color help. I did use the cast ratlines. They were the best I have ever seen in cast lines.

Your ships are really nice & you have shown some big tough to build ones. I will have a lot of questions. David K is really a wonder on how quick he learned. I wrote before about my best friends SOL & I got him started building models. That was at least 35 years ago & he has won about every big model contest in the world. He won Tamiya's Tokyo contest more than once & took a lot of First places. He was a natural from the start.

Steve, this is my Swan. I did oil wash it hull & deck, but it doesn't shoa up much on the pictures. I have been doing that for a long time with planes & everything. Oil & artists spirits is the best over acrylic & gloss lacquer clear or color.  I do like oil over dull acrylic best for ships. I haven't tried oil over MM glosscote lacquer on ships.

 I want to see more of your rigging. There are so many simple painting things you can do that do help a model.

it's beautiful gene , sorry I took so long to answer , went away for a couple of day's . I don't think I have seen anyone do such clean work as you , I am still fairly new to the rigging game , still got a lot to learn from you and david . what painting thing's are you refering to .

steve5

I do get  my writing mixed up at times. The painting I was talking about was not in reference to you. I had been talking tp Bukster about painting & there are just a lot of tricks to use that I have learned. I use Tempera poster paint in places to put a color in that would be hard to get . When it's dry take a Q tip & clean any overage off. Then I cote it with dullcote to seal it. I did that in several places on the Wasa where the background was black with white figure's inside the black.

    I use white lacquer primer where I have white rails with other colors next to it. If the colors are acrylic, use alcohol to clean it off the white lacquer. Just things like that are what I was talking about. I even keep a small bottle of lacquer thinner handy for removing any paint where I want to glue a part. A little rub like that will not hurt the plastic.

I'm glad I asked gene , those are some very handy tip's

Okay Steve 5;

   How many rigging elves do you employ ? My gosh guy ! My eyes would bounce in their sockets with all that rigging ! Must say though ,I wonder how much more space you have for fully rigged ships .This has always been a problem for me .

    Most Of what I do has the Yards " Akimbo " and the sails struck . Standing rigging and that's it . Most folks don't realize that spars " Akimbo " was a fact and for a good reason .

 When it rained or snowed the spars tilted like that , would allow melt water and rain water to run off , there-fore encouraging a longer life for said spars . Good Builds and keep up the good work .

   Now a very important question .Do you crew your ships ? Lots of sails with no sailors seems kind of naked to me . P.S.  Did you Know that when you build a Whaler you could leave off the tryworks and you'd have a bona-fide tanker of the period ! Remember tankers are measured by the amount of Barrels of product they carry  . Except natural gas tankers that is .      

Tanker, why would you know that about Tankers ? Is a tanker in your family some way ? Steve does do a lot of rigging doesn't he. It really does look great. Rigging is not my favorite part of ship building. I used to figure on wooden ships that rigging was half the build. I wonder if Steve would rent his elves out ? He didn't pick easy ships to rig either. 

   I want to see more of his pictures, come on Steve, show them off. You have a lot of lookers. What kind of thread do you use ? My Wood ships are 30 + years old & have not lost a thread. It was mostly all linen & bees waxed.

Aw , C'mon!

 Guys , my screen name tells what I did with my life after military for some years . I captained the real things and saw the build of at least three . Tanker - Builder     P.S. For those of you with older ships like that , Linen thread run through bees-wax was the way to go at one time .

Tanker, What does a tanker builder do,oversee building Tankers ? I guess you were Navy because you said you Captained them too.

   Also on rigging thread, what is most everyone useing ? I still use bees wax, but am running out of my old linen stash. It's also 40 years old. Is waxed cotton or synthetic ok ? I have used some poly & nylon for little things. I got one Imai kit that had some heavy black thread & it just fell apart. I never used it.