February 2022 Volume 12 number 2 |
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ShipShape
News, Tips and Happenings
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Punxsutawney Phil sees shadow on Groundhog Day 2022
That means we are in for 6 more weeks of winter - MAYBE. Phil's forecasting record is only 40% - less accurate than tossing a coin. Here are some more interesting facts:
1-Germans started the whole groundhog day thing.
2-Punxsutawney Phil has a ridiculously long official name. His full moniker is "Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary." Yikes!
3-The original groundhog day involved eating groundhogs(ugh!)
4-A few states use their own groundhogs to celebrate the holiday rather than relying on Phil. Other weather oracles include General Beau Lee of Atlanta, Georgia, Sir Walter Wally from Raleigh, North Carolina, and Birmingham Bill from Birmingham, Alabama.
5-The 1993 movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray put Punxsutawney Phil's home on the map, drawing crowds of up to 30,000.
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NRG'S MODEL SHIP WORLD
Model Ship World is an on-line forum of over 40,000 ship modelers. Topics range from kits to scratch builds, in-process continuing stories, tips, manufacturer information, technical topics. Too many to list here. Go take a look!
www.modelshipworld.com
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Rigging class 2022 - May 23 thru 27 |
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Our rigging class is a popular event. We run it from 9 to 3 for 5 days (although some people leave early on Friday.) IT IS A CLASS FOR NOVICES. We don't assume you know anything about rigging a ship model. All tools and materials are provided with the class fee of $440. You get a hull to work on, all the sticks and dowels, glue, blocks, deadeyes, threads, wire, beeswax, sandpaper and the following tools:
Excel hobby knife and blades
Pin Vise
Assortment of drill bits
Tweezers
needle nose pliers
flush cutters
clamps
cuticle scissors (best for clipping rigging)
and probably some other things I forgot
If you use magnifiers for your modeling work, you should bring them. By the end of the class you will have learned how to use the tools, tie a multitude of various knots, and will have completed what you see in the picture above.
You can see shrouds, backstays, bobstays, gammoning, vangs, topping lift, ratlines, hearts, throat halyard, peak halyard, sheet tackle on a traveler, lifts, braces, forestays, etc.
Obviously, we don't waste a lot of time to make the model look pretty! We want to concentrate on the rigging. At the end of the class, BlueJacket will ship your model and materials to your home, again all part of the tuition cost.
Monday will include a pizza party for lunch and a behind the scenes tour of the BlueJacket facility. In addition, all students will receive a 10% discount on anything they buy during that week. Kits, tools, books, gift items, you name it!
The hours of 9-3 are flexible, we have the hotel conference room available 24 hours a day for the week. If you bring a family member, the 3:00 PM cutoff lets you do some sightseeing around the area. But if you need to catch up a bit, the room is yours!
Classes will be at the Fireside Inn in Belfast, 4 miles from BlueJacket on Route 1, tel# 207-338-2090. You can ask for the BlueJacket corporate rate if you choose to stay there. They are holding rooms at $99 for us. There is a pool and Jacuzzi, exercise room, a decent breakfast bar, and all rooms have an excellent view of Penobscot Bay. If you are the camping type, Searsport Shores is nearby.
Class is limited to 12 people with payment in advance. Full refund up to 2 weeks before, 50% refund up to 1 week before. Unfortunately, cancellation less than a week in advance cannot be refunded except by extreme circumstances, which we reserve the right to determine.
IMPORTANT - YOU MUST BE FULLY VACCINATED TO ATTEND
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Nautical terms and origins |
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Barge - (1) A powerless vessel for hauling cargo. (2) Formerly a highly ornamented ceremonial craft. No doubt this is the reason why this is what a navy ship's or show-station boat is called when it was assigned to an admiral. The word came from the Greek Baris, for Egyptian boat, and to us from the Latin barca, barge.
Compass - The vital instrument that points the way, be it the simplest magnetic or sophisticated gyroscope. There are several versions of the word's origin, involving the Nordic and Romance languages. One commonly agreed on is the Late Latin compassare, circle.
Preventer - A line, length of wire, or a tackle temporarily rigged to add strength, to relieve, or to prevent damage to running or standing rigging or other gear. The word came from Latin, praeveire, one meaning of which was to guard against. When it became a sea term is not known.
Reeming Iron - A tool for cleaning out caulking in a seam. It is a corruption of ream, and came from Middle English, reme, to open up.
Information is from the book "Origins of Sea Terms" by John G. Rogers
copyright 1985 Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. and available from BlueJacket.
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Model of the Month - Spray at 1/2" = 1' |
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"Hello Nic,
Attached are pictures of my scratch built model of the Spray as it appeared during a stay in Tasmania. I scaled up the hull lines published in the Dover 1958 edition of his book "Sailing Around the World Alone." My original intent was to make a simple, un-detailed model that would actually sail for my boys, hence the working rudder. I used scrap scotch pine wood scrounged from the shop of a lab in Glasgow, Scotland where I was on sabbatical, so shaping the hull was not much fun. My mother made the sails, but it was a dud as a sailer. Many years later, I dusted it off and decided to make it look like it appeared in the many photographs I was able to locate on the internet. I added bulwarks and deck houses, and built the dory from plans for a full length boat, which I cut in half. I relied on detail parts (like the kedge and stock anchors, sail cloth, pulleys etc.) and paint obtained from Blue Jacket Shipcrafters, which I visited many times while I lived in Orono, Maine, where I was completing a model of Darwin's Beagle.
Best Wishes,
Mike G. of OH"
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From Edgar S. of AZ
"Received the Lincolnville wherry; this will serve as the basis for a bronze of Powell’s first expedition down the Grand Canyon. On the ways is a scratch built model of HMS Bellona, 74, 3rd rate, based on drawings from the Anatomy of a Ship.”
All this keeps me out of the cowboy bars in Flagstaff!"
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Nic's bench - Almost done rigging the Ellie Mara schooner. When I'm done, the kit will be ready to be added to our offerings.
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Al's bench - Al has planked the Wyoming and laid almost 200 1/16 x 1/16 planks on the deck. The waterways are in, and the deck is masked off so painting can begin.
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This tip is from Mike C. of TX
"Nic,
Light uses 3 LEDs, 3 AAA batteries and has rare earth magnet base. Sticks fine to my vice or to steel discs you can buy and screw to wood surfaces. Or to a little anvil. Comes with a magnetic clip for vertical mounting on a machine, on my table saw or Dremel jig saw. I can see exactly where I’m sawing — to the left, to the right or down the center of the pencil line. Can shine up into rigging under a yardarm or when belaying behind a belaying pin on the bulwark side and under the pin rail. (Dark!). Found it at Lee Valley.
Mike"
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As I'm getting ready to send this out, we're in the middle of a massive snow storm. In fact, we closed BlueJacket today and I'm doing this remotely from home. Technology is truly amazing.
And as new technology and material becomes practical, we incorporate it onto our kits.First it was laser cutting and photo etching, then resin casting, now laserboard material, etc. Each provides an opportunity for a better kit, finer resolution, and more accuracy.
There is a lot of buzz about 3D printing, but at the moment it is too expensive for production. However, for the individual modeler, it's starting to be practical.
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Nic Damuck
BlueJacket Shipcrafters
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