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Azimuth - The bearing, or horizontal direction, of a celestial body. The term probably comes from the Arabic assamut, for points on the horizon.

Bowditch - A household word among navigators, a textbook filled with tabular data most helpful in their work. Nathaniel Bowditch was one of this country's, if not the world's, most renowned mariner-mathematicians. His first book, The American Practical Navigator, was first published in 1802, and has been perpetuated by the Hydrographic Office and then the Navy since 1868.

Ensign - (1) A national flag. in this sense, the word came, via French ensigne, from Latin insignia, badge. (2) The lowest commissioned rank in the Navy and Coast guard. The term in this sense was adopted from the British and French, in whose armies this was, and is, a special junior officer's rank.

Salvage - Payment made for saving or assisting a vessel in trouble, or saving her cargo. The name came direct from Old French, thence from the Latin salvare, to save.

Information is from the book "Origins of Sea Terms" by John G. Rogers

Instead of a model of the month, this time I'm highlighting a modeler. Sent to me by his son, Andrew.

After Alfred’s passing Andrew completed the Lackawanna as Al was one-third finished. I am sure Al has been keeping his eyes on his son as Andrew went on to build the Morgan, USS Alfred, and is currently working on the Smuggler."

If this was registered in Maine, it would be "Saki II ME"

"Hi Nic-

Nic's bench - With the Wyoming done, and the Newsboy not quite ready for me yet, I tackled a simple pond yacht repair. She needed a new mast, sails, and complete re-rigging.

Al's bench - Al is working on a model of the Newsboy for a client. It's becoming the norm for him to build the pieces, then hand it to me for the rigging. He's almost ready to give it to me.

From last month's model of the month, we got several request to find out how Dilbert made his HO layout water. He happily obliged for us as follows:

I would be glad to share how I did that.I’m positive there are other easier/better/ more realistic ways of doing water. This is just my technique/craziness.

First off though the final tinting may have to be adjusted when the module goes into the layout as there will be an open ocean section and a river/canal section. They all may or may not be connected and this will determine the final look.

I think the most difficult part of HO Scale scenes is that one is making something that will viewed from say… 5 feet or so but while working on them one is within a foot of the objects. In other words what may look strange from 1 foot looks ok from 5 feet.So what I’m saying really is that I made that water in the Wendameen diorama to look “reasonable” from 5 feet and beyond.

Anyhow all that being said here are the steps:

1: Build the Bluejacket Wendameen Waterline Kit.

2: Build the Dock Kit (A Train Time Laser Kit purchased on Esty).

3: Cut a section of black gator foam board.

I use gator board as it is extremely sturdy and tends to not warp. It seems to be unaffected by the substances I layer upon it.

4:Prime surface of gator board with stippled cerulean blue then a tad of hookers green then a tad of of titanium white in that order. I used Liquitex Basic Acrylics.

This gave me a base in case the other coatings allowed one to see through to the bottom.

5: Mix food coloring tints into Mod Podge Gloss decoupage. This was to make sure the tints did not react within the Mod Podge. Other tints may work but this seems to work well for me. It takes a ton of blue coloring to get the Mod Podge to color. The food coloring brand is McCormick.

6: Apply colored Mod Podge going layer by layer

and slowly building up the “waves”. Made sure to leave shape of boat hulls uncoated and built up.Mod Podge dries relatively quickly if thin layers are used but I only did two layers a day in order to allow the layers to dry. Too thick a coating and I was afraid it would crack in time.It took about 20 coats.

7: Added the bowls and crests to the “waves” using a combination of cerulean blue,phthalo blue,titanium white,unbleached titanium white.

8. Allowed to dry for AT LEAST 72 hours then coated with Liquitex High Gloss Acrylic Varnish.

9. Placed dock,Schooner Wendameen. Glued down with Tacky Glue in case any squeezed out from under ship and dock as it dries clear.

10. Using detail brush applied clear Mod Podge around dock and schooner hull.Used same paint combination to color Mod Podge around hull and dock.Allowed to dry 72 hours and coated with varnish.

11: Made mooring ropes,bumpers, painted barrels and crates.

12: Built Bluejacket HO Scale Friendship Sloop.

13. Placed her in diorama and repeated Mod Podge,paint and varnish steps from dock and Wendameen.Moored her.

14: Placed ship captain figure on dock. (note-not in the photo I chose to use)

This figure is from a Preiser HO Scale rowboat set.

Well there you go Nic.

Probably too much to info but I couldn’t figure out how else to describe it.

I’m a former college professor so I tend to be rather long winded and ultra detailed.

Hoping all is well! Have a nice weekend.

BTW received Fannie H. Gorham - Beautiful Kit!

-Delbert H.

I am running out of workbench photos and model of the month photos. Please send me some material so I can keep those topics open and fresh for you.

BlueJacket Shipcrafters