Talk about a blast from the past...hehe I've been delving into a lot of little electrical engineering projects lately (for my own education of course) and thought "I know the perfect test bed for these things - I need a model warship!!" So I started building a 1/72 Tirpitz. Then realized, I've forgotten a lot of stuff - let me do some research to see if I can jog my memory. So I find this nice, slicked up website (pretty cool) and start seeing names I recognize - froggyfrenchman (who's already emailed me!), Dietzer - I'm guessing that is the little japanese sailor in disguise as Carl...who else is around from the old days? I gather Joe is done for the time being. I've read through this part of the forum and see that you guys are looking at a spring battle - unfortunately, my Graf Spee had an accident - or more to the point, the truck it was in had an accident, but before it's untimely demise, I had it tooling around on the pond. I only needed guns and it was golden. I can put my Big T on hold (as I've come to think of it) and get a 1/96 boat up and running in pretty short order I think - I saved all the innards from the Spee and the ship building know how is coming back pretty quickly. I still have all of the plans and turrent molds for the Graf Spee (somewhere!), but I also have a bunch of plans for other ships as well. I've got Z-32 plans that I got from Stu awhile back (are he and Art still kicking???) The Graf Spee of course, Tirpitz/bismark - I also have plans for the Fletcher class destroyers that I always wanted to build. I think I have North Carolina plans somewhere as well as the U-boat plans that I was working on when life got in the way and I kinda drifted off. I will let you guys add some feedback on what you would like to see at that meet and then I will get tooled up quickly and see what shakes out. What is everyone else working on? Is it still the same core of people or have new members been pulled in? Steven
New members have been pulled in by the irresistable draw of big boats I'm building DKM Bismarck; if you do a Tirpitz, that implies that at some point the two sister ships can roam as a squadron Just saying...
Not all new members. Im still looking at a heavy cruiser type ship, especially a Graf Spee, that i might get from Ralph Coles
Um, Boomer, this is Battlestations We don't use the small scale hulls After I finish the 1/144 Evstafis that I'm raising money with, I'm going to do a pair of 1/96 heavy cruisers (possibly Deutschland class) in the same manner. Figure 2 months from the time I finish Ioann Zlatoust for Anachronous, the wood has already arrived, so it should be a fun, fast set of builds. More importantly, it means I get escorts
Steve! You old dog! I thought I'd lost track of you forever! It's great to hear from you! Are you still in Arizona or have you relocated again? Sorry I didn't respond sooner. I'm in Bangalore, India right now on business, and haven't had much chance to check the board since I left the US last week... Yes, Mikey and I are still around. Mikey's Strasbourg is pretty much ready to go. Haven't heard much from Stu since he went walkabout several years ago. Art has pretty much retired from models due to his health. He still frequents the IJN ship message board now and then. I keep meaning to write him, but keep forgetting. Guess I'm gettin' old. [] Man, sorry to hear about the Spee. That's a bummer. Hope you and everyone else in the accident were OK... Well, I hope you reconsider your scales and come back to 1/96! Tug's looking to be ready in the spring and I think Mike and Mikey are, too. I've almost cleared out my honey-dos again, and should have time over the holidays to work on the Shimakaze again (especially since my employer is forcing me to take 5 days of vacation in Q4 to save them money). Send me an email with your phone number and I'll give you a call when I get back to the states (my cell phone doesn't work in India). Take it easy, Carl
okay - so a quick update on my comings and goings the past few years to catch you up. (I will start another post on hulls, ships, plans, etc based on my Graf Spee experience). I was in Arizona until 2005 and then moved to NC - I've got a faculty position at a university in Fayetteville, NC. Still living in my RV on an airport and still jumping out of planes - heck - I make almost as much money on the weekends teaching people to skydive as I do during the week at my 'real' job. I'm not sure how long I will be here though - there's a lot of politics involved in academia - much more than I am comfortable with, but that could be at any job also as far as I know. The only thing keeping me from diving back into boats full steam, is that come the end of october I may be dropping everything to concentrate on the next job - I applied last year to be an astronaut. So far, through four cuts, I am still in the candidate pool. The next cut comes at the end of october. The applicants that make it through that will constitute the pool from which interviewees will be selected to come down to Johnson Space Center, be tested, poked, prodded, etc. Then the final cut comes in January. So basically, I am two cuts away from joining the astronaut corps. If I make the next cut, I will be focused on making sure I interview good and not building boats []. So that is what has been going on with me. Check the other thread for boat related stuff - lots of ideas I want to share. []
