Jerry Beasley forwarded a video about darkening and staining wood model decks.  Worth a look.    

Thanks to everyone who made it to Saturday's meeting.  I appreciate everyone sticking around while I worked through my new computer issues.  Special thanks to Brian who helped me discover the problem.  I will edit out that early awkward part of the meeting.  

Here's a link to the recorded meeting.  I tried to edit the video but I don't think it worked.  If that's the case move ahead to about 2:40 into the meeting.

We started off reviewing what everyone was working on.  

Victor Prall shared an update of his Titanic.  He purchased the detail set 

Victor pointed out some nice sets of figures available from Tori Factory.  Here are some examples including Jack and Rose.  They make some figures for my Titanic Egg Ship, but they would look like Macey's Day Parade balloons.  

Next, Rob Weilacher shared a couple of his projects.  The builds were supported by history provided by Sam Bartlett which are attached in the previous post to this.  Rob's completed project is the USS Wainwright which is from the JAG Belknap kit, no longer in production.  These sometimes appear on eBay so if you're interested keep an eye out for it.  

Rob is now beginning construction of the USS Long Island.  This is a kit from Loose Cannon.  It looks like David did an amazing job with this kit.  Rob expressed being intimidated by this kit, but is ready to take it on now.  What caught my eye on this one is that there is no island.  

The photo etch structure looks amazing.  David advises that he's modified it slightly to make it a little less pronounced.  

We welcomed back John Widmar with his latest build, the Seaplane Tender USS Currituck AV-7.  This resin kit is from AJM models.  You can find this kit available on eBay for $95 delivered.  

We then moved on to talk about modeling disasters and how you recover from them.  This spurred on by my exile build of a 1/144 F-14A Tomcat.  It was coming along perfectly and then...disaster.  I was getting ready to touch up a little bit of overspray when I hit the paint bottle with my arm.  Lacquer paint launched with the precision of an AIM-9 Sidewinder and landed top and bottom.  The lacquer paint instantly ate through the previously painted surface and it was on thick.  One wipe of the paint and as you can see it was gone.  Sorry Maverick!  

Moving on cost $14 to replace the kit.  Fortunately all the other parts (missiles, burner cans, landing gear etc. were finished and untouched as they weren't attached yet.  I was able to recover the cockpit and wheel well.  Recovery was easy and quick.  Had this been my little Flower Class Corvette, it would have hurt much worse.  

So what did I learn?  Keep my paint bottles of this type in a rack and just draw paint using a pipette.  

I think we all enjoyed sharing stories about our own modeling accidents and how we recovered... or didn't.  

And then...down the rabbit hole...

I recalled seeing some nice halyards (two lines threading through a pulley on a yard arm for the purpose of flying signal flags) in 1/350 scale.  I wanted to see if I could make them and if it made sense.  I practiced using Infini lycra 70 Denier rigging line.  The pulley's were made using UV glue.  At the end of the day I think they looked nice, but they look oversized to me.  I may try 40 Denier line to see if I change my mind, but for now I'm thinking it's not worth it.  I'll let you know what I do.

We ended the meeting talking about how we go start on modeling ships.  For me it was the Revell Cutty Sark.  I remember building that with my dad and the morning I woke up and it was fully rigged.  I can still see it almost 60 years later.  

Jerry Beasley talked about how he came back to ship modeling with the 1/35 Italeri PT Boat kits.  Those led to his current project which is the USN CB-90 variant.  

Rob Weilacher shared how he came to buy the post WWII, USS Lexington.  

David Angelo shared his memory of saving for the USS Midway, also post WWII configuration, and how his brother nearly lost his life when he accidentally destroyed David's completed model.  

Both Blake and Gerald had what could have been disasters turn into happy accidents.  In Gerald's case spilled thinner created a nicely weathered water line.  In Blake's case an attempt at snow came turned into a still used weathering technique.  

Good memories and stories.  Thanks for sharing.  We'll catch you all next time.

 Articles from Sam Bartlett for today's meeting...

USS Wainwright

USS Long Island