First of all, best wishes to Hugh Letterly.  Our thoughts are with you Hugh at this difficult time.   The guys from the R/C club came by to see how you were doing.  Also I checked in on Jerry at the hospital and he was in excellent spirits after a successful surgery.  No sympathy at all to Roger who is cruising around China somewhere.  Sam advised that he'll be back in town Thursday so we hope to see him at future meetings.

We also want to welcome Daniele Darenzo who visited our group for the first time and brought some of the projects he's working on and some new kits he's acquired.  Welcome Daniele!

We had an excellent meeting today.  Thanks to everyone who attended.

Before we get started let's cover the club shirt order.  Here's the scoop.  I just sent everyone a message with a link for ordering your shirt.  Everyone will pay separately through the Customink web site.  You can order quantity and sizes as well.  Once we have the complete order in they will prepare a sample to confirm the design which so far is okay.  With confirmation of the sample they will complete the order.  Place your order now and we'll get it going!

John Widmar brought his Fujimi port dioramas in 1/3000 scale.  They represent the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Sasebo.

John also brought his completed models of a Chinese River Gun Boat from BigBlueBoy and also his Hunt II class destroyers from a new company called IBG which were unstated at the last meeting.  Nice work John!  Free Time Hobbies normally handles these but are currently out of stock.  I can't wait to see what John builds next!

Victor and David then proceeded to deliver a demonstration on rigging.  Victor demonstrated how he uses fly fishing tippet material to rig his ships using a demonstration base we made for the occasion.   He then showed us how to correctly paint the line once in place.

Next we tried out some new materials.  First we had Victory try some Lycra rigging material.  We used a product form Uschi that they call "Rig That Thing".  It was the "fine" size which is .003 OD (outside diameter).  You can buy this from lastcavalry.com who is an excellent retailer.  They also have a "Superfine" size which is .001 OD.  Victor reported a learning curve because of the stretchy nature of the product but liked it.

Next David tried Tungsten wire.  Modelers in some of the forums like this material because it is sturdy and retains a natural sag to the rigging lines.  We practiced with .0015 wire.  However we found this very difficult to see.  This model built by George Hargreaves and posted on Steel Navy is an example of a 1/700 ship using .075 tungsten wire.  Bigger but looks very good.

The .0015 wire was much too small to be effective with larger models as primary rigging.  However we tried it on a smaller sample and it gave us the desired effect we were looking for.  I can see the value in using this material.  Something to keep in mind though is that larger .075 wire is very tough and requires expensive cutters (about $100 a pair) so keep that in mind if you decide you want to go down this road.  

Finally we played with some stretched sprue.  This is something a lot of people struggle with.  The trick is doing it correctly.  I think at the next meeting we'll play with this some more.  We'll bring some material and let everyone have a go at it.  Once you get a feel for how to do it correctly it's an inexpensive and useful rigging material and method.

I posted a video from our meeting on the "How to Videos" page.  Give it a look.

Thanks again everyone.  I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting which will be Saturday, March 26th.  If anyone has any suggestions for the meeting please contact David Waples.

  

Greetings,
Meeting location:  Rockler Woodworking in the basement, 2553 S Colorado Blvd #108, Denver, CO  80222
Time:  10:00

In our next meeting we're going to mess around with a couple of different ways to handle rigging.

• Victor is going to demonstrate how he rigs his wonderful ships with fishing line as well as how he colors it.   
• I've been experimenting with straightened tungsten wire.  It holds a lot of promise for it's ability to hold a natural drape.  For example from the top of a mast to the bow of the ship.  Because it's sturdy some modelers actually rig their ship with this material and then paint it along with the rest of the model.  
• I will also demonstrate Lycra rigging line.  The material I'm going to use is from Last Cavalry and produced by Uschi van der Rosten.  I think they actually call it Rig That Thing.  An example of this material is in the video I published further down in the blog.  I think the value of this product might be in plastic masts that tend to be a little soft in nature.  So we'll give this a try and see how it works out.
• Finally we'll try some stretched sprue.  I've gotten better at this and wanted to show you how I go about doing it.  Along with the stretched sprue we'll light up some incense  and pretend it's the 60's again!  Not really.  We'll use burning incense to show how to tighten up stretched sprue and fishing lines.  

Victor will also bring an example of a rigged ship for further discussion.

When I arrived home today I got notice that the scrapers I showed at the last meeting have arrived at the post office.  I will be bringing those for anyone who wishes to buy one.  $5.00 per package is about right.  Each package contains two of the same scrapers.  I should have three different styles.  I cleaned out Hobby Link Japan.  This is an example of one of three styles.  

It's that time of year again for me.  The annual Easter Build that I participate in at Flory Models.  This year I will be building the Fujimi Chibi-Maru Akagi DX which contains a wood deck and photo etch parts.  I also purchased some aircraft with clear canopies!  I'll bring this for show and tell.  These are fun quick builds which are ideal for a break between more intense projects.

This leads into the idea that Blake laid out for us which is to build something from the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.  This is the 75th anniversary.  I'm going to take a shot at the USS Arizona tied up along side the USS Vestal on December 6, 1941 which was just another working day at Pearl Harbor.  I'll build her in 1/700 scale.  Maybe if I start now I'll have it done by the anniversary!  I was inspired by this picture.  Can anyone tell us what's wrong with this scene painted by Robert Taylor?  Sam pointed it out to me.

Ben told me he might build an F4F Wildcat.  Anyone else thought about or decided what they're going to do?

I'm working with Blake this week to finalize the art work for the embroidered polo shirts and hope to have some more details at the meeting.  We will need to purchase at least 6 shirts to complete the order.

As always please bring any new kits, tools, finished builds, ideas for future meetings, or otherwise to share with us at the meeting.  

USS Texas was the winner of our poll for Blog cover picture.  I do love this photo.

I'm not a Facebook guy but I will admit to keeping a page there.  There are some reference pages that I think are very good.  One of my favorites is "Drydock-Model Ship Builders Group"  Mostly people post photos of their finished work.  Another one I like is "Weathered Scale Models".  There are many other great builders on Facebook.

I came across a remarkable build there today created by a fellow named Nader Taheri.  His Facebook page is worth looking at because he goes into depth on building this wonderful diorama. Not only is the ship model amazing, the base is as well.  And like a good diorama should it tells a story.  These photos are worth saving as a reference.  Check this out and also check out his Facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/nader.taheri.756

Blake has been working hard on our shirt art work.  After some input he came up with the following design.  The idea is to create art work that is friendly to embroidery or screen printing.  You'll notice more solid colors.

The plan is to do a group order of some blue embroidered polo shirts.  For this style we need a minimum order of 6 shirts.  We can also set up an order for silk screen shirts, many of which can be ordered one at a time.  We'll talk about it more at the next meeting.