Dan Vadas

.... continued from last post. Cheers and Merry Christmas, Danny

Hi all, With Christmas coming up I thought I'd make a couple of gifts for my other young Grandson, and also my partner's Grandson. Both are into motorbikes, even at their tender ages (6 and 4 years old). My Grandson is getting a REAL motorbike for Chrissy - a Yamaha PeeWee 50 - so I've made his as a close replica. The other boy's father has a Suzuki, so I've painted his in Suzuki livery. I made the seat/tank assembly and the mudguards from Swiss Pear and turned the wheels from Boxwood. The rear swingarm is also Boxwood. The front forks and handlebars were made from brass wire. The pics should speak for themselves as far as construction was concerned. more in next post .......

Hi all, Just had a bit of fun. I built a Stepladder for my Tool-Mad 4-year-old grandson. Just to be a bit different I put it in a beer bottle . The ladder is 40mm wide in both directions, and the bottle neck is only 20mm. Cheers, Danny

Yes she is Alex, built using "The Fully Framed Model" series of books by David Antscherl. As far as I'm aware no-one else has built a Vulture, although there are quite a few of her Sister ships under construction. I think I'm the first to build a fully rigged Swan so far .

Further to my post above, which I can no longer Edit as the time limit has expired : Removing any restrictions on Editing one's own post also allows those Members obssessed with organisation, neatness and accuracy (like myself ) to review and edit any posts that needed doing at any time in the future.

Better send me a PM too Gwyl - I have the same problem.

Hi Gwyl, On MSW we don't have a time limit for the general membership to edit their own posts, which is a very handy feature when some folks put Indexes into their build logs so they and others can find "Points of Interest" quickly without having to wade through up to 100 pages of log. (My log for Vulture ran to 107 pages) They need to be able to go back to whichever Post the Index was in to edit it as they progress. As you said above, this is a small group of friendly people so it shouldn't be an issue. MSW has over 20,000 members (with some pains in the proverbial) and it isn't an issue over there either. Perhaps you could get the setting adjusted so the time limit disappears altogether? Don't ask me how, I don't know. One of the other Admins did that sort of work. BTW - as an Admin I could edit any post on MSW, not just my own. I guess the same applies on this site as it would be a very necessary function?

Sorry Howard, forgot to mention that. It's 1:48 scale. The hull and decks are treenailed using 0.5mm bamboo, including all the below decks and internal planking. There are over 14,000 treenails in the model.

I don't know whether that's smaller than this stuff Alex. The individual threads are too small to measure with anything I've got.

Thanks very much Gwyl. It was my first fully framed model. You picked them both - Castello Boxwood and Swiss Pear from HobbyMill before they closed. I also used some Holly for the Cutter planking and the louvres for the Well and Sail Room, Australian Cherry Ballart for some of the railings and European Box for smaller details and blocks, deadeyes etc. Here's a pic of the stern lantern made from English Box :

It's going to be "off-topic" for this site Gwyl - a Step-Ladder in a bottle for my tool-mad 4 year old grandson .

For the Longboat I just finished I used some of the huge amount of left-overs of Castello Boxwood (South American) and Swiss Pear that I used on my 1:48 scale fully-framed HMS Vulture. I bought the wood from HobbyMill before they closed, but as Dave mentioned in his post above Crown Timberyard are looking at filling the gap left by Jeff Hayes on his retirement. I've also heard nothing but praise for Crown on Model Ship World, so it looks like a reliable supplier is once again out there. A tip for those who don't know - if you can find some of those old wooden Carpenter's Rules at garage sales or wherever ... grab them. The older ones are made from European Box, which is arguably the best timber for small modelling. I bought a dozen or so from various places and use them for making blocks and tiny fittings.

I glue the paper to my various sanding sticks with high-strength spray contact adhesive. To replace the paper I use a heat gun. It softens the glue almost immediately and it can be easily peeled off with a minimum of fuss and mess. The other day I purchased a couple of sets of Diamond coated needle files in various shapes including riffler files. These have worked brilliantly on virtually any material - wood, brass etc. They don't go blunt or clog like normal files, and weren't at all expensive.

I use PVA or Epoxy depending on the application. I only use CA for making "needle points" in rigging line to thread them through blocks etc. I don't trust the stuff to do anything else with - too many joints have failed in the past. I'll have to check out that Gem Tac - never heard of it before.