Oliver Sacks at AMNH

Oliver Sacks will be at the AMNH in NYC on Oct 17th. I am hoping to make the talk. As I have said he is an amazing man and to hear him speak is an honor.

Amps East

I visited Amps East last Saturday. Its the only local Amps show for me here in Northern NJ. Great show, I missed last years East show and the Nationals and was looking foward to this one. I met up with a few modelers from the Model Armour forum I visit, that was a pleasure as modeling is a solitary hobby and it was great to meet other modelers and see their work. I use Tamiya,Polly Scale and Model Master paints, oil washes and pigments I make from soft pastel sticks on all my models. Having never looked into the "newer" paints, washes, pigments I visited the AK Interactive booth and looked into their products. With the help of a fellow modeler who was demoing the products I got an insight into how they are used. I ended up picking up 2 sets or washes, filters, pigments and am looking foward to trying them out soon I can see the advantage in using them over my old method. Practice will be required no doubt.

1/700 Kalinin

I have been busy with the radars and other brass parts for the superstructure, they are finished finally. Now working on the railings of which this ship has many of different sizes.

Kalinin progress

I got about 4 hrs work on the Kalinin today, managed to get the super structures on and most of the small parts, I lost 2 of the small tube like (life rings, bouys?) I am going to try to tuwn down aluminum tubing on the lathe to replicate these, if the alum does not work styrene will be the next attempt.

The Taig Lathe

This is my Taig Lathe, I bought this 3 years ago and after 2 house moves in a year and various other difficulties now I hope to put it to work. After much research and alot of advise from fellow home machinists on discussion boards I went with the Taig over a China made "mini lathe" I think I made the right decision. I originally bought the lathe for my scale plastic modeling work but am interested on scale steam engines now and hope to move from plastic to wooden ship modeling where the lathe with the milling attachment will come in very handy. In the photos you se the Taig with the milling attachment installed, the tool posts and tools and the accy's for the lathe. Also my new virgin workbench I build in my garage. Alot more organizing of tools and such to be done but its a start.

Kalinin

Progress so far, I have to paint the grey structures on deck, bollards, etc.

1/700 USSR Cruiser Kalinin

This is my 1/700 Kalinin build, I always liked the look of Soviet Cruiser with their red decks. Not easy to mask and paint in model form though.