Hello and welcome. Just a quick catch up, starting with the saga of the broken mast. I must take full responsibility for this. A case of paying all my attention to my right hand and not watching what my left was doing. I was engrossed in fitting out the after searchlight tower and thought I would speed up the build somewhat by sending Stelios ( my chief
rigging fitter ) up the foremast to start work on the signalling halyards. Suddenly there was a startled scream followed by the crack of the mast breaking and then a meaty thud of a body landing on the bridge deck. It turned out Stelios had tripped over his flip flops and fallen off the yardarm, grabbing the mast on the way down. Luckily the way he fell meant he landed on the bridge deck and not all the way down to main deck level. He was also lucky that the rangefinder/director tower has not yet been fitted, so there was nothing to impale himself on on the way down.
Climbing a mast in flip flops ?! What about Health and Safety, I hear you all say !! The only H and S any of these misfits know or care about is HIRINO (pork) SOUVLAKI (kebab). So, Stelios is now in hospital with head and upper body trauma. Nothing too serious but it has stopped any
rigging for a while.
I have also been having a disagreement with the rest of the merry men. Here in Cyprus all construction/building work ceases for the whole of August. I had already factored this into the build, however the minions now demand that they get the same holidays as their school age kids which is three months in the summer. I stood fast at the one month and then they played their trump card. If they did not get their holiday they would tell the authorities where most of Stelios's trauma came from. I cannot tell a lie, it was me beating the silly SOB round the head with a paddle out of a liferaft. So, 3 months "holiday" it is. Before they left they wanted a group photo. So here are the craziest (probably only) gang of shipbuilders in Cyprus.
While I have this enforced layoff I thought I may begin painting some crew figures.
The top figures are by North Star Models. Nicely detailed but very brittle. Even before trying to remove them from the casting wafer I have a number of Long John Silvers. These are sold as Royal Navy figures. The lower figures are by Black Cat Models. Slightly less detailed but less brittle than the North Star ones. These are actually U S Navy but in this scale I don't think the difference will be noticeable.
Painting will be interesting. All my figures lately have been at 75mm scale. These are only 5 mm or so. If I get to grips with the smaller scale I think the painting should go fairly smoothly, however I can foresee the eyes are going to be a Bu**er to get right.
Jus in case anybody out there thinks I am serious. NO I am not going to try painting eyes in this scale, 75 mm scale ones were about my limit. As the saying goes-I may be Daft but I ain't Stupid.
God Evening One and All. A C&Cs welcome.
John.