It’s been a slow summer for new product announcements. I’ve been very busy with some large commissioned ships and getting the Ohio/Alabama situation resolved, in favor of Ohio.

I’ve had some real problems with the ship drawings I’ve purchased. None of them have been “faired.” A faired drawing means that the deck width matches the width of the sections. Let’s say there are 20 sections (or stations) marked on the profile of a ship. The top width of those sections should match the width of the deck. Well, they usually do not match.

The same goes for the waterline, if I am building a waterline model. The bottom width of the sections should match the width of the hull where it meets the waterline. It doesn’t happen often.

Making it worse, the height of the sections should match the height of the ship in profile. As you might have guessed, they don’t!

I’ve learned that there’s nothing worse than drawing the sections, the center keel, the deck and the bottom to the plans, cutting them out on my cutter, and finding that nothing matches up. I thought at first that I was misinterpreting the drawings, which is commonplace. No such luck–and I’m not that unskilled.

I’ve also been busy inventing ways to make in true scale such items as twin 20 mm Oerkilon cannons and quad 40 mm Bofors, as well as the smaller gun directors. I’ll post some pictures soon of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, where you can see what I’ve come up with.

Which reminds me that my parts pages are hopelessly outdated. I’m going to try to update these with all of the new parts I’ve developed, with a shopping cart system.

Look for the 169′ Marin ferry from San Francisco Bay in the next few weeks. And–seven years after I first built it–a 110′ patrol boat from WW2.