Lt. Tincher has asked me to introduce myself, so here goes:

I haven't actually built any models in quite a few years now. I
just don't have time anymore. The last one I worked on was in the
late 1980s or early 1990s, I'm not sure. I never finished it but
got about half way through. It was a 1/350 scale plastic kit of
Nippon Maru, buff and white, as she appeared when she was here in NY
for the bicentennial. I used fine wire for the rigging, putting in
the right sag where appropriate. I soaked the flags in a mixture of
white glue and water to shape them so they appeared to be flapping
in the wind. Even unfinished, she's quite attractive in my display
case.

When I ran out of time for modeling, I had a number of projects
underway that I never finished. Ships were only one of the
categories of subject I modeled. Another unfinished project is a
World War One Garford-Putilov armored car in 1/35 scale. This was a
scratchbuild. The rivets and bolt heads were taken from various
Monogram plastic kits, shaved off one at a time with a razor, and
placed on measured, premarked positions with the point of a number
11 X-Acto blade. That also looks pretty good in the display case
even in its unfinished state.

I never lost interest, though. I have attended just about every
Fleet Week here for many, many years and have thousands of photos of
the ships and of the aircraft and USMC vehicles, equipment, and
weaponry they carried. These days, though, I'm more into collecting
actual (and some repro) militaria and attending reenactors' events
like the one at Reading, PA, every June.

In fact, facing the fact I'm never going to have the time to get
back into modeling, I'm starting to sell off some of my kit
collection and some other stuff on eBay. I don't know whether it's
OK if I occasionally mention that here when something goes up for
auction there. Is it? I'm doing this through a guy I know who has
a lot of eBay selling experience. I send him stuff and we split the
proceeds. I don't have time, myself, to deal with all the hassle of
the eBay auction process.

Meanwhile, I love looking at photos of well-done models and that's
one reason I'm on this group. It's possible I know some people
among the 500+ members of this group. I worked at Polk's Hobbies
for ten years. I was a member of the IPMS for almost 30 years and
went to many a convention here, in Washington, DC, in Upstate NY,
and in Canada. I'm also a member of the NY Military Affairs
Symposium (www.nymas.com).

Bruce Kamiat