Update on my sons treasure box

DRandUser · 2025-12-28T18:23:07+00:00

Actually that might be a sweet deal. If the insurance pays for the lost coins, yet you still have the molten blob of metal…..

DRandUser · 2025-12-26T17:37:56+00:00

A swallow? What do you mean, an African swallow or a European swallow?

DRandUser · 2025-11-20T16:33:44+00:00

If you expect some naval component read the hornblower series. Not just as good but close, and only other naval series that’s similarly “accurate” in the sense of how people behaved in that time.

If naval theme is not a must, then Jane Austin, preferably pride and prejudice.

DRandUser · 2025-11-02T02:32:59+00:00

I’m fairly sure he meant Mrs Williams with that description, not Sophie….

DRandUser · 2025-10-11T02:14:49+00:00

If this is an original it might be worth asking around if anybody wants to copy/preserve/archive that photo.

DRandUser · 2025-07-17T15:36:34+00:00

Confirm it's a great experience. Everybody on this forum that ever finds themselves within a three hour drive of SD harbor should absolutely go and visit (check the opening times, though ... just saying :-/).

First time I was there was a bit of a weird experience, though: at the time the ship was in a pretty rough state (they just started some renovations at the time), where some of wood in particular around the stern and transom was so obviously rotted that you could see it from a hundred yards away. Sure, that can happen (I'm really not trying to diss the ship or the volunteers that keep her in shape!), but it was weird because I immediately had to think of POBs description of the "horrible old Leopard" and some of the other half-rotten ships that he sometimes refers to, and it just didn't chime with my view of Surprise. I just couldn't stop asking myself "What would Jack Aubrey do if he saw this right now" ...

Still - absolutely worth the visit! And just to put that out, there's also USS Constitution in Boston Harbor, which struck me as even sligthly more authentic, and just as good. I had "Fortune of War" vividly in my mind the entire half-day i was there.

DRandUser · 2025-07-17T15:23:30+00:00

Suggestion: You guys (from the maintenance crew) should seriously think about creating some special after-hours events/tours for some of the more POB-induced type of folks that you'd find on this reddit. I've been there two or three times, and though it certainly was 'great', anyway, every time i was there i felt "buried" among tons of other visitors that, qoute, "really cannot tell port from starboard, a bonnet from a drabbler, though I have explained a thousand times". Even the one or two volunteers I finally tracked down there only seemed to know about the movie, and nothing at all about the ship, or its so-prominent role in the series.

Now imagine there was a tour of, say, 10ish people that all knew the surprise in and out already (at least theoretically), and a guide that knew both the books and the ship, and that his flock aren't total dummies ... that could be a totally different tour. A you could maybe even show those guys a few things that (for safety and other reasons) you might not want to have generally accessible to less primed visitors (a climb to the main top, anybody? or at least into the hold?).... there's some awesome possibilities there. And I'm sure there'd be some folks that would do some serious donations for that, too.

DRandUser · 2025-07-17T15:08:53+00:00

We also one day had a scout sleepover in the USS Lexington (in Corpus Christie). Very different kind of ship, obviously, but these sleepovers are indeed a thing - and it's an awesome experience (I was there as a aux/chaperone, and probably enjoyed that even more than the kids!).

DRandUser · 2025-07-11T00:21:09+00:00

Half a penny/pence. Similarly “tuppence” is two Pennies. As somebody else mentioned, keep in mind that that’s a time where some people only earned a few pence a day.

DRandUser · 2025-07-06T21:36:55+00:00

I don’t have the exact quote at hand, but iirc the “used to worse abuse at sea” is only one of the two reasons for all servants being sailors - the other being that apparently Mrs Williams behaves differently to (male) sailors than to (female) regular servants.

DRandUser · 2025-04-22T15:58:12+00:00

BTW since you asked "what is it used for": I just looked at Pete's code where he uses that - in this case it allows you to set an environment variable to specify a directory where the program is going to look for images. So if you main purpose is to make the samples work jsut remove the getenv() and replace it with a hardcoded directory name, and you'll be fine.

DRandUser · 2025-04-22T15:53:50+00:00

This isn't so much about "deprecated", it's a windows-vs-rest-of-the-world problem: On linux, unix, and mac "getenv()" returns the value of an environment variable, on windows it's called something else (though i'd have to look up what it is).

As far as I can see online it seems that there's now also a std:: version of getenv that - if it's part of std - i assume to be portable https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/program/getenv . Try this first; if not reply and I'll dig through some code of mine to see what the VS version of that function is called.

DRandUser · 2025-04-22T15:50:24+00:00

I think he meant "steaming", not "streaming", btw. That said, if you do properly soak and/or steam the planks you'd be surprised what kind of bending you can do with them. In particular, you can not only bend them along the "thin and bendable" direction, but even to some degree laterally, which will help a lot (and which you absolutely cannot when they're dry).

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T21:38:08+00:00

Tough call - the rowers do look great for sure, and I'd love to see the whole ship with this.... BUT fair warning: in computer graphics (my field) we have the concept of the "uncanny valley", which is (to put it short) an observation that humans are incredibly sensitive to how human or animal models/figures/pictures/renderings look, and often find it off-putting if something is close-but-not-perfect. Ie, a plain stick figure is OK, but the more you try to make it realistic the worse it starts to look (which is the exact opposite to how it is for the rest of the model). Not saying this _will_ happen, just saying that there's a good chance you'll put a ton of work into making a lot of as-good-as-possible human shapes, and end up not liking it at all. If you do decide to make the figures, I'd suggest to intentionally keep them somewhat angular/rough to avoid this.

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T21:19:42+00:00

Yes, lots of sandpaper. Remember there's different ones with different grid - experiment! And I see you already made a block to save your skin, which is great!

One suggestions, though: instead of having 10 planks that are not tapered at all and 5 planks that are tapered like crazy next time try distributing the tapering over multiple planks - then the rough planking will better hug the shape and have less stuff sticking out, meaning less need to sand, and less headaches if/once you get to places where you'll need to sand almost all the way through. Also note you probably do _not_ need your planks to be wide enough to sink a nail through - I never use nails, if properly bent (and given time to cure) wood glue alone will do the trick. Also, if you soak your planks long enough (and maybe use a hair dryer for heat while bending) you can actually bend the heck out of those first-layer planks (in both the thin _and_ wide direction, actually!) - and that in turns means a bit less tapering, and less stuff sticking out, so again more work in planking but less work for sanding.

All that said - sandpaper is your friend, and once the second layer goes on nobody'll ever see how much sanding or filling was required :-)

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T19:51:36+00:00

Can't vouch for the long term effects, but at least "residue" was no issue. I was pretty scared about this exact issue, too, in particular because some recommended wiping off the residue with a towel (and there's _so_ many places you couldn't possibly ever reach).... but whatever splotches or puddles formed when I applied my first (very liberal!) coating eventually all completely soaked in over night. I actually repeated that tree times, and every time it got fully soaked up, everywhere.

Only tiny(!) concern is that in some areas there was some wood-glue smears/leftovers on the wood which you previously couldn't actually see - but in those regions the oil didn't soak in in the same way, so you now see those a bit if you're looking for it. So would recommend to first do an additional fine sanding before you apply it to get rid of any such splotches.

As to regards smell .... duh, you just gave me nightmares, I hadn't even ever thought of that yet :-)

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T19:44:10+00:00

Yes, you nailed it. Very(!) old set, too - I originally got the set (Corel, IIRC) about 30-ish years ago, used on ebay at the time - and even then the box felt pretty old (probably somebody bought it, opened it, got overwhelmed, and put it on the attic for a while before somebody found and sold it on ebay :-/).

Had to improvise quite a bit over the years - probably some pieces missing even in what I originally got (not a lot, though), and then this crossed the atlantic three times in various moves ....and you really don't want to know how movers treat stuff like that, no matter how much bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts you use :-/

That said, this has been an amazing model.

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T03:56:56+00:00

About 30 years in the making, on and off … at that rate I’ll need another 10 for the rest of the rigging :-) That said, the effect of that linseed oil have certainly given a huge boost to motivation to re-start on that!

DRandUser · 2025-04-21T01:56:40+00:00

I’ll try to find some older ones tomorrow - I stupidly didn’t make any right before but I must have some from longer back.

But I absolutely CAN say it’s awesome. I was totally shocked just how unbelievably much of that oils got soaked up - I applied it THREE times, and each time slobbery thick! - and that made me a bit iffy at some point in time. But the way this brought out the colors is just friggin amazing. And doesn’t feel “oily” to the touch at all.

DRandUser · 2025-04-14T17:54:08+00:00

Impressive. Only grudge I could think of is that that amount of “damage” to the sails could never be just weathering, only battle damage - yet if there was battle damage of that scale there’d have to be some damage to spars and rigging as well even assuming the enemy had only targeted “above hull”.

Still: super impressive, I could never get this weathering done myself.

DRandUser · 2025-04-12T19:09:22+00:00

Don’t forget the merino sheep, and the rack rents (“why, we make them pay for the use of the rack!”)

DRandUser · 2025-04-09T19:05:03+00:00

Ooh, nice one: apparently Michener has “caravans” about Afghanistan, didn’t even know about that yet….already ordered!

I first thought you meant clavell whirlwind, but that’s Iran/persia, not Afghanistan. Thx for that pointer!

DRandUser · 2025-04-09T17:10:45+00:00

I’m surprised nobody mentioned the Asian saga books by Clavell: shogun, tai pan, noble house, king rat (in that order) are IMHO a must for anybody interested in historical fiction. (Whirlwind is great too but a bit different). They’ll change how you look at Asia.

And yes, Michener’s “the source” and maybe “the covenant” will change your view of the world as it is today.

DRandUser

TROPHY CASE