The new newsletter has been posted on our Meeting Notes page, which you can always access from the menubar above. But, to make things easy, here’s a link to the pdf document for your reading enjoyment.
Hyde-Street-2017-01-January News
Feel free to pass this along to anyone who might be interested in reading it.
Happy ship modeling!
Saturday, January 21st, will be the first meeting of 2017 for the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights. It’s a new year, and getting together with fellow ship modelers is a great way to start!
Paul McKenzie and his Sakonnet Daysailer model at the November meeting.
The weather is certainly questionable, so I’m hoping many of us will be able to attend with their projects to finish out the year, wish each other happy holidays, and get us ready and inspired to start the new ship modeling year!
However, to help entice members to attend and to celebrate the start of the new ship modeling year, the club will be providing free coffee and pastries. So, bring those projects, warm up with coffee and treats, and spend a little time with your ship modeling cohorts!
As always, guests are welcome. Meeting takes place in the model shop aboard the ferryboat Eureka at 9:30am. If the Park gate is closed, simply let yourself in.
See you there!
Ship modeler, lead volunteer and club Commodore Paul Reck said he got burned out on his current project, the schooner yacht Mayan. He’s been wrestling with trying to get a a nice weathered look to the model’s teak deck and needed a break.
He had acquired a neat little vintage plastic kit from the old Pyro Plastic Corporation and has been working on it lately. The whole model is only about 9-1/2″ long overall and around 1:170 scale according to one website (no scale is given on the box).
Because the yards were molded as part of the sails, and he didn’t want to put sails on the model, he had to fashion some yardarms from maple.
The thin and “bendy” nature of the plastic masts, it took a very careful touch with the rigging to keep everything straight. But, it was difficult to keep lines from getting too slack.
Paul also didn’t want to use the pre-molded plastic shrouds and ratlines, so rigging that part was an extra challenge, but he seemed to really enjoy the build.
Hopefully, we’ll see the model, in person, at the next meeting.
During a brief visit at Japanese ship model manufacturer Woody Joe by Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights member Clare Hess, a gift of HSPMS hats was presented to the company president and chief design engineer.
Mr. Tsuneki, the company president, and Mr. Arata, the chief design engineer, show off their spiffy new Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights hats in front of the main office in Shizuoka, Japan.
The club had several club patches available, and Terry Dorman was able to order the hats for us. Clare Hess had the patches sewn onto the hats before leaving on his trip, which took place in September.
Clare Hess also had an opportunity to present hats to two members of the Tokyo branch of the Japanese ship model society, The Rope, Mr. Uriu and Mr. Sekiguchi, who he met for dinner and drinks, along with Mr. Uriu’s daughter, Hanako. Ω
Thanksgiving at HSPMS
It’s Thanksgiving 2016, and it’s a good time for the members of Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights to stop and reflect on what we, as a group, are thankful for.
First off, it’s important to give thanks for our great membership. The efforts of people like Paul Reck and Tom Shea, in particular, have kept us on our toes, not only as ship modelers, but as ambassadors to the public in our small space aboard the Eureka.
But, everyone who’s lent a hand deserves credit in keeping our group active and interesting, including those that are no longer with us. Even new members who haven’t had a chance to contribute much to the group offer long-time ship modelers hope that someone will be around to carry on the fine art of ship modeling.
Of course, there’s the public and the Park Service, which has deemed maritime history to be of great enough importance to create such a wonderful, living resource here at Hyde Street Pier – a place we make our home.
We are also fortunate to have our friends in the National Park staff. There are too many to name here between the folks on the Pier, the administration, and the research center, but they have all helped us out in various ways.
But, by far our greatest thanks have to go to our supporter, protector and friend Terry Dorman, the Park Service Volunteer Coordinator. Terry has done so much for our group, he’s there when we need him, and he’s always watching out for us like a mother hen. We can’t imagine that any group is as fortunate as ours, to be blessed with such a wonderful person to work with or to be so well looked after.
Here’s to a happy and thankful Thanksgiving. May you all have as much to be thankful for as we here at Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights have been blessed with.
The model club’s annual barbecue is happening late this year, and will be taking place in lieu of the regular September ship model meeting on Saturday, September 17th.
So, there will be no regular meeting that day, and the ship model shop on board the Eureka will be closed. Members who haven’t done so, should make sure to contact Paul Reck about attending the barbecue, which will be at 1pm at his house.
For those who didn’t know, I’m in Japan doing some research on my own on Japanese watercraft.
Yesterday, I was in Tokyo and visited a museum where there was once a thriving fishing community. It’s all landfill and upscale apartments now, but they have a city museum that is a recreation of the old fishing community. They also keep some of the old boats there.
So, what do I find when I walk downstairs amongst the old boats? A workshop set up in the middle, with three old guys at benches surrounded by small band saw, drill press, sanders, racks of clamps, sheets and blocks of wood, etc., and they’re making model boats!
An Urayasu bekabune similar to the one I’m trying to build.
Big language barrier here, more than is usual at a museum, but they’re all museum volunteers, and in the middle is the kind of gruff guy they pointed out as the “boss”. It was clear to me that this was kind of like the equivalent of the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights.
Now, these guys aren’t part of the Japanese ship model society called The Rope, that I’ve mentioned before. The boss is a former boat builder, and the others more or less appear to volunteer as his assistants. He actually has a full-sized boat building project going on there.
I wasn’t able to discern why they were building these models. They were actually kind of crude by ship modeller standards, but they were neat. They might be the kind of model you’d mass produce for museum shops, though there was no sign of anything like that. In one case, a larger model was clearly being set up for radio control.
I finally ran across someone who actually worked there and he spoke some english, so we talked about the specific boats that the region was known for. The guy was kind of like their own Terry Dorman, our hard working volunteer coordinator with the Park Service, and he was dropping off some band saw blades that the builders needed.
I didn’t catch his job title, and I haven’t had a chance to translate the Japanese business card he gave me, but his name is Mr. Shimamura. Since I’m now modeling a bekabune, which is the boat type built and used in Urayasu, he showed me some details about them and gave me their museum pamphlets.
Unexpectedly, as we were heading towards the lobby, he left me for a minute and came back with a paper bag and motioned me to come outside. In front of the museum, he took one of the bekabune models that the volunteers built and handed it to me, saying “gift”. I was really taken aback, but grateful and thanked him very much.
In case you’re wondering, it was 80˚+ with 87% humidity in Japan
I had no idea how I’d take the 14″ long boat model back home with me, but I was expected I’d figure something out. As it turns out, I think this will be a great prop for my demo on Japanese boat modeling at the Nautical Research Guild conference next month. And, as it turns out, if I’m really careful, I can pack it quite comfortably in my luggage.
I could easily have spent another hour or two at the museum, but it was late in the day, and having received the gift from Mr. Shimamura, it seemed like a perfect end to the visit. I will definitely be coming back here again on another trip
– Clare Hess
Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights 