MY HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS - (OR 'PRACTICAL USES FOR THAT MODEL FOO')

[bucketfoot-al]

Well, I have an addition to this thread - from "The Old Country"!!!

We are now a week into our vacation back in the Old Country, and there was a little project waiting for me there that has bothered me for well over a decade - heck, I even took some Quikaluminum putty with me about 8 years ago specifically for this "fix" ... then never got around to it ... UNTIL NOW!!!

My grandparents...or parents, bought these two cool looking plug-in outdoor lanterns for the Summer home (that I inherited decades later) ... I remember my grandfather hanging them up at the beginning of every Summer, then taking them down and storing them up in the attic at the end of the Summer.

The first time was probably about 53 years ago ... The lanterns have some ornamental flourishes made of thin wire ... and when I started coming back 20 years ago (after having been away for the better part of three decades), I noticed that a couple of them were partially disconnected, while one was missing completely ...

I envisioned crafting a simple bronze hobby rod into the missing piece, then using some kind of Quikmetal putty to attach it ... yesterday I finally got around to it ... better late than never I always say ...

The whole thing didn't take long - fashioning the missing piece from the rod took all of 10 minutes with my Gerber multiplier tool (issued to me by the USAF on my way to my yearlong deployment to Bosnia in 1996) ... then some Quikaluminum putty, some acrylic black paint, and ... *VOILA*!!! The damaged lantern was restored to wholeness and hung up outside the front door!! (The other lantern hangs outside the balcony door one flight up). The accompanying collage will show you the steps. Back to trying to de-stress, swim a little in the Adriatic, and - relax!

[tay666]

Nice!

[bucketfoot-al]

Old Country projects continues ... a quick look at my "new" modeling table in the satellite workshop in Croatia ... now fixing some African wood carvings I brought here that I found in a closet in my late parents apartment in Belgrade after mom passed 2 years ago ... all of these were brought back by my dad from his diplomatic travels to Africa in the 1950s and 1960s ...

First, this large wooden elephant had chunks broken off his feet - I puttied them and then painted them, enlarged the tusk holes and screwed the wooden tusks into place ... next the spear carrying warriors ... stay tuned ...

[Tim Fortuna]

Very cool! Lots of family memories and great sentimental value.

[overspray]

Nice tributes to your family and heritage. Model on!

[bucketfoot-al]

Thanks guys! A lot more to come, so stay tuned to this thread..

[Stormheart]

[bucketfoot-al]

Update: Note the missing spear in the figure on the right.

Step 1: drill small hole in break, insert/glue metal rod;

Step 2: Using Quikwood putty, start making the shaft, then expand into the spear area, making it much larger than it needs to be (didn't take a pic of that step);

Step 3: Whittle/carve the spear down, methodically, with an Exacto-type razor until it starts to match the spear of the other figure;

Step 4: Sand off the rough surface texture til it starts looking like the model spear;

Step 5: Paint black - and - *VOILA* the missing spear is restored, and the figure takes its place in the display.

[bucketfoot-al]

Now a "Blast from The Past". You may have wondered about those shelves the models (and other stuff) is displayed on up on the second floor of the Old Country vacation home. How did they come to be? Here's the "Rest of the Story" from 2022.

In 2022 I did a major-ish repaint of all the second floor wooden shutters, using the tried and tested "Assembly Line Modeling Method" I had perfected as I honed my "Model Foo". Took em off the hinges, then lined them up, first on chairs, and then on the wall in the rear yard and started painting.

Then, I had the idea to turn a pile of wooden floorboards stored up there for 50 years into shelves. A local Master carpenter, Stelio, built the "carrying sections" in his workshop, then brought them to the house along with his electric table saw. In one morning, with me taking his precise instructions and acting as his assistant, he cut all of the wood to precise sections and then - using nothing but hammer and nails - painstakingly straightened out many long warped boards and made them all fit together into shelves. A master class in old-style craftsmanship.

Collages don't lie. Take a look for yourselves.

[tay666]

[Tim Fortuna]

That is so awesome! You can not beat that kind of craftsmanship.

[bucketfoot-al]

That is so awesome! You can not beat that kind of craftsmanship.

Frankly, it was amazing watching him do it. Now because these floorboards were prepared to be made into a floor, each board has a little notch that fits into the corresponding indentation on the next board.

Of course, when one of the boards has been warped like a banana and it's completely dried out over 50 years in the attic, you would think it would be impossible to get it to straighten out and to fit into the board next to it.

And if you couldn't make it fit you would think that you couldn't use it to make a shelf, because each shelf is made up of five of those boards. And then I watched him take curved board after curved board and using nothing but a hammer, patiently, small hammer blow by small hammer blow, hammer it into the other board, correcting the warp.

And I was like,



Edit: my wife and I were just coming back from a swim on our side of the island, in a quiet secluded cove. On the way back, I saw a familiar figure of an older man with gray hair and a mustache walking his big old dog. Yep, it was Stelio. We walked over and chatted with him, and were glad to hear that his wife had also survived a recent health issue that was pretty serious.

To recap, you don't see somebody for 3 years, you post a couple of pictures with him on the Clubhouse, and Bam! You run into him the next day.

Elon is right. We must live in a Simulation.

[Trekkriffic]

I just read thru this whole thing Vlad.
A remarkable odyssey of doityourselfism, a testament to the virtues of the modeller’s way.
A clear, if somewhat murky, validation of the old saying…
“Quid nul pro complaino, consternation turns to lucidation!”
Well done sir! Well done!

[bucketfoot-al]

I just read thru this whole thing Vlad.
A remarkable odyssey of doityourselfism, a testament to the virtues of the modeller’s way.
A clear, if somewhat murky, validation of the old saying…
“Quid nul pro complaino, consternation turns to lucidation!”
Well done sir! Well done!

Thank you Trekkiffic!!!!

[tay666]

[bucketfoot-al]

One last "dino-fix" for this vacation ... In 2012 I turned this vinyl Kaiyodo Saltasaurus into an Amargasaurus (sort of) by fitting it with two rows of VERY sharp and pointy African porcupine quills as spikes ... problem was, the right leg turned inward at the knee and made the kit very unstable. Well, I found that it had fallen over during our absence, breaking off a few quills.

Something had to be done. Solution:

1. Glue back on the fallen quills;

2. Tear off the offending lower leg at the knee, add a plastic rod as a post and a healthy sculpted-on dose of a Quikwood/Quikplastik mixture - adding bulk to the inner knee and allowing the leg to go parallel with the left leg, giving the model total stability;

3. Slap on some dark gray paint on affected areas;

*VOILA* The offending MoFo's stability issues are OVER!!!

[Trekkriffic]

That looks like the REAL Spinosaurus Vlad. The heck with that one on Jurassic Park!

[bucketfoot-al]

That looks like the REAL Spinosaurus Vlad. The heck with that one on Jurassic Park!

[barad_dur]

Satellite workshop looks great! Glad to see you are able to continue model works at your remote site.

Regarding your spikey-saurus , just curious why the larger sized spikes are on the neck and smaller sized spikes are on back, order seems reversed to me?

[bucketfoot-al]

Satellite workshop looks great! Glad to see you are able to continue model works at your remote site.

Regarding your spikey-saurus , just curious why the larger sized spikes are on the neck and smaller sized spikes are on back, order seems reversed to me?

A good question Joe! If you look at the Amargasaurus and related species, you will find that the longest spikes are along the neck, and that they then get very short along the back. Of course, if you want to get technical, my bash has way more spikes than the Amargasaurus actually had, because the spines were actually bony extensions of the vertebra. But I just liked the idea of using the African Porcupine quills, and got a little carried away with it.