May 2015 Meeting

The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild's April meeting will be on Tuesday May 5, 2015 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue.

2nd Annual Military Hobby Show

This show will feature militaria and military modelling vendors, used military books & magazines, hobby displays, toy and model soldiers, information tables and displays from the Ottawa Service Battalion Museum and active Army Reserve Unit.

The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild will be participating in this year's show. Among the displays members will provide there will be a rope walk demonstration and a selection of 1/700 scale warships. 

Show Admission
$5.00
Half price for serving Canadian Forces Members
FREE for Children 14 and under

As the Capital Marine Modellers Guild is not directly involved with
running this show this information is subject to change without notice. 

For more information click the following link.
Ottawa Service Battalion Association

April 2015 Meeting

The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild's April meeting will be on Tuesday April 7, 2015 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue.

March 2015 Meeting

The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild's March meeting will be on Tuesday March 3, 2015 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue. Dave Omond will continue his presentation on rigging. Remember to bring show-and-tell items, including finished models, work-in-progress, problems for which you need a solution and anything else you think is interesting.

Club Members' Models

Ed Chan kindly took photographs of models brought out for show and tell at club meetings running from December 2014 to February 2015. As you will see the models represent a broad range of nautical interest within the club.

Vic Chartrand's Hermaphrodite Brig viewed from above

The next three pictures show more of this model.

Steam Warping Tug seen from above.

Another view of Schleswig-Holstein.

The next two pictures show other views of this model.

Matchstick Fleet

79-year-old Phil Warren from the UK spent 62 years building this incredible fleet of 432 ships and 1200 aircraft, all built entirely of matchsticks and their wooden boxes. The collection includes 370 U.S. and 60 British ships and their associated aircraft.

He began creating his first boat in 1948 when he was 17. He uses a razor blade, tweezers, sandpaper and glue. He has used more than 650,000 matchsticks to create this amazing collection of 1:300 scale models.

February 2015 Meeting

The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild's February meeting will be on Tuesday February 3, 2015 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue. Among the regular meeting activities will be a discussion about attending the Military Hobby Show in June and who can attend to be present at the booth.

January 2015 Meeting

Capital Marine Modeller' Guild's first meeting of 2015, will be on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue starting at 7:00 p.m.

December 2014 Meeting

The 2014 December meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday December 2, 2014 at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Ave. Remember to bring show and tell items, work in progress and any modelling problems you want help with.

October 2014 Meeting

The October meeting will be at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue on Tuesday, October 7,  2014, starting at 7:00 p.m.

Some Caveats About Wooden Ship Kits

At the September meeting a discussion about wooden ship kits came up. For those interested in building model ships a basic simple wooden ship kit is often an excellent entry point to the hobby. There are a few things the beginner should know before taking on such a project. I will deal with a few of those things here.

The instructions may not be completely helpful. For example, with regard to the hull, the instructions may just say, "plank the hull." With regard to the rigging the instructions may say, "install the rigging." At some point the instructions may say, "complete building the ship." For a beginner, such instructions can be extremely daunting.

More detailed instructions can be found in a number of books. Books written by Harold A. Underhill are extremely helpful. In addition to that there are model ship clubs such as The Capital Marine Modellers' Guild in many communities. Experienced members of such clubs are only too happy to share what they know with others.

When a wooden ship model kit is purchased it is a good idea to check the included materials. I recommend replacing the rigging thread that is included. The rigging line that is provided is more often than not insufficient to complete the rigging of the ship and finding an after market line that matches what is in the kit is often very difficult, if not impossible.

It may be a good idea to replace some of the wood that is provided as well. Usually the wood provided for planking the hull or planking the deck is insufficient to complete the job, unless the modeller is very frugal and careful with it, and again, the modeller may have a difficult time finding after market wood to match what the kit includes.

Most wooden ship kits are one of two types. They either provide a solid wooden hull, often preformed and needing further carving and finishing, or they provide a plank on bulkhead hull. The bulkheads provided are often precut and they are not always symmetrical. Tracing them on paper and folding along the centre line is an easy way to check that and then correct it before building the ship.

Those are not the only problems one may encounter with a beginning wooden ship kit but they are probably the most frequently encountered. I have mentioned them here, so that if you want to begin ship modelling with a wooden ship kit you will be able to avoid some of the early pitfalls and get more enjoyment out of the hobby.

Bill Williams

September 2014 Meeting

We will be having our first meeting of the 2014-2015 season on Tuesday, September 02, 2014, at the Nepean Museum, 16 Rowley Avenue from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Hope to see you all there, looking forward to a new year with lots of new projects.

CGCS Alexander Henry

CCGS Alexander Henry is a former Canadian Coast Guard Light icebreaker and Buoy tender that served its entire career in the Great Lakes. Port Arthur Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Port Arthur, built the ship. She was launched in 1958 and commissioned in 1959 into the Department of Transport's Marine Service as CGS Alexander Henry using the prefix "Canadian Government Ship," named after Alexander Henry, an 18th-century British explorer and fur trader. Retired from service in 1984 after CCGS Samuel Risley entered service, she is now a museum ship preserved at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes in Kingston, Ontario and operated as a bed and breakfast during the summer months.

WHAM Radio 1180 Boat

WHAM Radio 1180 is in Rochester, New York. I think this was taken during the mid 1980s in The Gan. (That's Gananoque for those of you not familiar with the way we speak in eastern Ontario.) I could be wrong about the location but it's still a nice boat and so are the others in the picture.

St. Roch

R. C. M. Police St Roch is shown in the photograph. The ship is now in the Vancouver Maritime Museum. A page from the museum's web site tells the ship's story.

Lake Boat

For some reason these huge long narrow vessels are called boats, not ships. They mostly carry bulk cargo such as grain and iron ore. This picture gives an idea of just how long they are.

At souvenir shops along the St. Lawrence Seaway one can buy books that can be used to identify the lake boats and the companies that own them, by the colours and markings of the exhaust stacks.

Senator of Canada Goes Through Iroquois Locks

In scanning my family slides I came across a set of photographs of the Lake Boat Senator of Canada going through the Iroquois locks on the Seaway. I am posting them here as these photographs may be of some interest and hopefully will provide some useful details.