- Joined
- Sep 10, 2024
- Messages
- 510
- Points
- 308
Hello from the (currently frigid) Finger Lakes of New York! Home of lovely lakes, world class wines and gorgeous gorges. Ok, enough alliterative superlatives. 
My name is Russ. I joined the forum about four months ago and have just been lurking and reading as many posts as time permitted. I really like the community and feel I've already gotten to know many of the regular posters. I figured it was time to introduce myself and start contributing.
I've been modeling in some form or another most of my life. My mother gave me my first plastic kit at around age seven - a '50s vintage pickup/tow truck. I can't remember the exact model. She enjoyed paint-by-number kits and was somewhat dismayed when my "kit", unlike hers, didn't include everything needed to build the model. Times were tough and being frugal, she handed me a bottle of Elmers glue and some leftover pots of oil paint from one her kits.
Yeah, that went well.
Undeterred, I went on to build numerous plastic cars, planes and ships, then to model rockets, some Guillows stick & tissue airplanes (none of which would actually fly), some control-line airplanes (some of which flew), and I dabbled in RC - a couple that flew.
I purchased my first wooden ship model in 1978. A Billings Danmark on sale for $44.95. That was when they were selling the kits in two parts - hull kits and fittings kits. I just bought the hull kit because it was all I could afford, figuring I would pick up the fittings kit later. I did eventually get the hull planked and decked with most of the deck furniture installed, but by that time, the fittings kits were no longer available separately. It languished, surviving numerous moves - until one time it didn't. I miss that ship.
Without boring you with too many details, I'll mention that my career started in Information Technology in the early '80s. Getting burned out and wanting to try something different, I went to work for a furniture manufacturer in 2007 building high end wooden office furniture. In 2018, I had a slight disagreement with a sliding table saw and lost my right index finger, half of the pinkie and lost most of the range of motion of the other two fingers. Working with power tools most of your life can (will) lead to a sense of complacency. A millisecond's distraction is all it takes for disaster to strike. And yes, it was my dominant hand. I'm still at the same company, but back in an I.T. roll, keeping all the little lights blinking on the network.
When I first found out that they had to amputate the fingers, the first thing I said to the Admiral was that I was going to get a 3D printer and make myself a new finger. And so I did.
Much therapy and a lot of Lego kits to work on my dexterity, I'm now able to do most everything I did before. Sometimes it takes longer and has to be done differently, but it can be done.
I have ordered and finally received Pavel Nikitin's Oseberg V3 in 1:25 and I'll attempt to do a build log on her.
Thank you for welcoming me - I look forward to being a contributing member of this community.
Cheers,
My name is Russ. I joined the forum about four months ago and have just been lurking and reading as many posts as time permitted. I really like the community and feel I've already gotten to know many of the regular posters. I figured it was time to introduce myself and start contributing.
I've been modeling in some form or another most of my life. My mother gave me my first plastic kit at around age seven - a '50s vintage pickup/tow truck. I can't remember the exact model. She enjoyed paint-by-number kits and was somewhat dismayed when my "kit", unlike hers, didn't include everything needed to build the model. Times were tough and being frugal, she handed me a bottle of Elmers glue and some leftover pots of oil paint from one her kits.
Yeah, that went well.
Undeterred, I went on to build numerous plastic cars, planes and ships, then to model rockets, some Guillows stick & tissue airplanes (none of which would actually fly), some control-line airplanes (some of which flew), and I dabbled in RC - a couple that flew.
I purchased my first wooden ship model in 1978. A Billings Danmark on sale for $44.95. That was when they were selling the kits in two parts - hull kits and fittings kits. I just bought the hull kit because it was all I could afford, figuring I would pick up the fittings kit later. I did eventually get the hull planked and decked with most of the deck furniture installed, but by that time, the fittings kits were no longer available separately. It languished, surviving numerous moves - until one time it didn't. I miss that ship.
Without boring you with too many details, I'll mention that my career started in Information Technology in the early '80s. Getting burned out and wanting to try something different, I went to work for a furniture manufacturer in 2007 building high end wooden office furniture. In 2018, I had a slight disagreement with a sliding table saw and lost my right index finger, half of the pinkie and lost most of the range of motion of the other two fingers. Working with power tools most of your life can (will) lead to a sense of complacency. A millisecond's distraction is all it takes for disaster to strike. And yes, it was my dominant hand. I'm still at the same company, but back in an I.T. roll, keeping all the little lights blinking on the network.
When I first found out that they had to amputate the fingers, the first thing I said to the Admiral was that I was going to get a 3D printer and make myself a new finger. And so I did.
Much therapy and a lot of Lego kits to work on my dexterity, I'm now able to do most everything I did before. Sometimes it takes longer and has to be done differently, but it can be done.
I have ordered and finally received Pavel Nikitin's Oseberg V3 in 1:25 and I'll attempt to do a build log on her.
Thank you for welcoming me - I look forward to being a contributing member of this community.
Cheers,
I got a little side tracked by a Xmas gift 
I'm not ashamed to admit that during the first month, there were numerous uncontrollable sobbing sessions, usually alone in the shower, but I never gave in to depression and persevered toward learning how to make the best of what I had left. While I won't ever finger-pick Classical Gas on the guitar again, I can still use a thumb pick and strum. So just remember, lemons? Lemonade!