Hi. I am a retired engineering professor living in Middleton ,Wisconsin. I have enjoyed woodworking all my life, but I gave up my shop when we moved into our present condo.
A month ago I went to the local hobby shop to buy a plastic model of a 1932 Duesenberg. Unfortunately no such model exists, so on a whim I paid $100 for a wooden ship model kit instead. Although I am an experienced woodworker I have no experience with kit building, and I had no idea about what I was getting into.
The kit I bought was Artisano Latina's "San Fransisco":
.
Little did I know that this was a 24 year old kit that probably had been sitting on the shelf for decades:
I have enjoyed working on this project for three weeks, and I have made all the mistakes that a novice model builder could conceivably make (maybe more).
I first set up shop on a table i front of the TV in the basement. However I soon ran out of space an I now have a much better setup in the garage:
Many of my difficulties were caused by the kit's very incomplete instructions. For example I was asked to form the bow in step 5 while specific details were not mentioned until step 10. A web search for help led me to the fact that there is a new version of my 25 years old kit ("San Fransisco II"). This kit has vastly improved instructions with many detailed pictures. For a while I was tempted to start anew with this kit. However many reviews suggests that the quality of this kit is vastly inferior to the one I have, so I will not do that. Instead I shall accept the fact that my build will not be perfect, but that I have learned a lot. My next project should benefit from this learning experience.
A month ago I went to the local hobby shop to buy a plastic model of a 1932 Duesenberg. Unfortunately no such model exists, so on a whim I paid $100 for a wooden ship model kit instead. Although I am an experienced woodworker I have no experience with kit building, and I had no idea about what I was getting into.
The kit I bought was Artisano Latina's "San Fransisco":
.
Little did I know that this was a 24 year old kit that probably had been sitting on the shelf for decades:
I have enjoyed working on this project for three weeks, and I have made all the mistakes that a novice model builder could conceivably make (maybe more).
I first set up shop on a table i front of the TV in the basement. However I soon ran out of space an I now have a much better setup in the garage:
Many of my difficulties were caused by the kit's very incomplete instructions. For example I was asked to form the bow in step 5 while specific details were not mentioned until step 10. A web search for help led me to the fact that there is a new version of my 25 years old kit ("San Fransisco II"). This kit has vastly improved instructions with many detailed pictures. For a while I was tempted to start anew with this kit. However many reviews suggests that the quality of this kit is vastly inferior to the one I have, so I will not do that. Instead I shall accept the fact that my build will not be perfect, but that I have learned a lot. My next project should benefit from this learning experience.
