Buck Rackham

Your name Occupation Captain Ship Name The Rushing Rogue # of ships you sacked 192 How you died Got your throat slit Damn, that really hurt too!

Aye Scupper, and them plastic models can be just about as expensive as well. The beauty of this hobby is that it has given me a wonderful education about the old tall ships. The instructions assume that the builder knows the meaning of every name and part on the ship. Also, sometimes, and this is often as the models are mostly made overseas, the instructions are very hard to understand and that's why they are rated like they are (experienced, advanced, easy, etc.) One day I would love to build a ship from scratch, but I'm just not sure if I ever will. Those that are master builders can take a picture of a ship at a few angles and reproduce it beautifully. That's a bit beyond what I want to do. :)

In deed, it's a work of love. I might go a month or so without working on the ship (I'm in that stage right now) but working with wood keeps it real so to speak. One can purchase cheaper ships than those that I've been wanting for much less than $100 and if you catch them on sale, you can pick one up for close to $60 and less. There are also "mini" models that will run less than $40 but they have much less detail. But it's the detail that makes these beauties. At times, I have to wear not only strong reading glasses, but a magnifyer headset that has not one, but three settings. I also have to use a needle threader when I'm working with the rigging. That's where it really gets fun. You should give it a shot sometime.

Patrick me man, me tinks ye need some good lovin' from a curvy wench. Keep yer head up and tink possitive.

Z, I like you. You hang right in there. Kinda remind me of meself many moons ago. I guess if yer gonna be a pirate, ya gotta be tough. Here, if nobody's lookin', you can have a pint of me Guiness, but if'n ye tell anyone, does the word keelhull mean anythun to ye?

I will totally agree with you on this, but like you, I'm not a lawyer. I guess the whole deal to to prevent anything from taking advantage of a copyrighted image, idea or whatever. I don't think they think beyond this point. It's stop anything at the beginning.

All my life I was into model building, mostly cars as a youth, then into aircraft and race cars as I got older. The older I got, the more into the various models I got. I quite building models about 13 years ago and never thought much about it. However, about three years ago, because we only had one computer at that time (now we have way too many), I decided that because my wife wanted to use the computer as much as I did, I needed something to keep me busy while she was on the PC. I went to the local hobby store and looked at the wooden ship models. I was shocked to see the price of these models, but was determined to buy one and put it together. The ship I chose was the cheapest and ran a mere $130 at the store. I later found that I could purchase this ship for around $80 on the internet, but it was too late. Anyway, I loved building the San Francisco and learned an awful lot about ships. It took me nearly a year to build this beauty and though I know and can see countless mistakes in the finished product, everyone who sees it just marvels at it. I then purchased the CSS Alabama and built that model for my son and his wife. That ship took a little longer to build but it is simply beautiful and again, I learned lots of history not only about this ship, but many others as well. I am now working on my third ship, the Mayflower, which is very similar to the first ship. This model goes to my daughter and her husband. While it is true that these models cost a lot of money, the rewards are much more with the finished product. I've noticed that of late, the price of the models throughout the internet have really gone through the roof, I am still wanting to purchase and build the USS Constitution which will run me probably around $350 or so for the kit. These are not models that one would see in a childs room, hanging from the ceiling, but are museum pieces that take not only time, but precision to build. I've got probably about $500 worth of tools that I've purchased to help me make them better. There are those who build their ships from scratch and they not only pick and choose which wood they want, but also cure, slice and cut the wood from the start. Some of this will take years to accomplish. The many fittings can be purchase on line, or as some of those old pros do, they cast and make them themselves. I guess I don't have enough life left in me to try to accomplish some of that, but just building from a kit gives me plenty of satisfaction. One thing about it though, it's addictive for sure. :)

This really isn't anything new. As a big race fan, many years ago I started a newsletter for my friends around the country and the use of the acronymn NASCAR was a bit too much for those dudes in Daytona. Though there were only 50 or so of us, we were given a "cease and dissist" order for using that term. There are many stories about small people using a copyrighted name, even if that name might just happen to be their own. Disney is only trying to protect their own interest.

Is that the faire just outside Colo Sprgs? If so, that's the first faire that I ever attended. The Bristol Faire north of Chicago is the faire that I've attended the most, but now that I live in NC, I've been to the faire near Charlotte once and plan to attend many more times.

I saw that ship in January when we docked or rather weighed anchor in the harbor there. We swam with the stingrays and wondered what those poor animals did while there weren't any people around to feed them. This season has really been bad for my Caribbean.

Anyone out there building these gems? I'm a rather novice at the hobby, having build only two, the San Francisco, a galleon and the CSS Alabama, a rather famous confederate war ship. I am at present building the Mayflower and my goal is to finally build the USS Constitution. However, the price of this model keeps going up and up and is now well over $350. Anyway, the wench wants me to build the Black Falcon, a pirate ship, but I'd rather build Drake's Golden Hind.