ACW Naval update - week 23

I know, you're asking yourself, "what happened to week 22?" Well, it sorta got swallowed up with a bunch of activities around Memorial Day weekend.  I spent a weekend in Houston doing assorted things.

This young man build a set of Brotherhood of Steel power armor out of cardboard and duck tape. The helmet started life as a Clone Trooper. Nice representation of a laser rifle too!

And the Fallout references continue with this absolutely sick 1:1 model of Mr. Handy.

What's this? The entrance to a Vault-TecVault? Nope! It's a armored door onboard USS Texas, a battleship commissioned in 1914.

Are you sure it's not a Vault? Yes! This is a connecting passagway on the second deck (under the main deck).

Casemate battery on the main deck. These 5" mounts represent gunnery 55 years after the Civil War. While the optics and recoil mechanisms have improved and the gunports are huge, it's still gives you the feel of what the gun deck on a casemate ironclad must have been like.

Work continues - rigging on the Minnesota is almost done. While I missed the end of May deadline, Minnesota shall be complete before mid-June.

Work is focused on the mizzen mast standing rigging. That and a few load bearing lines for the mizen boom and spar and it'll be completed!

The addition of the standing rigging really transforms the size of the model.

While I've been procrastinating with the Minnesota's rigging, I've made progress with prepping and decaling a Shapeways 1/144 model - a little seen Fokker D VI. It's a composite of the engine and fuselage of the Dr. I and the wing design from the D. VII. It was a produced in small numbers serving in both the German and Austro-Hungarian air services. 

Slow progress here. Need to repaint the engine cowling.

Still need to decal the stabilzers and control surfaces.

It's very glossy right now as it's still under construction. Once decaled, the last thing it gets is a matte finish to dull down the shine.