***May’s photo of the month - Vote Open!***

LeStryge - "Thundering Torrent"



TheOneManKid - Ryker In the Forest



Rogue-Trooper - Off to the shops



somekindajoe - Trying out Cliff's chair while he's away!



Blondeactionman - Has Jake seen this??



Prof Gangrene Fan - In the Woods



Gunner Munro - DANGER CLOSE !



Rustygun - Preparing for the shot..

Well that’s me put my vote in guys. Good luck to everyone that have entered .

Brutally tough round! Best set of monthly photos I've seen since joining the forum! Almost all of them invoke the "spirit" of "playing with Joe/AM" out in the back yard when we were kids. Outstanding work, guys! As far as I'm concerned, these are all winning entries!

SCU_HQ wrote:

Brutally tough round! Best set of monthly photos I've seen since joining the forum! Almost all of them invoke the "spirit" of "playing with Joe/AM" out in the back yard when we were kids. Outstanding work, guys! As far as I'm concerned, these are all winning entries!

Couldn't agree more Dave!         
REALLY tough decision.  

LeStryge wrote:

SCU_HQ wrote:

Brutally tough round! Best set of monthly photos I've seen since joining the forum! Almost all of them invoke the "spirit" of "playing with Joe/AM" out in the back yard when we were kids. Outstanding work, guys! As far as I'm concerned, these are all winning entries!

Couldn't agree more Dave! 
REALLY tough decision.  

At least there's no "Hoover-MAM" to contend with!

SCU_HQ wrote:

LeStryge wrote:

SCU_HQ wrote:

Brutally tough round! Best set of monthly photos I've seen since joining the forum! Almost all of them invoke the "spirit" of "playing with Joe/AM" out in the back yard when we were kids. Outstanding work, guys! As far as I'm concerned, these are all winning entries!

Couldn't agree more Dave! 
REALLY tough decision.  

At least there's no "Hoover-MAM" to contend with!

SCU_HQ wrote:

At least there's no "Hoover-MAM" to contend with!

Dave, I think we're BOTH just jealous that we don't have a 1/6 scale vacuum cleaner!

LeStryge wrote:

SCU_HQ wrote:

At least there's no "Hoover-MAM" to contend with!

Dave, I think we're BOTH just jealous that we don't have a 1/6 scale vacuum cleaner!

I know I am!

Congratulations LeStryge on winning May’s photo of the month.

Well done Barry!

Thanks Alex and Dal! 
It was a close race there with Gunner Munro, whose dynamic photo was very praiseworthy.

Congratulations Barry, a worthy winner to be sure!!!

Sincere thanks Brian!
I fear an imminent decline in the standard of any of my photos from here on. 
Sadly I have sold and now left my acreage that presented so many wonderful possibilities for photo shoots.
Here where I am now, whilst comfortable and modern, is very bleak in that department.

Congratulations on the win, LeStryge! A fine way to bid farewell to your back yard Action Man settings... and perhaps an inspiration to roam further afield in search of new locations!

You've allocated space in the new digs to serve as the Diorama Room, I hope!

SCU_HQ wrote:

You've allocated space in the new digs to serve as the Diorama Room, I hope!  

Many thanks for the congrats Dave!
Yes, I've allocated space for that, trouble is just looking around now I think I forgot to allocate a space for.....ME?
(Tiki Bar is on the verge of starting though....!    
I have even invented a new cocktail for the opening provisionally called a "Molokai Mai Tai"!   )

LeStryge wrote:

(Tiki Bar is on the verge of starting though....!    
I have even invented a new cocktail for the opening provisionally called a "Molokai Mai Tai"!   )

Excellent! At least you'll be able to drown your sorrows in style!

I actually watched the movie Blue Hawaii last night. It was quite nostalgic. When Elvis is driving through the cane fields with the girls in the car, that was pretty much my daily drive to work, through relatively untouched central Oahu.

Odd as this may seem to many, somehow I never really became an Elvis fan, even in my youth.
They do show some marvellous scenery in that movie though.

Another that features some great "island" shots is the version of "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian, although I must say that the groomed lawns and neat huts of the supposedly native Tahitian village tend to resemble some high class Club Med rather than any natural south sea island location, but it's all very pretty.

LeStryge wrote:

Another that features some great "island" shots is the version of "Mutiny on the Bounty" with Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian, although I must say that the groomed lawns and neat huts of the supposedly native Tahitian village tend to resemble some high class Club Med rather than any natural south sea island location, but it's all very pretty.

One of my friends on another forum (a "doll forum") was good friends with the captain of the Bounty replica used in that movie, and actually made a trans-Atlantic voyage on the ship as a member of the crew. That would be the Bounty replica that went down in a storm several years ago, taking the captain and one other crew member with it.

That ship was never meant to be a sea-going vessel. 
It was literally just a movie prop, ...and actually much longer that the real Bounty to allow room for cameras etc.
 After filming was completed a bloke bought it and hoped to make money out of tourism but it had constant problems with getting a seaworthy ticket due to its dodgy cheap construction. Often kept inactive due to these reasons and subject to many failed attempts to try to make it sea-worthy it never really managed to become a viable proposition.
Eventually the inevitable happened and it foundered during a hurricane, sadly with the loss of life you mention.

LeStryge wrote:

That ship was never meant to be a sea-going vessel. 
It was literally just a movie prop....

I suggested this to my online acquaintance, and she disagreed with me. But everything I have read about the ship suggests that, yes, it was a movie prop ship, and was certainly not designed to have a 50 year career sailing on the open ocean. I suppose the amazing thing is that it lasted as long as it did.

This diagram shows just SOME of the issues that floating coffin had.


What is surprising is that it didn't sink sooner.
I've read you could almost poke your finger through the planking in places.
Still, I bet it's making a very picturesque sight on the sea floor now!

LeStryge wrote:

Still, I bet it's making a very picturesque sight on the sea floor now!

I've wondered about that. Too bad it's so deep.

Then again, being a wooden boat that was literally falling apart at the seams, it may have broken up long before it hit the bottom.

I've also read that the official investigations determined that it was errors on the captain's part. He put to sea and tried to outrun the storm in a slow, leaking, understaffed ship with mechanical issues. Then he changed course from what had been planned and tried to skirt closer to the edge of the storm to pick up speed.

Some of his friends and fans, including the woman I know, considered him an excellent seaman. Others, from what I've read, considered him to be a reckless maniac.

Of course, the sea and those storms are very powerful, and sometimes even the best ships lose the battle. But this one probably shouldn't have been out there to begin with.

Here's MY handmade model of "The Bounty",....which is probably FAR more seaworthy than that old movie prop ever was!



Deck details. (And yes, the rigging was indeed an absolute nightmare......thanks for asking! Sorry, no breadfruit trees. 
Maybe MR Christian has thrown them overboard already?) 

In true AMMO FORUM style, we've completely derailed this topic, haven't we?

WOW! That is an AMAZING model! You built this, yourself?

Okay, I need to skulk quietly away and, after disposing of all my modeling and diorama efforts, hide in the corner and sulk.

I built a plastic model kit of the Bounty when I was ten or eleven years old. The limited rigging was pre-molded plastic, and I found even that to be challenging to install.

Yours is like a museum quality replica.

When you say "hand made," did you start with a wooden kit and then enhance the detailing? Or is this a full scratch-built model, starting with plans and wood, but no pre-formed parts? Either way, it shows impressive craftsmanship and a real eye for detail... and speaks of near infinite patience.

By the time you finished something like this, especially the rigging, you'd really have an understanding of how an actual sailing ship works, I would think.

SCU_HQ wrote:

In true AMMO FORUM style, we've completely derailed this topic, haven't we?

Hey, I won this month's competition so I'm claiming this thread as mine to derail! 
"To the victor go the spoils" eh?  


There was a styrofoam sort of blank pre-formed hull shape, but that's all. The planking came just in flat lengths and had to be individually cut and fitted to the hull.
And yes, you are correct about the rigging. You really learn what each shroud would do.

I am in total awe of those sailors who went aloft (most of them bare-footed) in really violent seas and storms to reef in the sails. One slip meant certain death as the ship could not turn around to save you.
Imagine rounding The Horn in the wild conditions there on one of these?