It's a bit daunting to think that our
little book was to face the scrutiny of anyone affiliated with this
great publication. In fact, the reviewer of our book was none other
than Kurt Van Dahm, President of The Nautical Research Guild, which
is responsible for what I believe to be the world's greatest
collection of information of interest to ship modelers. We've had a
link from our website to theirs for many years. They have information
about vessels, information about techniques, information about where
to obtain plans, information about where to find supplies,
information about maritime libraries, information about professional
model making services and much more. See the link below to check out
The Nautical Research Guild.
In our career of writing about model
making, this is really our moment of truth. The moment when the best
of your peers say yay or nay. We've had several reviews that have
been nothing but positive up until now, for which I am extremely
grateful, but these guys...
I approached my first look at the
review of “Fundamentals...” with some trepidation. Initially, I
was concerned, because the table of contents had modified our book's
name to “Fundamentals of Modeling Marine Boats”. Uh-oh!
When I got to page 72, my moment of...
well... concern... all of a sudden became one of great satisfaction.
I think that when you see this sample
of the superlatives you'll understand what I mean:
“This approach enables them to
thoroughly explain aspects of modeling that are often skipped over in
other books”, “In my opinion they hit the mark with this book”,
“The way even basic information is presented opened my eyes and
taught me a few things”, “very clear photographs”, “Some of
the drawings are done in a full color 'computer generated' manner for
showing the various hull sections or lifts that provide a very clean
and easily understood drawing”, “The book goes into great
detail”, “provides a real learning tool”, “provides some
great examples”, “The thinking like a model maker theme is
referred to throughout the book which I found to be very appropriate
as this is one of the most important skills a model maker can and
must learn”, “the authors provide a logical sequence”, “provide
very good, basic information”, “How to interpret and understand
mechanical drawings is covered very well”, “presented in a very
clear and understandable manner”, “providing thorough
descriptions and examples”, “Again, they used a very basic
presentation to make a very good explanation of a fundamental skill
that one must thoroughly understand”, “a point that more writers
should make”, “will provide a very clear understanding of the
various lines and measurements one sees on a set of drawings”, The
authors provide some of the best photographs illustrating the lift
building method that I have ever seen and their explanation of the
process will leave the novice scratch builder with few if any
questions about the process”.
Mr. Van Dahm did provide one criticism:
He felt that the order of some of the chapters were not in the
sequence that he would have chosen, but stated: “That said, the
usefulness of this book is not diminished by the arrangement and
should not make it any less attractive or useful to the intended
audience.” I wrote to him and explained why I chose the order of the chapters in question and he responded that
their order made perfect sense, given our intended goals.
He concludes his review with this:
“This is a book that I think
belongs in the library of every novice to intermediate scratch
modeler and those modelers who are considering scratch building. The
authors have made this book very understandable to those who have
held off because of unanswered questions or who have found it hard to
grasp the information from other books. The reading and study of this
book would be good preparation to help in understanding some of the
more advanced texts on the subject.”
This is what the World's Best Ship
Modeling Magazine said. I'm happy.
For a signed copy of our book, "Fundamentals of Model Boat Building" please go to http://intothings.com/fundamentals.html.
(If the font looks funny please let me know. I have seen some funny looking font sizes with the advent of IE10...)
To explore the vast information available from The Nautical Research Guild go to http://www.thenrg.org/
To learn more about Seaways Ships in Scale go to
