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Welcome to Stu's New Hobby Site... - Background -

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Hi, I'd like to introduce myself...

My name is Steve (but of course my daughter had to give me her own nickname: "Stu"). I'm very happily retired, and living in southern Ontario, Canada with my wonderful wife Bette (aka "Martha", again... thanks to my daughter) and close to our two great kids Mike and Laura. Many thanks to Laura, this site's original Web Mistress, who helped launch "Stu's Hobby Site" and to Mike and our very special daughter-in-law Jenny who together launched our new baby granddaughters Hannah and Abigail!

When I was very young I got hooked on the hobby of model ship building. I read everything I could find on Pirates and Sir Francis Drake. Back then my Dad helped me scratch build, paint and sail my first solid hull racing yacht. At sixteen I scratch built an imaginary English Galleon c.1588 as a POF on my own using bamboo splints from the local High School Science Lab (these looked like thin popsicle sticks and were used for safely lighting Bunsen burners).

Over the years, I have developed a passion for working with all kinds of wood - from designing and building large pieces of customized furniture to building static and working model planes and ships. I have assembled many kit ships from both plastic and wood and am now undergoing a major kit bashing on Billing's Danish warship Norske Løve c.1765 in 1:75 scale - a challenge that I'm thoroughly enjoying.

For a long time, I've wanted to scratch build an accurate reproduction of a real historic ship. So, I am also scratch building the French supply/exploration ship Le Gros Ventre c.1766 in 1:48 scale. Interestingly, Le Gros Ventre played an important, yet forgotten, historic role in the discovery of Australia by the French in 1772 - before the English!

I'm sharing both my kit bashing and scratch building experiences through this website in the hopes that doing so might provide some inspiration and encouragement for other modelers...

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