Senor "Longshanks".....no, I don't find your remarks offensive! In fact it's rather nice that you've taken the trouble to air a view.
But just in case anyone thinks I'm giving up modelling, well let me disabuse them!
I've been making my hulls out of GRP since I first began modelling ships back in the early 1970s. And to be honest, it's the only way I know how to get a good, impervious, strong and long lasting hull. OK, It's messy and smelly and quite hard work to make a hull this way. Not so much the actual hull, but the plug and the mould.
In some ways I think (?) I've pioneered the use of double-sided tape to enable "plating" to be shown. The best pics were of the building of "General Havelock"....which will appear soon on the "Sale" site.
However, with the advancing almost blindness in my right eye, modelling an entire ship with any accuracy is now beyond me. At the moment I'm still more or less capable of re-furbishing and repairing damage....because then I've got a sort of pattern to work with.
But "close-up" work defeats me. I'm presently struggling with the ratlines on "Bayflower", but I can only do it at an hour at a time before it all becomes an impossible dream. That's why the re-build thread is taking so long. And I'm nowhere near completion yet!
Thanks again for your post. Bryan.