Thorvics'Blog

[Thorvic]

Glad the mojo has returned Geoff 

Didn't realise you'd been made redundant, commiserations.

Yeap part of 20% cut backs, my former bosses in Bolton took early retirement, I couldn't relocate because of my dad being so old and infirm so was made redundant as they consolidated down south. At least the new people who did chop me were they themselves chopped when their flagship project to switch to SAP went tits up 3 mths later after millions wasted and 3 years of work.

The unfortunate thing was though soon after becoming free, I had started to do some day trips with Dad and found he was feeling more and more uncomfortable so went to the docs after 3 weeks and found his Prostrate Cancer had kicked in again and the meds were no longer managing it, so in the following five mnths he become slowly bed bound, under the care of the District Nurses and did a few weeks in the Hospice before passing away at home with us around him in September.

Been in limbo somewhat since then, but friends & family have helped and got through Christmas, just got his and my Birthdays over the next week to get past and then its on with the rest of my life and whatever it holds.

But yes the mojo is back, thankfully, I have been able to stock up with kits I needed and refreshed the reference library so I have the inspiration so can now crack on again. Just a shame the likes f Atlas's Shoulders,  FSP, BSP 5 and other aircraft project books have also come out as going to focus on the ships this year 

[Rheged]

Glad the mojo has returned Geoff 

Didn't realise you'd been made redundant, commiserations.

Yeap part of 20% cut backs, my former bosses in Bolton took early retirement, I couldn't relocate because of my dad being so old and infirm so was made redundant as they consolidated down south. At least the new people who did chop me were they themselves chopped when their flagship project to switch to SAP went tits up 3 mths later after millions wasted and 3 years of work.

The unfortunate thing was though soon after becoming free, I had started to do some day trips with Dad and found he was feeling more and more uncomfortable so went to the docs after 3 weeks and found his Prostrate Cancer had kicked in again and the meds were no longer managing it, so in the following five mnths he become slowly bed bound, under the care of the District Nurses and did a few weeks in the Hospice before passing away at home with us around him in September.

Been in limbo somewhat since then, but friends & family have helped and got through Christmas, just got his and my Birthdays over the next week to get past and then its on with the rest of my life and whatever it holds.

But yes the mojo is back, thankfully, I have been able to stock up with kits I needed and refreshed the reference library so I have the inspiration so can now crack on again. Just a shame the likes of Atlas's Shoulders,  FSP, BSP 5 and other aircraft project books have also come out as going to focus on the ships this year 

Much sympathy!!  I suffered from a company that adopted SAP, and then had to drop it 6 months later  as it mortally wounded the company! I was declared repugnant in the 4th and second last round of redundancies.  Congratulations on the return of the mojo....I look forward with interest in your maritime adventures.......and there's always 2018  for the aircraft projects.

[PR19_Kit]

SAP? I SPIT on it!

I spent months trying to implement an SAP system in to my Service department, and that resulted in us taking a whole day to place customer's spares orders when the previous home grown Excel software could do it maybe 2 mins. 

[Thorvic]

I wasn't directly involved in the SAP aspect when it kicked off our own development work stopped, the rest of my team in Taunton moved on and I got moved to 2nd line support to keep our in-house apps ticking over and supporting some of the core systems too. When I left they kept bugging me for about 6 weeks before somebody higher up realised and canned those apps, so they actually went backwards and lost some of the systems they relied on.

Every time we asked to see SAP or got involved on the fringes it seemed to be extremely clunky and the only benefit if any was that the actions could be logged ad fed to the high command as performance data which appears to be how they sell the system and why nearly half the implementations fail as it becomes apparent the productivity goes down the pan just to give some senior manager or director a sodding live action Pie Chart. Those same managers tend to jump ship, or get the boot once the board realises the cost and the negative impact.

Anyhow not my problem anymore, I need to look elsewhere and get something to pay the bills and give me enough creative juices left at the end of the day to allow me to get some stuff built.

New year means I need to focus on me again, buy and cook food for one and get out and about again.

[Thorvic]

Back on topic I managed to cut out a new flight deck for Malta and have painted the hanger deck. Need to do some ships boats for the transom and in the hanger and do a couple of folded Buccaneers and a Sea King to see in the open deck edge lift hanger opening. A Phantom FG1 folded up will go on the lowered forward lift.

Will have to detail up and paint the hull platforms where they are overhung by the angled deck as I wont be able to paint them later once the Flight deck is fitted.

Aiming to keep on with this build to see if I can complete it for Huddersfield, as got plenty of Carrier motivation to keep me going this year till the Airfix Phantom arrives. 

[kitnut617]

Condolences for you on your Dad Geoff, been there, done that with my parents. And my eldest sister died too not long after my Dad. The scary thing about it all is I'm now considered the "head of the family"    like I qualify for that ---

[Captain Canada]

Glad to hear you're getting back into the swing of things Geoff. Also really looking forward to seeing these ships come along ! Love the sound of the air wing already 

[PR19_Kit]

Aiming to keep on with this build to see if I can complete it for Huddersfield, as got plenty of Carrier motivation to keep me going this year till the Airfix Phantom arrives. 

And it'll give you time to raise the mortgage you'll need to BUY the Phantom kit...........

[Weaver]

Glad to see you've got your mojo back Geoff.

When I started at Woodford, BAe were still telling horror stories of their SAP implementation even though it was years before. Then our company announced they were implementing SAP, and BAe were so worried that they offered to help for free. Our bosses declined. Three months after the original implementation date, and 48 hours before the go-live date, I was summoned down to head office for training on it, at which point it was revealed that not only were none of the systems I needed to do my bit of the job even written, but that they had no idea how to write them...

So for three months we issued as little stock as possible, on paper records which piled up in a backlog awaiting a workable system, which was a pig's breakfast of a lash-up when it finally arrived. Upside? It was while surfing the web from work 'cos I couldn't do anything that I found the What If site.

Left that job and went to work in a similar situation with a customer who used SAP and insisted that we use it too. Utter crap implementation again, but crap in totally different ways to the last one so very little of my experience was applicable. Never want to see SAP again ever.

[Thorvic]

The annoying part is we went Office 365 and Microsoft SharePoint for our office and intranet needs yet selected SAP over the Microsoft Option that probably would have been more suitable and embedded easier !!!  .

Anyway those that made the choices all fell by the way side and the top level management have been absorbed into the parent company as a result, not that it does me much good, but you do feel vindicated that they blew it big style.

[Weaver]

I always like the fact that the guy who came over from head office to try to convince me not to resign from my last job ended up leaving before I did....

[PR19_Kit]

I always like the fact that the guy who came over from head office to try to convince me not to resign from my last job ended up leaving before I did....

What goes around comes around. 

[Thorvic]

From the top :-

Scratchbuilt QEC hull that will eventually be done as HMS Prince of Wales on CATOBAR config (I built two hull when I did my Queen Elizabeth back in 2010 !)
Revell HMS Invincible OOB (have removed the moulded on flight deck markings and re-scribed the Deck lifts - will be finished real circa 1981 with original airgroup to fill the timeline
Fujimi HMS Ark Royal with hull mods and flight deck for Phantomisation - real will be circa 1970s
IHP Malta - with mods and flight deck for equivalent Phantomisation as kit is as per design
OrangeHobby HMS Victorious - resin kit of the Victorious circa 1960 but with 1966 air-group - will do necessary mods to bring her to as per 1966

At the bottom and mostly out of sight is the scratch built HMAS Melbourne. I was able to use the recent Colossus class kits as a reference to correcting the shape and feature of this build as I originally created it due to the poor hull of a garage kit I had picked up. Just awaiting a book from Oz on the RAN Aircraft Carriers and Squadrons to use for reference on fitting out this carrier.

[Thorvic]

The iHP Malta with Angled deck and Phantom refit. Doing this to compare the Malta to Ark Royal and CVA-01 as a comparison if they had continued with the Malta rather than the Audacious as the larger hull, single Open Hanger would have been more suitable for Post War modifications than the wartime armoured hanger carriers we got stuck with.

This will be finished with a similar air-group to Ark Royal although will have a sensor suite more akin to Eagle, with a 984 Radar and with Sea Cat fitted.

The IHP kit is a craftsman kit that is supposed to be completed with additional detail parts from Shapeways and aftermarket aircraft and extras. It is based on the final design from 1945 and would possibly be similar to HMS Eagle when it first commissioned in the early 50's.
I have a 2nd kit with all the details I picked up when first released, as was going to build as is, however upon doing research I feel the later build date on the Malta class compared with Audacious and Centaur is that they would probably be completed by the mid 50's and would have been updated during build to incorporate the early angled deck and steam catapults as per Ark Royal.
So this kit will get some modifications and an suitable airgroup of Sea Hawk, Sea Venom, Wyvern and Gannets.

Since these Photos I had to redo- the flight deck twice, the open forward lift was off the centre line so cut a fresh one and laminated it to add in the catapult tracks, but this 2nd deck deformed in paces due to the mek and green stuff used to repair initial defects. Cut a second fresh deck yesterday and added a rim around the resin walls of the hull to get the flight deck depth correct this time. This allowed me to then fit the sponsons to the hull for the angled deck and tidy those up the Flight deck was then able to be positioned and attached the Deck edge lift scribed in and the catapult tracks.

Need to find a pencil to mark up the Jet Blast deflectors and the angled deck runway lines and to allow the JBDs to be scribed and the flight deck layout and positioning of the hardware (landing sights, arrestor gear, crash barrier etc). Then I can start the detailing, deck edge walk ways  and such like plus updating the Island for the nest sensors, masts, directors, comms and Flyco.

[The Wooksta!]

Did you get that PM with the link?