Sunday, May 23, 2010

Google Models Feedback

My Google models seem to be quite popular , it's getting into the hundreds of downloads , I got a comment on one of them a while back that I have been meaning to post

Woy Woy Theatre
Woy Woy Theatre
Lovely to see you attempting this. My family owned the theatre for a considerable time until its demolition. I spent virtually every Friday and Saturday night there unti I was 16. I helped clean it; I worked in the biobox. While much of the sketch is correct, it misses some important points--at least from the time when I was there. Most important was that there was a small lolly shop to the left(as you face the building) of the long line of front doors as you have depicted them. On the right the wall was used for posters of coming attractions--there was no window into the lobby. You would be interested to know that there was an upstairs "smoking lounge" for the customers who afforded to sit in the upstairs Circle. Also upstairs but at the rear of the building was a reasonable size meeting hall given over to meetings of the Rotary. The windows of that room overlooked the Woy Woy sports field--and the rather smelly loos against the back fence.
Lee Shipley.

The theatre model was my first attempt at modelling on Google Sketchup , so it's a bit plain looking , I made a few other models soon after , you can find them here , if you have Google Earth you can view them in 3D

Monday, May 17, 2010

More Tanks !

Latest additions to the armoury , I've been meaning to post them as I get them , but time slips by .........

M2 Bradley (USA 1991)
M2 Bradley (USA 1991)

Cromwell Mk. IV (UK 1944)
Cromwell Mk. IV (UK 1944)


Flakpanzer Gepard
Flakpanzer Gepard


M13/40 1942
M13/40 1942

M26 Pershing (USA 1945)
M26 Pershing (USA 1945

Full collection here

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Real old stones

webbstones

After all ths fuss about rock engravings lately , I took time out to visit some bona fide olden carvings done by early settlers to the area.
Having visited this spot on numerous occasions over the span of my life I have never noticed these , first I heard of them was via a member of the Elvina group which I joined recently.
They are located on the site of the old Ettalong Hall and are possibly the marks of James Webb and another unkown person.

ws2

The James Webb initials are portrayed like a cattle branding iron ( backwards ) , there may have been a 3rd letter that has fallen off over time.
The James Webb theory is just that , to me it looks like a definate T with a decorative curl , I have seen similar styles in lower case but never in upper case.

ws1

No one seems to know who PWS was , but you can see that the elaborate carving style is definately 1800's , James Webbs property was called Mullbong Farm and was about 40 acres taking up half of Blackwall Mtn and part of what is today Orange Grove.
He settled there in 1823 and set up a farm , in fact James Webb was the first land owner in Woy Woy.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Myth Busting


Freshly cut east wall 1983

Some more information about the Gosford Glyphs has become available since my last post , after observing my discussions at Save the Sacred Land at Kariong , a concerned citizen sent me a zip file containing some interesting photos.
These are copies of the original photos taken by the NPWS in 1983 when they conducted a full scientific evaluation of the site.
From the photos you can see the entire east wall has been recently cut and more importantly you can see that the ears on the Anubis glyph are not quite finished , some time afterwards the artist returned to finish up.

Anubis 1983

Anubis 2007 - note ears now finished , this is a detail only the original artist would have returned to do

The freshly cut glyphs show spalling chips around the outline of each figure , this is unavoidable when carving sandstone unless you have proper tools and running water.
I now have a timeline of pics of this Anubis fella from 1983 to 2010 and there is no evidence of it being entirely re carved since then.
Another part of the myth is the several set of stairs carved into the rock around the site , a quick email to the boffins at Elvina confirmed that these stairs were carved by E.F Gilford back in the 1930's.



Stairs carved by E.F Gilford 1930's

As mentioned in my earlier post , Mr Gilford was quite in awe of the local Aboriginal carving around his property and carved the stairs for the many visitors he took on tours around the bush from his farm near the site.

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