Over in the Garden State Model Boaters thread I mentioned the passing of one of our long time members Dave Kammerer. I offered you the option of posting construction pictures of one of his boats that some of you seemed to favor, the Nixe. I can't just post the pictures without going into a bit of history, so you will have to suffer with my narrative.

Our club was formed in January of 1985 and Dave has been around since near the very beginning, if not at the beginning. He was a retired high school teacher and had many talents which he used in the hobby of model boats and a collections of trains that he kept. He was generous offering members to come over his house to work on a problem they were having or to use any of the many tools he had in his shop. He was our club Commodore for many years and always had an interesting topic to explain to the members at our monthly meetings. He was also a member of his church choir which sang at his memorial service. I'm sure there are plenty of other good things that can be said about the man that I am not aware of. He is survived by his wife Joan and children Ken and Susan. I guess I'm going to let this thread be a memorial and remembrance of our friend who left us to early. Some other club members that may chime in are frankg, muddyduck and californiakid.

I'll be getting to the construction pictures soon. His wife Joan gave me copies of the construction pictures of the Nixe on CD. She offered me the opportunity to take my own pictures of Dave's miniature boats that we do not see on the water that often. If I do I will also ask her if she would not mind sharing any construction pictures as well.

First a few pictures of the Nixe on the water.

Very nice!

We look forward to your posts - looks like a great boat there!

I don't know about you, but when I draw something I need to use a straight edge and a ruler. I cannot draw freehand for anything. Here are a few things Dave drew. He came up with a topic discussion in a meeting on how to layout your equipment in you boats. To illustrate how to keep things organized he drew up a sample layout. In the meeting when he handed this out, myself and the guys next to me looked at each other and were in awe of not the contents of this but the beauty of the drawing. This was actually the layout of the boat he was building at the time. I think is was of a Jersey speed skiff which he built on commission this year during the spring & summer. I happen to have an unused frame so this is now hanging in my shop.

The other two pictures are some nautical prints he had given me years ago. The paper has aged. Speaking to his daughter she said they all did that so something to do with the paper caused the yellowing and spots. These are prints that he numbered and signed.

Anyone else have a talent like this?

I'm so sorry to hear of Daves passing. I knew him well, I met Dave when I was a member of GSMB over 20 years ago.

Thanks very much for your work on this subject, definitely looking forward to all the information as it is posted.

Tim

I'm going backwards on this from finished boat to construction pictures. These are pictures I already posted in the Garden State Model Boaters thread on page 5. After our last event for 2012 at Leisure Village, I brought Dave's two boats back to my house and took some up close photos and removed what I could to take pictures of unseen areas. I'm sure I could have taken more apart but I could not figure how so I left it at that.

Here are the first half of the pictures.

Here are the other half of the pictures.

That detail is truely stunning- Quite an illustrator as well.

That detail is truely stunning- Quite an illustrator as well.

Agreed!

I'd rather not detail the circumstances about his passing here and leave this thread on a positive note about his work. It was sudden and unexpected, but also over a period of time. All I can say is if you are noticing something wrong with yourself, see your doctor and get more than one opinion.

Originally Posted by ken_nj

All I can say is if you are noticing something wrong with yourself, see your doctor and get more than one opinion.

That is very good advice.

Amazing! Thank you for sharing.

I'll post these in order from the CD that his wife gave me, not all at one time.

His wife Joan shared a story with me that when they would go for walks around the neighborhood, he would sometimes stop and look at tree branches that people would put out for recycling. Sometimes he brought some of those branches back to the house, let them dry and use them in his boats if the quality of the wood was good enough.

He stayed around one scale and chose smaller size boats in order to keep the right scale where he could have lots of detail and build things to look realistic. I don't know if he had plans to build the Nixe from or if he built it from pictures. One black and white picture of the real boat was on the CD.

Milled his own lumber too? Wow!