I'm glad this came up. I lurk around here and on other machine shop forums. What happened to me on another forum of a different topic probably has shyed me away from saying anything unless it's a necessity. I'm 58 years old and have always had a hobby. I built model cars, planes and ships for years and years since I was a kid, and still do. I also build wooden sailing ships plank by plank and rig them. I also have a small lathe/mill that I tinker with. I tried to be active on a very popular plastic model building website, and was pretty much ignored. I asked about it and stirred up the pot. It seems that the people on that forum site are in a clique, and I wasn't part of it. I'm not pinning any ribbons on myself, but I can build a damn good model airplane with fine detail. I'd post a picture and wouldn't get a single reply. Then there would be somebody who's in this clique that would post a picture of something that was good but not great and they would get 4 pages of responses about what a marvelous job they had done. It totally discouraged me from posting. I posted about how I was ignored and got tons of replies from people who said they were in the same boat. I've posted on few different wooden model ship building forums and I got a better response. Most of the ship builders I know are older gentleman, could that be the reason for the better response? Anyway, I really plan to gear up and start turning some metal soon, and I will try to be active here and at the few other forums tha I like to frequent. Hope I'll be accepted and learn something and maybe even be able to help someone. Thanks to everyone.
Ken