So who makes or has made a ship or boat model from wood/sctratch-built,etc?

A while back Troy posted some pics of a model of a sharpie he has in mind and I am sure others have posted a pic or two here and there too...So who in here has built or made boat/ship models...in their spare time..care to share a pic or descritpion? Maybe the pics and descriptions of the models folks have made in here deserve a thread of their own...Myself, I have made maybe just two scratch built models...One of a fictitious lateen-rigged type of felucca that played on my recollections of Nile feluccas from the year I lived in Egypt as a kid...A few years later I made a scratch-built model of a 40-foot herreschoff-style sloop featured in a "wooden Boat" mag which I gave to my brother for a Birthday present...It was mostly cardboard odds and ends with occasional wood pieces (mostly balsa) and tapered wood dowels for masts,etc...probably put about 70-80 hours into her making...will see if I can get a pic of that...but will try to post the felucca pic here in a bit...I never built many ship models growing up in the 70's most exclusively plastic airplane models...but when I am old and gray here in a few years I hope to devote more time to building scratch-built ship and boat models..it's alot of fun and materials can largely be found in the house...

 

Souljour,

I haven't yet built a model, but I keep collecting books on doing so from "Half Priced Books".If there is one in your area they seem to keep getting new copies of these books. One I picked up was for a Skipjack. This looks like a simple way to get the complete instructions, but I have not found boats that I really like.

Good luck,

Marc

 

Over the past 50 or so years I have built possibly 20 or 30 never kept count. Sold a few but gave most away as Xmas or birthday presents. The one in the photos is an in progress plank on frame scaled model of a heel tapper schooner my GG Grandfather Timothy Pike built in Newfoundland in 1818. For interest, I have included her registration with the British Admirality. ---

 

Building a model of a skipjack or even better ...a Florida-derivation of the Chesapeake or NE skipjack like you see in Keywest would be really cool to build...

Viking, That model of your great-grandfather's ship is quite well-done... I still remember visiting the US Naval Academy museum as a teenager....and gawking at all the incredible models...unforgettable for a kid already in love with boats...

 

I carved my first when I was about 12 ,it was a model of a ski boat with some tumble home, like the style of 1960s boats . later I made some models out of some thin plywood . Also some simple cardboard ones.

f

 

Thank You Souljourn I think model builders often gravitate to progressively larger sizes, I.E. the toys just get bigger and of course they are still used as study tools for the real thing. I seem to recall National Geographic did an excellent article on the academy models. Beautiful works of art that were also used to study form and function for the advanced sailing vessels developed and built in the colonial and early independance days of the U.S.

 

I vaguely recall my first attempt at making a boat of any kind..was probably 5 years old..possibly 4...and tried to make one out of a wooden box..that used to house a probably defunct handpump-driven pump organ my dad used to play for us...I have this vague recollection of nailing flattened sides of aluminum cans onto the wooden sides...like scales almost...in an early effort to make my boat more like the obviously watertight Boeing aircraft I was then used to riding around in alot as a young foreign service brat...
I also now recall also making a fairly decent diorama of the Civil War Monitor vs. Merrimac duel in the Mississipi or some river...(have to check that)...I poured a quart of resin over a blue painted river outline...and stuck the two models down into the goo about a half inch..the "Monitor" was fairly easy to model of course..the "Merrimac" not really much more difficult either except more odd angled slab shapes...We got an "A" and teacher was happy with Me and my" burn-out" buddy in the same class who supplied the basement where we built it..and some good weed probably...We even went to the district and then the regional History Fair with it...In retrospect I think making a diorama about Rebel blockade runners would have made for more fun ship models...As you can see I posted some pics of that whimsical take on a " Nile felucca"....it is mostly made of shoebox cardboard strips and so forth...a bi of veneer and dowels here and there...

 

I'll admit that it is a fairly inaccurate rendering of a felucca...but I prefer to think of that model as more of an impressionist take...and cardboard has it's limits though it's fun to push them if you haven't treid...hopefully it's maybe a step above the" stringy "ship models one might see at your local thrift store or at the tourist gift shops in a nautical village but in any case...I kind of like the crude, home-spun aspect of such modeling...except half-assedtourist-trade kind of models...
..I have one other model in the house..though I did not make this one and it's accompanying service boats..It's a mohagany model of a Kashmir hotel house boat such as exist on the lakes in Kashmir of course..My folks bought it for me on a trip to Kashmir some time in the late 1960's when I was but a babe..and it's very well travelled...a few bits of elaborate woodwork having seen better days and broken off here and there...As you can see, a kitchen-boat (left) and a launch accompany the mothership here. A 12-year old probably carved these....like so much village woodworking in South Asia and elsewhere it is exquisitely and admirably carved...probably the design of these has been handed down father-to-son(s) from an origin in the somewhere in the British Raj but probably even earlier r...Inside the opening windows you can see the furniture of each guest room and there is a stair roof entrance that slides open...The sheer man-hours and quality that went into something that was probably equivalent in price to a cheap car stereo in the USA today...baffling...but what price happiness and contentment, I've a feeling the woodcarver family who built this model were probably considered fairly well off in their community and felt lucky to do what they did...despite the long days in the woodshop...but whatever the case, I remain the biggest fan of village woodcarvers the world over... such as these....who made and still craft models like these...for sale...to put food on the table...

 

I occasional build a model of a new design to test how it will look or whether the plank developments will fit together. For that to be useful the model has to be built the same way as the full-size boat, which can lead to some awfully fiddley bits that have to be made and handled. The scale tends to be determined by available materials such as 1 mm or thinner ply and/or whatever sizes of wood (I can scarcely call 1 mm x 3 mm basswood "lumber" now, can I?) is available at the nearest model supply shop. A 1:6 scale is common for me and the model takes almost as long as the full-sized boat - assuming that gets built . . .

I am thinking of building a model of one or two boats I hope to build - if I do I will post pics.

 

latest model

Here's my latest; a cardboard model of a friends 34' motorboat

 

in a nutshell

in a nutshell

 

nice nutshell pram...! Okay..maybe not a pram..can't see the bow..but close enuff..

 

This model is great fun on a rainy day.

http://www.vincentchow.net/709/build-a-fly-powered-model-aeroplane

 

model pix

OK, Let's see if I can get the pix to upload now....

 

This is a 1/12 scale card model of a Wee Lassie canoe I want to build: The model was created in FreeShip from the drawings available from the Adirondack Boat Museum, with some modifications. The model was to get a quick look-see at how FreeShip's plank developments went together; it looks promising so I will proceed to a 1 mm ply model (1/6) to evaluate my planned construction method.

The card model was better when it was first made but got hogged lying around on my desk for a couple of months in hot and humid weather - I didn't seal the card. The ply model will, I hope, have proper stems and keel if I can work that small.