Model Ships From Scratch

Model ship building does not have to be an expensive hobby. The author of this book takes you on a journey through one of the oldest crafts - nowadays a hobby - and shows you how you can build an end product of fascination, history, skill and value using low-cost materials and a minimum of tools - from scratch in fact. The book begins by explaining hull lines and hull construction methods and then moves on to: masts, yards, booms and gaffs; deck equipment and furniture; anchors; painting; rigging and blocks; armament; simple sail making; mounting and displaying the finished model.

Building a model from a kit is an excellent way to develop your modeling skills. But once you've mastered the basics, where do you go? If you're looking for a challenge, you move on to scratchbuilding. And that can be imposing: With a kit, you worked with someone else's plans, materials, and building instructions. Scratchbuilding makes you master of your own fate. You do the research, choose the subject, the scale, the material. The choices are limited only by your enthusiasm. Edwin B. Leaf scratchbuilt his first model--a Baltimore clipper--nearly fifty years ago, and he's been refining and building on his skills ever since. In Ship Modeling from Scratch he lays out the principles--from concept to construction to display--on which scratchbuilding is based. In clear, concise language complemented by detailed illustrations he tells how to interpret existing drawings or create your own, what materials to choose, what tools to buy, and what techniques to use to build everything from plank-on-frame, plank-on-bulkhead, or modern steel hulls to creating sharp and properly scaled details--paint to portholes. Building a model from scratch is a singular pursuit that requires patience, confidence, and ingenuity. With Ship Modeling from Scratch open on your workbench, you have your own private tutor guiding you through the troublespots. Ship Modeling from Scratch expands the horizon of any kit builder looking for a challenge, including choosing the right subject finding and interpreting historical material building from plans drawing scaled plans from photographs buying tools and materials building everything from half models to plank-on-frame or plank-on-bulkhead versions of traditional sailing craft to modern steel cargo ships painting and displaying your model

Aimed at both beginners and amateurs, this volume contains instructions on building model ships from scratch. There are drawings and photographs of the completed models, plus close-ups of deck detailing and fittings, rigging and sail making, systems of hull building and mounting of models.

Bow to Stern: How to Build a Model Ship from Scratch, is a beginners guide for hobbyists who wish to begin the craft of building model ships, or improve upon their current approaches. Experienced model ship builder, R.F. "Bob" Raymond, was frustrated by the lack of guidance he could find on the internet or in libraries when he first began building ships almost 25 years ago. A retired custom mason contractor by trade, Raymond has since built more than 60 ships, every component part from scratch. He has learned through those many projects -- and trial and error -- new techniques, tricks and materials that have led to high quality, award-winning model ships. Raymond describes step by step how to build a model ship, using simple materials and easy to understand techniques that fit within anyone's budget and with basic wood working skills. Amateur builders just need to bring their enthusiasm, creativity and patience in order to create nautical masterpieces that builders will be proud to display and share.

In Ship Modeling Simplified, master model builder Frank Mastini puts to paper the methods he's developed over 30 years at the workbench to help novices take their first steps in an exciting pastime. You don't need the deftness of a surgeon or the vocabulary of an old salt to build a model. What you need is an understanding coach. Mastini leads readers from the mysteries of choosing a kit and setting up a workshop through deciphering complicated instructions and on to painting, decorating, and displaying finished models--with patience and clarity, not condescension. He reveals dozens of shortcuts: How to plank a hull "egg-shell tight"; how to build and rig complicated mast assmeblies without profanity; how to create sails that look like sails. . . . And along the way he points out things that beginners usually do wrong--beforehand, not after they've taken hammers to their projects. Ship Modeling Simplified even includes an Italian-English dictionary of nautical terms, the key to assembling the many high-quality Italian kits on the American market. Model building is fun, and not nearly as difficult as some experts would have you believe. Here is everything you'll ever need to get started in a hobby that will last a lifetime.

Shows how to turn an average ship model into a highly detailed masterpiece. Provides hundreds of simple techniques for building, detailing, scratchbuilding, and modifying scale model ships. Includes hundreds of close-up photographs and tips on scratchbuilding detailed parts, seam removal, weathering, and much more. By Mike Ashey. 8 1/4 x 10 3/4; 112 pgs.; 240 bandw and 32 color photos; softcover.

In the past thirty years the world of model kits has undergone a veritable revolution. New techniques in injection moulding have improved the scale accuracy and surface detail of the humble plastic kit, while many specialist companies now produce top-quality resin models, vastly broadening the range of subjects on the market. However, the really radical change has been the advent of photo-etched brass fret, which allows the finest detail to be reproduced to scale. In ship modelling, this has resulted in a new form of the hobby, mid-way between traditional build-from-the-box simplicity and the time-consuming demands of fabricating everything from scratch. These new materials have prompted innovative techniques, which are comprehensively demonstrated in this new manual. Designed for those wishing to achieve the best results from their ship kits in the 1:700 to 1:350 range of scales, it uses step by step photographs to take the reader through the building of two models, one in plastic and one in resin, from basic construction, fittings and detailing, to painting, finishing and display. Written by a highly experienced, award-winning ship modeller, the book is a showcase for the contemporary approach to the hobby.