The Little World

A number of chaps at my Men’s Shed morning are model ship builders – some exclusively and some as a relief from tanks or planes.

I used to build boats – R/C ones as a young householder, and in my dim youth plastic ships as well. But so far not in old age. No real reason, save lack of motivation.

My recent foray into 1:35 armour has caused me to think that I need not be quite so dedicated to 1:72 aircraft. I can occasionally push the boat – or the tank out – and build something different. The idea of sticking to one scale for each division, however, is a sensible one – it means any display has a corporate image to it, and the skill level that builds up does so on a repeatable basis.

So what should I choose? I’ve eyed the shelves of Hobbytech and noted that there are a number of common scales:

a. 1:700 – a Japanese concept that saw a number of makers combine efforts to produce WW2 ships. These were initially just for Japan but have expanded to include many nations. The scale means the size of even a large ship is workbench and shelf-size. The small ones, however are really quite small.

b. 1:600 – an older Airfix scale that has lots of older kits but few new ones and few foreign vessels. Has the advantage of size and low price.

c. 1:350 – scaled in accordance with the 1:700 as a metric choice, this one can make a WW1 or pre-dreadnought battleship do-able on the bench but comes to the edge of displayability in an IKEA cabinet. Lots of older vessels to choose from. Newer ones can be big, but their aircraft are still easy to work on.

d. 1:200 – big and expensive and plagued with photo etch. A year-long project sort of thing and a beggar to store and show effectively. A temptation to super-detail and light and such, and you would never stop.

It’ll really come down to which vessels have inspired me in the past as magnificent or historical, etc. I would like to avoid box-scale oddities, even if they are attractive, as I know I’ll inevitably want to set them against another ship in a different scale and it will bug me.

I’m also dismayed to see that some of the vessels I would admire to build are products from firms I would like to avoid. One can only hope for changes to that in the future.