The Little World

A damp look at the model ship.

I used to build scale model R/C boats. They were fun, expensive, and needed a lot of maintenance. They also needed bodies of water to sail on – and councils had to give permission for this. I hated being at the let and hindrance of councillors.

So I built 1/1200 ships for years – and they were fun. But eventually the prices skyrocketed and the collection became a good thing to sell.

Now I’ll eventually want to build a ship or ships again. What size to do? What ship to model?

Well, the 1/1200 are out – the 1/700 are fine, but finicky. The 1/200 are monstrously big. So I think it will be either box scale retro stuff ( Airfix, recast Revell or Pyro ) or new 1/350 kits from modern shops. The vessels I am most interested in are from the late 19th and early 20th century, and their sizes in 1/350 will be convenient to build and show.

Full hull or waterline? Full – I want to see the odd shapes they showed.

Weathered or clean? Semi-clean. A little muck around the waterline but no vile washes everywhere.

Brass showing? No. I saw too many very large scale models shown at Greenwich that were professional masterpieces – but that failed to become real due to polished brass details that were glaringly obvious.

Rigged? I suppose there will need to be some rigging, but if i can accept 1/72 aircraft with imaginary flying wires, I can accept ships with similar detail. I hate seeing sagging string covered in dust.