New to ship modelling? But what do you build first?

[bowwild]

Build something you like.

 

This is the recommendation from kit builders advising relative newbies that I struggle with.  I've built, in my youth several plastic modes, mostly airplanes but a Constitution also. 

 

Twenty-five years ago I build a small "sloop" without any difficulty. Then I built the Harvey, again without too much difficulty, but I made a lot of rigging mistakes as I discovered a month ago when repairing the bow of the boat after a fall.  

 

I kept a Mantua HMS Victory kit and a Sovereign of the Seas kit in the que for nearly 25 years. I got the Victory kit out after having stopped building just before the planking step. I spent a few days on first layer of planking and discovered that I had not done a good job of bulkhead preparation. I then sold the just opened SOF kit for a $500 loss a few weeks ago, I didn't like the instructions. 

 

Now I'm heck-bent on giving it another serious go. I am an experienced wood worker built on a much larger scale than model ships (furniture).  I have way too much equipment for the hobby nature of my activities in that area.

 

Building something I like is very important to me and I'm not drawn to the simple or small builds such as row boats and single mast ships.  These days with build logs, videos, and great instructions I think I can take on a variety of complicated model kits from say Vanguard, Syren, Caldercraft, or Occre.   I'm leaning very heavily towards Vanguard's Indefatigable because of its large scale, great instruction. and builder friendly design features (locking wedges and the like).  However, I am more interested in even more imposing ships like Victory, Sovereign of the Seas, San Felipe, Wasa, HMS Trafalgar, and Le Soleil Royal, but I don't know which of any of these will come close to Vanguard's thoroughness in terms of materials, instructions, and build design? 

 

 

 

 

[Thukydides]

On 3/4/2025 at 2:09 PM, bowwild said:

Now I'm heck-bent on giving it another serious go. I am an experienced wood worker built on a much larger scale than model ships (furniture).  I have way too much equipment for the hobby nature of my activities in that area.

As you say you need to have an interest in the subject matter, but I would caution you about doing a 3 master. The Rigging is a whole skillset in and of itself so even if you are comfortable with the woodworking side of things, you my find yourself bogged down on the rigging with such a large project. My view of the matter is that you don't know what you don't know until you do it and I chose to do something a bit smaller first to make mistakes on before trying "the ship of my dreams" so to speak.

 

That being said this is not to say you can't be successful diving right in, just that I would recommend starting with a smaller project such as a cutter or maybe a small brig first.