Ship Models

A collection of over 2000 scale model ships – diecast metal, plastic, scratch built – to the same scale 1:1200

Since the late 1950s Steve has been collecting and making ship models to this scale (1 inch to 100 feet!). The largest model is around 33 cm long and the shortest around 1 cm.

The collection includes over 50 models from Triang Minic from the 1950s and 1960s, over 70 plastic kits from Eagle Ships also from the 1960s and plastic Revell kits (warships, civilian) current today, from the 1990s onwards.

Most of the earlier kits were of warships, particularly WW2 vintage, though the minic ships are ‘modern’ warships representative of the 1950s and 1960s.

Steve intends to donate the whole collection to the Williamson Museum and Art Gallery, Birkenhead with which he is working on a model of Birkenhead docks to the 1:1200 scale and will continue to expand the collection.

To help the modeller Steve has put together some ideas with illustrations to demonstrate how a modeller might create a 1:1200 scale model. This is a model of the Dutch cruiser Tromp from 1937 but the ideas apply equally well for all manner of models.

With civilian ships it is often useful to use the paper from magazines to create white upperworks (on a base of wood or plastic) and coloured paper can be useful when making funnels and other coloured objects, particularly if they are small (eg the symbols on the funnels of merchant ships).