Innehållsförteckning för February 2025 från Model Boats

From a modelling perspective, sourcing sufficient information to keep up with the latest developments in military naval architecture is always a challenge. Hopefully, however, the shots I was able to take of the XV Patrick Blackett’s recent visit to HMS President, the Royal Navy’s London headquarters, will assist in drafting plans for the construction of a scale model. The striking paint scheme of black with charcoal grey ‘X’ logo and pennant number would certainly make a very welcome departure from the usual ‘battleship grey’ finishes seen on so many of our military models, while the flourishing 3D printing market could serve as a source for the various sensors and deck furniture. There would also be the option to incorporate various ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles – used underwater for a range…

In 2022 my then five-year-old grandson had been watching YouTube. An American dad had built his son a radio-controlled model of Titanic, which looked like a shoebox with sharpened ends and had four funnels stuck on top. The next move had about it an air of inevitability, given that I am a model boat builder. “Grandad… Will you build me a model of Titanic, please?”. There is only one answer possible in such circumstances, and I duly gave it. Now what? My first thought was that this model would need to be of a size practical for a five-year-old and his parents. The next was that it probably wasn’t worth going the whole hog and fully detailing its upper works. I therefore settled on a hull length, which thus determined…

Having drawn model plans for numerous types of vessels over the last 50 odd years, this article has been written in the hope of encouraging any budding young designers out there interested in taking up the baton! If you’re wondering why and how I got started, the truth is my lifelong passion for all things boat, ship and maritime related was perhaps inevitable. I was born into a family of fishermen and grew up in a fishing village on Shetland – an environment which encouraged an early familiarity with handling boats under oars, sail and power. A complete change of scenery however awaited, in the form of a marine engineering apprenticeship with a shipbuilding and engineering company in Greenock on the Clyde, well known for its long history in the…

MS Oldenburg Some time ago (MB May 2024) you were good enough to print a couple of pictures of my model of the RMV Scillonian lll, which sails between Penzance and the Scilly Isles down here in the South West. In my accompanying letter I mentioned that the model created quite a lot of interest at shows and exhibitions in and around Bideford in North Devon, where of course she was originally built at the Appledore Shipyard. Given that our club holds a number of displays each year to raise funds for the RNLI, it got me thinking about what my next model might be, and how it could create the same level of interest as the Scillonian. The obvious answer was the MS Oldenburg, which often sails out of…

OUT AND ABOUT The 2025 Midhurst Modellers Exhibition This year’s show has been scheduled for 10am to 4pm on Sunday, February 9, at the Grange Hurst Leisure Centre, Bepton Road, Midhurst, West Sussex GU29 9HD. The main hall will be devoted to model railways, while the other halls will embrace a much broader spectrum of modelling interests, including model boats. There will also be numerous associated trade stands to browse. Admission will be charged at £6.50 for adults, with concessions. For more info call 01730 815285. February 7-10 will see a large collection of wooden model boats, expertly crafted to scale, ranging from Navy ships to clinker dinghies and from sailboats to tall ships, displayed at the Waterside Pavillion near Constitution Dock at this year’s Australian Wooden Boat Festival in…

If there is one constant in this world it’s change, something the modelling world has certainly seen its fair share of! Many of you will remember Model Slipway kits. Over the years I built a number of these myself (including the Trent lifeboat), always impressed with the quality and the excellent customer service offered by the business’s owners, Lawrie and (the late) Jackie White. So, when recently looking for another RNLI lifeboat model to build, I was very pleased to learn that Adam from Mountfleet Models has obtained the licence to supply some of the kits from the old Model Slipway range. Consequently, after contacting Adam, I was able to purchase what was essentially a Model Slipway Tamar kit, reassured by the fact that, having also previously built a number…

I think it’s safe to say that many of us have unfinished models sitting on our shelves, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, and occasionally for decades. This, then, is a happy ending story of a model that once fell firmly into the latter category… In 1975 I began what was, the largest and most ambitious project I had ever tackled, a model of the passenger ferry St David. The St David was built in 1947 by Cammell Laird for the Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbour Company. She and her sister ship, the St Patrick, were both in service during the 1960s. The St David spent most of her time on the Fishguard to Rosslare route (although in 1969 was transferred to the Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire route, before…

Soon after radio-control began to be applied to model boats, the need for some form of speed control arose. True, for early electric powered models, the call was usually for more rather than less speed, but realistic operation still called for slow speed manoeuvring or performing a slow speed pass for admiring on-lookers. What follows is a quick historical survey of the various types of speed control employed in electrically powered model boats. Special thanks are due to R. Verden for providing many of the items pictured. Switching control The simplest way of controlling a motor is by applying a different voltage to it, and this is easily done by tapping the supply battery via a rotary switch. The fairly obvious limitation here is that the cells are not being…

Accommodated in three large halls that make up the International Conference Centre located in the centre of Telford, Scale Model World’s wide brief embraces military and non-military models of all types, displayed by clubs, societies and SIGs (Special Interest Groups) from all over the world – although, naturally, in the report I will be focusing on the marine side of things. Trade stands also form an integral part of the show, with vendors from the UK, Europe and the rest of the world showcasing and demonstrating their products. 2024 saw 124 UK clubs, 25 overseas clubs, 96 SIGs, 15 guest exhibitors and 136 vendors present. Competition entries In the past competition entries have been made up almost entirely of kit builds, but 2024 also saw plenty of semi-scratch and scratch-built…

Lead-acid batteries have formed a convenient means of powering model boats for a century or more. The current ‘gel’ types avoid any problems with acid leakage and can become a virtually ‘maintenance free’ source of energy. This does, however, lead some people into problems, which a little understanding could have avoided. “The phrase ‘maintenance free’ does not mean you can ignore them until they’re needed” Firstly, the phrase ‘maintenance free’ does not mean you can ignore them until they’re needed. Like most methods of energy storage, there is a small leakage of energy while the thing is sat there apparently doing nothing. Anyone who has left a car standing for a few months might have encountered this effect with a ‘flat’ battery! The temperature at which a battery is stored…

Some time ago, during a visit to my grandson Richard, I was presented with a part-built plastic kit model of a tanker that he’d picked up a car boot sale. Richard is the grandson who challenged me to fit radio control equipment into a 1:108 scale, 231mm long, Revell plastic tugboat kit called Lucky XI (see ‘Model Boats’ of March 2014) and he was keen for me to ‘work my magic’ again here. The kit, produced by Novo in the USSR, builds to a 1:130 scale model of the coastal tanker Shell Welder. Photo 1 shows the lid of the cardboard box this kit came in, while Photo 2 show of the original vessel on which the model is based. Since this model was much larger than Lucky XI, at…

Despite being one of the most revisited subjects in the Boiler Room series of articles, current rules are still frequently discussed both at pondside and within correspondence published in this magazine. Having checked back through my index earlier, while we looked at ‘Steam Test Preparation’ in the June ’21 edition and ‘The Boiler Inspector’ in the January ’22 edition, we haven’t returned to the rule books themselves since the rules were last changed in 2018, when I did a full review in the December ’18 and January ’19 editions. So, as there still appears to be some uncertainty amongst steam enthusiasts as regards what is actually required by the rules, what follows is a brief refresher. For those of you who know the rules inside out or who remember the…