Portfolio
A GLIMPSE OF SOME OF MY COMPLETED MODELS
Turbinia
In June 1897, in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the Prince of Wales, foreign dignitaries and Lords of the Admiralty attended the Spithead review of the entire home fleet.
Charles Parsons, the inventor of the steam turbine, gate crashed the event as an audacious publicity stunt in his turbine driven private yacht, Turbinia. She was much faster than any other ship at the time and she raced between the two lines of navy ships. Steaming up and down in front of the crowd and princes and easily evading a navy picket boats that tried to pursue her, almost swamping them in her wake.
Customs Cruiser Amapa
This is were it all started, my first scratch-built model.
It was not my first ship model, I had previously completed a large kit of "Peggy" a steam drifter with a working steam engine. On that project, I found that I had replaced so much of the kit that the result was probably 40% scratch-built. This gave me the confidence to attempt a complete working model from scratch. Around that time Model Shipwright published plans for the Brazilian Customs Cruise Amapa built by Thornycroft's in 1907 (Edition 88 if anyone wants to buy a copy).
Type 38 Schnellboot
After building the MTB and MGB, I thought is would be worth finding out more about the opposition. This study process lead to the construction of the first of my two Kriegsmarine models, a Type 38 schnellboot.
I arrived at the type 38 by studying the 5 broad types of s-boots….
Saunders-Roe Seaplane Tender
Another post of a model I completed some time ago. This was a departure for me in terms of scale as this is built to 1:12th scale and was intended to be a working model, though in the end I didn't fit the motor.
I completed is around 2010 and it languished on a shelf looking a bit rough. In 2015, I re-worked it and these pictures are of it as it is today. The boat was entered into the 2016 Model Engineering Exhibition where it was awarded a Silver medal.
HMS Grey Fox S304
S304 was one of the 7 steam gunboats built to the Denny & Sons design, hence the common designation Denny Steam Gunboats. They were intended to counter the S-boot threat in the channel and were the smallest RN vessels equipped with steam turbines. Initially only carrying pennant numbers, the Admiralty later realised that they were large enough to warrant names and so they were all given names beginning with “Grey” . The example I built was HMS Grey Fox.
Vosper 70ft MTB
MTB 34 was one of the first batch of 70ft MTB's built by Vosper's as part of the 1939 contract, completed in August 1940. She was converted to a target tug (CT23) in 1943 and sold in 1945.
British Powerboats MGB75
My photography is equal to my rigging skills, i.e. not great.
Still for this post I've made a little effort to show the boat clearly without distractions.
A class Torpedo Boat Destroyer - HMS Havock 1893
I bought David Lyon's book, "The First Destroyers" 20 years ago and since reading it, I knew I had to make one. The book contains a drawing of HMS Velox from 1904, but interestingly, also contained 3D isometric drawings of HMS Havock, the first of the type commissioned in 1894. Havock and her sister Hornet were Yarrow boats, built at Poplar on the Thames and were shorter by ~20ft than the other A class Torpedo Boat Destroyers. As I build at the relatively large scale of 1/4inch to the foot, length matters, I have to find a place for the finished model..
Type 25 classe Räumboote
In May 2022 I decided to build a companion model for the s-boot I had built in 2021. I like companion models, they make great comparisons. It also fits with my small WW2 coastal forces navy that I've been constructing for a few years.
There were only two problems:
My almost complete lack of knowledge or reference material for the Kriegsmarine; and
A total lack of commercially available plans.