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Hello from Ireland

G

gordonre

Joined
Aug 21, 2025
Messages
6
Points
3

Hello Everyone,

My name is Gordon living in Ireland. I've not build a model ship before, although I had started the Titanic in the early 2000's and still incomplete. I just love model ships, expecially the older sailing ships such as Galleons, Scooners and Frigates - one day I'll get to build a smaller one before attempting something like the HMS Victory, Cutty Sark and some of the more famous French and Spanish ships among many others. I also love model cars, but that's for another forum.

What I do is make bespoke model ship display bases (excluding the plexiglass cover) and display bases for model cars too, the latter being in planning - there are a number in the design stage with a few variants I'm planning for the cars and two more ship bases also in design phase. I'll attempt to add an image here if I can (this is my first post) but would appreciate some guidance on the most appropriate place to post more images.

Here is one image of a display base for OCCRE's "The Beagle" I made for a customer in the UK. This ship is his build and the base made by me. I made a lot of customisation (customization) to his specification including the mounting of the diplay lights and the mounting of the ship's display stand. This photo was taken by him in their living room before making place for the display in his study. I have not seen this setup in the flesh since shipping off the base.

IMG_2262.JPEG
 
gordonre said:
I just love model ships, expecially the older sailing ships such as Galleons, Scooners and Frigates - one day I'll get to build a smaller one before attempting something like the HMS Victory, Cutty Sark and some of the more famous French and Spanish ships among many others.
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May I suggest you "dance with the gal ya brung?" After all, you live on an island, man! :D Ireland is a goldmine of ship modeling subject matter that seems to be going begging these days. There's more to ship modeling than prefabricated assembly kits of the "usual suspects" of the "cannon and gingerbread" genre. ;) For starters, you've got the Galway hookers for a first project. It would be easy to learn basic rigging techniques on with their fore and aft gaff rigs. You've got the now-extinct Kinsale hookers for schooner rigs, not to mention a host of schooners, especially in the late 19th century. There's no shortage of well-documented sailing ships that wrecked on local shores that nobody's modeled yet. Basil Greenhill's Inshore Craft of the British Isles covers over 200 indigenous watercraft of all sizes that are ripe subjects for modeling. The "coffin ships" of the Great Famine haven't been modeled much. (E.g., Hannah, see wikipedia.) A ship modeler couldn't ask for more inspiration.

See The School for Model Ship Building section of this forum for all the information you'll need to start researching some vessel you'd like to build. See: https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/forums/class-2.384/ For many of us, the research is as much, if not more fun than the modeling. Local maritime museums and such are treasure troves of lines drawings that are just begging to be modeled. The guys in the School for Ship Model Building will give you all the help you might want.
 
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Bob Cleek said:
May I suggest you "dance with the gal ya brung?" After all, you live on an island, man! :D Ireland is a goldmine of ship modeling subject matter that seems to be going begging these days. There's more to ship modeling than prefabricated assembly kits of the "usual suspects" of the "cannon and gingerbread" genre. ;) For starters, you've got the Galway hookers for a first project. It would be easy to learn basic rigging techniques on with their fore and aft gaff rigs. You've got the now-extinct Kinsale hookers for schooner rigs, not to mention a host of schooners, especially in the late 19th century. There's no shortage of well-documented sailing ships that wrecked on local shores that nobody's modeled yet. Basil Greenhill's Inshore Craft of the British Isles covers over 200 indigenous watercraft of all sizes that are ripe subjects for modeling. The "coffin ships" of the Great Famine haven't been modeled much. (E.g., Hannah, see wikipedia.) A ship modeler couldn't ask for more inspiration.

See The School for Model Ship Building section of this forum for all the information you'll need to start researching some vessel you'd like to build. See: https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/forums/class-2.384/ For many of us, the research is as much, if not more fun than the modeling. Local maritime museums and such are treasure troves of lines drawings that are just begging to be modeled. The guys in the School for Ship Model Building will give you all the help you might want.
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Thanks for the good advice Bob! :)

What I failed to mention is that I have a Lego set of Schackleton's Endurance. It's similar in size to The Beagle shown above. I know it's not a wooden ship and I will get one someday. Thanks for the local knowledge share - I've been here 25-years this year and have very little knowledge of these historical facts.
 
Welcome to SoS from Philadelphia US! That is a really nice craft you have there...may I ask, how much do you charge? Do you do your own research for the base, or do your customers supply the text and pictures? How is the base made...laser cutting? Computer aided router? I know many members including myself would be interested. Also, you will find a friendly, informative, and resource-rich site here for model boat building. Many of us are beginners too, trying to learn all we can before we plunk down big $$ for our "dream build." Mine is the Nippon Maru 1/80 scale windjammer or the Santissima Trinidad 1/90 scale warship.
 
Ignatius27 said:
Welcome to SoS from Philadelphia US! That is a really nice craft you have there...may I ask, how much do you charge? Do you do your own research for the base, or do your customers supply the text and pictures? How is the base made...laser cutting? Computer aided router? I know many members including myself would be interested. Also, you will find a friendly, informative, and resource-rich site here for model boat building. Many of us are beginners too, trying to learn all we can before we plunk down big $$ for our "dream build." Mine is the Nippon Maru 1/80 scale windjammer or the Santissima Trinidad 1/90 scale warship.
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Thank you for your welcome and compliments to the display base.

As for cost, each base will have its own price based on wood choice, size and complexity of design and machining time. As a ballpark figure, you're looking at €500 for something quite basic but still looking very attractive. The cost goes up to in excess of €1000. The above one was way over €1000 as the total time it took me from beginning to finishing was close to 40-hours. Rember, this is bespoke which is custom to your requirements. It's yours and what you want out of it and really hard to give a cost.

I can do the research for you but you are welcome to decide upon your own text and images and layout etc. As it's bespoke, it's entirely your say as to what you want the final outcome to look like. The above display base was designed by my client, however, I did recommend some changes. One of which was for the mounting of the four LEDs. He was going to simply drill through the board when he received it to place his LED stands. This then became a 2-sided project where I milled the holes for the LEDs and also channels on the underside into which the wiring could be tucked away neatly until its exit on the rear.

This base was made from Sapele (African Mahogany) which was a special purchase since I normally work with Walnut and Maple. I also do inlays where you have a design or pattern of one wood inlayed into another.

For the above project, my customer wanted Sapele because his model ship was made from Sapele. He also had the perspex cover made to order. Only at that point once he received the cover could he measure the inner and outer dimentions so that I can design in a recess for the cover to fit into. The rest of the design was sized and formed around the size of the persex cover and the placement of the ship's stand.

Before any work begins, we go into consultation and then when the design is mostly ready I send a copy of the design with dimentions to the client for them to signoff. Once we're all happy, then I start to make the base which requires planing and joining of at least two pieces of wood and then only can I start on the CNC work. The final stage is the finishing - sanding, painting, varnishing etc. There is a tremendous amount of preparation before CNC can start and finising after CNC. There are many challenges I face in converting an image to vectors to create the toolpaths. When you consider the hours and work which go into a project like this, the indicative costs above are not a lot- remember its a custom piece of work specific to your taste.
 
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