Concept to Reality

Research
Design stages (1 of 5)
Building the hull
Deck details and masts
Rigging and Sails
Shipping
Maintenance

Design Stage 1

Model ships can be built from plans, paintings, photographs, videos or drawings. Extensive research into an historic vessel from a particular era and/or geographic location is often required for a project.

A computer model of the hull is created first, using the latest in Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology. Geometry such as the lines and sections shown below are either taken from the available plans and drawings, or extrapolated from paintings or photographs. Sometimes a vessel has to be pieced and puzzled together from mere bits of historical and anecdotal information. Some educated guess work may be required to fill the gaps.

Complex curves and angles can be solved before any 'real' work is done, a luxury the original shipwrights would have loved to have. Scale is easily manipulated on the computer, most of the models exist in my database at full scale. The computer model can then be scaled down to any size you prefer. The reasons you see a large variety of model scales is that a model can be built to exactly fit a location you may have in mind for displaying the model.

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