iModeler Ships

Naval modeling - ships, submarines and boats.

Time for another ship – “Big Mamie”

Trumpeter 1/350 USS Massachusetts (BB-59). First US battleship to fire its guns in anger at another battleship since the Spanish American War (versus French "Jean Bart" during the North African invasion). Tom's Modelworks [...]

U-96 "Das Boot"

This is the fourth model I built, and after doing three aircraft, I was in the mood to do a warship. The big Revel 1/72 scale U-boat kit was fairly new at the time, and I was eager to see what I could do with it. The kit is absolutely [...]

Maquette 1/400 Protected Cruiser ‘Aurora’

This was my very first foray into serious AMS. I hand drilled over 400 #80 holes into this ship. Most of those were for the totally scratch built railings. Every stanchion is cut from thin wire and inserted into a hole drilled into the [...]

Cybermodeler 1/350 USS Laffey (DD-459)

One of the great Cybermodeler (Dragon) smart kits. An easy build that looks really great when completed - I only wish the instructions were as easy to follow as the kit is to build once the instructions have been puzzled out. Laffey was [...]

Trumpeter 1/350 USS San Francisco (CA-38)

When I was an 18 year old sailor, I stood on the ruined bridge of USS San Francisco there in the park in the city whose name she bore, thinking to myself what might I have done had I been there that terrible night off Guadalcanal. USS San [...]

Trumpeter 1/350 HMS Hood

So, what do you do when you haven't built a ship model since you were in Junior High School (back in the early Triassic)? Why, go out and get one of the most complicated kits ever, get all the photoetch possible, and dive right in! This [...]

Trumpeter 1/350 Scale HMS Hood

I have considered this to be the most fun I have ever had building a model. No fiddley photo-etch, except the three or pieces that came with the kit, just open the box and go to town. The only real extra work I did on this kit was to [...]

Heading Home

This was my grand adventure into creating water. I got pretty involved in the German S-Boat with a lot of aftermarket PE sets. I found a tutorial on doing water on the internet and gave it a shot. I scratch-built the buoy and seagulls and [...]