2x Tankers, 2x Large Cargo Ships, 4x Small Cargo Ships After reading E. Keble Chatterton's The Sea Raiders , I found myself wanting to add some civilian merchant ships to my scratch-built navy. When I went looking for plans, I immediately encountered the edge of the Internet. The trouble seems to be that no plans of simple merchant ships from the early the 20th century really exist. So after some detective work and few guess-timations, I came up with my own. By taking the shi

One of the more difficult things about my Jutland project was knowing that the "Destroyer Problem" was lurking just under the surface like a tethered mine... Jellicoe's Grand Fleet had 46 Destroyers, Beatty's Battlecruisers had 27, for a total of 73 British destroyers. On the German side the High Seas Fleet had 31 and the Battlecruisers had 30 torpedo boats (roughly the equivalent to a British destroyer), for a total 61. Together these add up to 134 of these small ships! HMS

I got a little distracted during my scratch-built Jutland project with the significantly more achievable build project based on the battles of the south Atlantic and Pacific in 1914. While Jutland had over 200 ships involved, the Battle of Coronel had 9 ships, and the Falklands had 13, six of which were also present at Coronel. So in total the goal to complete this project is 16 ships (not including a couple of auxiliaries that I might build later). British ships at Coronel i

Its probably a bad idea to keep experimenting with mast solutions still half-way through the Jutland project, but I just couldn't settle on a good one. I started by using light wire, but they were always too thick and bendy. I also tried plastic broom bristles. These were straight and not as rigid as the wire, but they were too easy crimped and bent over. They also had inconsistent diameters, so finding a good number for all 200 ships was going to be a problem. So I needed to

In a previous article, I went over how I scratch build ships for my Jutland project. Once they are built, it's time to throw some paint on them. But before I get into that, I need to reiterate something important to this project. Part of what makes this project achievable in my context is by sticking to a low fidelity art style. I've stuck to the simple designs found in Jane's Ships of World War I and this spirit of lo-fi, I've adjusted my expectations during the painting and

Right, so I've been busy building ships! There's a story for that, but I'll save it for later. For now I wanted to document my build process for my little scratch-built fleet of 1:1500 scale WWI-era dreadnoughts, cruisers, and more. Let's get stuck in... But before we get started, I've done another article going over the tools I use for this project. You can find that article linked at the bottom of this one. The first thing to determine is what scale to build in. Since I did