Colin Bishop describes the Ark’s departure from Portsmouth to a Turkish scrapyard Monday 20th May 2013. A grey sky and a chilly wind seemed to be an appropriate backdrop to the departure of the Royal Navy’s former Flagship HMS Ark Royal to ignominious scrapping in Turkey. Prematurely decommissioned in 2011 as part of Defence cuts…
Model Engineer Exhibition 2012 Report by COLIN BISHOP and DAVE ABBOTT Grahame Palmer's S.Y. Komet This year’s show continued to bump along the bottom in respect of the number of competition entries and not just in respect of the marine contingent. The situation was not helped by an unavoidable rescheduling of the exhibition's dates in…
Victor Ernest Smeed (b 01/10/1923 – d 04/01/2011) Vic Smeed with 'Genie' As a six year old young boy Vic Smeed started building model boats, this interest would stay with him throughout his life. He started his career in the model building industry by opening a small modelling business before his contributions to the modelling…
Fast Patrol Launch JOHN ELLIOTT reviews the Vintage Model Boat Company kit After completing my last project I fancied building something from wood. Whilst searching the web for some ideas I came across the Vintage Model Boat Company (VMBC) who produce a range of wood kits from the 1950's and 1960's, but updated using modern…
South African reader PAT KEOGH describes his latest model When I think back over the years and when I started in 1975 purchasing my first set of plans from David McGregor, it strikes me as quite as humorous that it has taken so many years to actually start building models properly. In fact the first…
Avenger TERRY SMALL reviews the Metcalf Mouldings Tug Kit Two sister tugs, Avenger built in 1962 and Hibernia built in 1963, were constructed by Cochrane's of Selby for the Ship Towage Group. They were designed specifically to handle the (for then) large tankers of up to 20000 tons, using the terminal at Shell Haven in…
Society of Model Shipwrights Exhibition 2012 COLIN BISHOP reports The Society of Model Shipwrights (SMS) can always be depended upon to produce some of the very best examples of maritime modelling and their August 2012 show was no exception. Held at Petts Wood near Orpington in Kent, the models were well displayed on tables allowing…
DAVE WOOLEY visits the reserve ship model collection After my visit to the new Riverside Museum of Transport in Glasgow and the subsequent report in this magazine I was asked if I would like to see the reserve collection of ship models which is now housed in the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, a brand new…
