building with plastic

[James White 1Participant @jameswhite1]

[James White 1Participant @jameswhite1]

Hello all.

I am new to the hobbie and am looking for a good book on how to build from scratch with plastic as well as how to make fibreglass hulls. With so many books to chose from a little input would sure help.

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

i probably say this for most members on here. your best bet in the first instance is to join a local club to yourself, where there will be members hopefully willing to give you their many years experience between them.

neil.

[Ian GardnerParticipant @iangardner62867]

James,

‘Making Model Boats with Styrene’, in the Modeller’s World series is a good book. It’s by Richard Webb. ISBN 1-900371-46-4. This details making hulls and superstructures from styrene sheet (plasticard). I don’t know of a book that describes making GRP hulls. If you are new to the hobby, I wonder why you would want to- there are lots of hulls you could choose from and if scratch building is an aspiraton,  I think timber would be the way to go. Just my opinion of course!  Have fun with it.

 

Ian Gardner

[James White 1Participant @jameswhite1]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my post. As for why I want to learn to scratch build the problem is I am Canadian and our market is not big enough for the model companies to build kits of our modern War ships. So if I want to have a model of a modern Canadian frigate I have to build it myself. I am trying to find contact information on my local model boat club but they seem kind of shy.

[Eric Moffat 1Participant @ericmoffat1]

G’day James,

To build using fibreglass, you would need to build a hull from wood or similar to begin with to use as a mold. Unless you want to turn  hulls out like an assembly line, you may as well build the hull from wood and go from there.

Suggest source plans from the net and see how you go.

 

Eric Moffat

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

try the plans service linked to this web site, called My hobby store.

don’t know whether there are any canadian ships, but plenty of plans.

neil,

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