Tramp steamer Newton Hall

[mick]

great work

[Alan P]

I believe that you all have the skills (probably lying dormant). It is just a matter of getting stuck into it and assuming that you can do it!

This should be the motto of the whole website. Great quote, and generous sentiment. Thanks for sharing your work, please keep doing it!

Alan

[ShipbuilderMN]

Motor ship Speciality, a short sea trader.

[GrahamB]

Absolutely beautiful and really skillful build.

These ships of the pre-WW1 period, and through that war, have immense character and I'd like to see some released as kits so that the amazingly varied dazzle patterns could be used.

Cheers,

GrahamB

[keefr22]

Motor ship Speciality, a short sea trader.

She's another real beauty Bob! Is she bigger than your usual scale? Can I ask did you scratchbuild the handrails(apologies if that's incorrect terminology in the maritime world!) or are they etched brass?

Lovely work again, really colourful little ship!

keith

[Richard E]

I believe that you all have the skills (probably lying dormant). It is just a matter of getting stuck into it and assuming that you can do it!

I've taken the liberty of printing your quote and attaching it to the front of my toolbox....

[ShipbuilderMN]

Thanks. I built Speciality a few years ago, and cannot remember the scale, but it looks my normal miniature size. Not a pre war ship, but completed in 1951 for Everard's of Greenthithe, London. The rails are scratchbuilt from 38swg tinned copper wire soldered together. I would not like kit manufacturers to "wake up" to merchant ships as they are the last stronghold of "scratchbuilding." Fortunately, there is little chance of that, because they are not considered "romantic" enough, as they don't have guns!

Bob

[keefr22]

Thanks Bob, she just looks somewhat bigger in your hand, probably camera angle then. I do have one merchant ship kit in stock, the old Frog Shell Welder tanker. I'll build that & see if I can get the confidence to try scratchbuilding one! Much the same was always said about the appeal of kits of airliners rather than combat aircraft, but that has changed dramatically in recent years, so you never know!

Keith

[Pete in Lincs]

Incredible work, Sir. Much admired.

Scratch built modeling in it's best form.

I'm not sure why I like them so much, after having

been around military aircraft for some forty years.

But I used to love reading the Douglas Reeman

books and the tales of the sea so that may be it.

Long may you continue at your craft.

[Rob 1]

I'm certainly impressed - I've never contemplated a scratch build, not even a small harbour craft - even though it would be so useful to fill gaps in the availability of kits.

Perhaps more of us should give it a go.

[ShipbuilderMN]

Very few seem inclined to try! I started in the mid 50s when, after assembling a couple of kits (Santa Maria, Golden Hind, that sort of thing) I wanted another, and my parents said they couldn't afford one and that if I had "anything about me" I would just build my own. A few days later, I was given a small toolbox containing coping saw, small plane, hammer, pliers, archimedian drill, sharp knife and a couple of chisels, plus a box of wood offcuts, and away I went! I still have the box, and a few of the original tools even now. My wife never bothers about me building models because on completion, I sell them, and give her all the money for housekeeping. She even paints the seas for me when applicable. Here I am using the vice and hammer over 60 years ago, and I am still using both regularly today!

Bob

[Ray S]

This is another of your fabulous builds Bob, and an interesting historical note too.

I took the plunge a few months ago and got some of the books Bob mentioned earlier, and I gave scratch building a steamer a go. I was quite pleased with the result, although I know there is room for improvement, and am getting ready to give scratch building another go. I am minded to try and build SS Politician, and watch Whisky Galore as I go. I learnt a lot as I progressed. It is a whole new world of subjects out there!

Bob, you have a convert here at least!

Look forward to seeing your next one.

All the best,

Ray

[ShipbuilderMN]

Thanks. Here is the Politican that I built several years ago. Easy build as the hull is flat with no sheer!

Bob

[SUB-SAM]

Wonderful insight into your past, and great to hear you have a good woman behind you.

If I may, can I ask how many ship models you estimate you've built to date?

[grahamwalker]

if you want bobs book he does a download version on his blog site, actually he has a few books on it. DISCLAIMER I do not know Bob but he has a grand blog site

[spaddad]

Hi Bob,

very tasty models.

Do you know much about the Tyneside Line? The reason I ask is in my youth I used to spend most of my time playing out "down the Tyne" between Palmers Hebburn yard and Pelaw opposite the Walker yards & I used to know all the shipping lines and their colours but I don't recall ever seeing that funnel or hearing that company name. The timescale I am talking about would be from about 1962 to 1968,

cheers

spad

[ShipbuilderMN]

Thanks for replies. By 1932, Tyneseide Line only just existed, but had no ships at all by then, so I assume they disappeared shortly after. I sailed out of the Tyne myself in 1962/1963 aboard the South East Gas collier Wandsworth! A very bad winter and we came in one stormy night when the tramp steamer Adelfotis II (ex Baron Stranraer) went ashore on Black Midden Rocks, South Shields. I began counting models in October 1992 when I left the sea. Since then, I have completed 269 of them, all miniatures! At one time, I was building between 12 and fourteen per year, but the demand for them was so great that we were both overwhelmed with a waiting list of 24 models in 2002. At about that time, we stopped taking private commissions and I just built what I felt like, alternating between sail and steam. Then I started taking the odd private commission again, and soon went down the "slippery slope" of developing another waiting list, so finally called a halt a few years ago. I then began getting "If you ever think of buliding.........., I will purchase it!" which really would be like a private commission under a differemt name. So statements like that mean that I never build the suggested model.

Nowadays, I only build maybe two or three a year, and last year, stopped disclosing what I am building at the time, only declaring what they are when they are completed.

[s.e.charles]

Thanks for replies. I really don't understand why kits are needed to build them. When I was at sea (31 years), I was building them with a minium number of simple hand tools, and a rudimentary lathe home-made from a 12 Volt Minicraft hand drill mounted on a block of wood. I built miniatures because it was easier to get them home at the end of the voyages. I went from 8 feet to 1 inch to 32 feet to 1 inch literally overnight, and found it easier from the start. With miniatures, the most expensive part is the acrylic for the display cases! The rest is just made from bits of scrap wood, a bit of plasticard, brass and copper rod, and wire!

Bob

that is the difference between a modeler and a kit assembler. just like a mechanic and auto-technician. one actually creates a solution, and one assembles already manufactured parts. each has its place.

[Guest]

You Standards are just, superb ,thanks for sharing.

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

Beautiful model and interesting history. Thanks for posting

[seadog]

Sadly, merchant ships are a most unpopular subject for ship modellers. If there was any real interest, a lot more would be built Sadly, kits rule the roost these days and kit designers fortunately keep well clear of obscure merchant ships, I say "fortunately" because it keeps merchant ship models as "something special!" Whenever I take my models to the local model ship club, they scarcely merit any more than a casual glance!

I have posted the following on here before, but it is worth repeating:

The following words were written by Frank Bullen in 1906, and hold true today:

I think it may justly be inferred that the public do not want to hear about the Mercantile Marine, are entirely indifferent to the status of its members, and are content to take all the benefits to them as they take light and air – as coming in the course of nature, with the management and production of which they have no concern.

This opinion is borne out by my experience throughout our islands as a lecturer on the subject. Talking from the platform, I can always interest my hearers in any phase of the sea without introducing the slightest element of fiction. But I cannot induce them to read the matter up, nor can I find any evidence of the subject having been studied, however cursorily, except by persons who are, or have been, directly connected with it!

This I cannot fail to lament as being, in view of the paramount importance of the subject, quite unnatural and unnecessary, more especially when I see the intense interest manifested by people of all ranks and grades of education in games such as football, cricket and bridge, and the amount of earnest thought expended upon acquiring information concerning them, not only in their present, but in their past history.

Moreover, I know personally working men who have lavished upon horse racing an amount of brain-power that, legitimately applied would have made them a fortune!

Frank T Bullen, 1906

---------

Bob

Amen to that. Mind you, our ship - Ile de Serk was much appreciated by the people of Sark as we were their lifeline!