Now from the Boston area, I began modeling in Columbus, then Cleveland Heights, Ohio, long ago. Began with Strombecker wood kits of trains and WWII planes and can still remember the gritty, woodsy-smelling casco glue that you had to mix with water.
Then styrene came along and I mainly focused on ships. Most of them came to the same end. The Revell (I think) USS Missouri battleship burned much longer and with a lot more black smoke than I had planned for, and my parents had a litte chat with me about keeping good things, and a shame that all that work went up in smoke.
But then, they were already somewhat against the Big Mo, as I had removed the temper on the tip of my mother's best paring knife by heating it and using it to swage over the posts of the turning gun turrets on the underside of the deck.
When I was old enough to take my own 25 cents to the movies and walk the 1-1/2 miles to the Heights Theater, besides westerns, my favorites were the swashbucklers, the pirate movies. A cable re-run of "Master and Commander" + chance eBay finds propelled me back into modeling a few weeks ago.
First find was an original-issue Pyro 24-pounder naval gun kit that reached my house under $10. I de-plated the mostly-corroded "brass" parts and put it together, remembering as I went how warpage, incomplete assembly instructions, and unclear graphics can change your mood while modeling.
Then, the second find - trying to track down a pirate ship I put together around the '56-'58 time frame and which I sank multiple times in Lake Michigan. It's the Lindberg Jolly Roger (AKA La Flore, a model of a model presented to JFK which itself was a model of a model at the French Musee National de la Marine). It's a really fine kit and the plastic in my box was un-warped and mostly there... missing only 2 gun doors and the figurehead.
I'm rigging it now, way less than completely, but enough to slightly impress visitors to our home. None of them are 18th C full-rig ship experts...
Next? Probably the Aurora Black Falcon Pirate Ship, the same one I sank often in Lake Michigan. It's a crummy model. But it had the advantage of an open grate mid-deck that allowed water into the hull. The right quantity of near-miss sand-bombs would splash enough onto the deck to first accomplish a list, then finally, get it to disapper into the depths.