Oh , Subject of little interest .

There is always scratch building.  In fact, in my experience, ships are the models most likely to be scratch built.  People were building scratch ship models long before there even was a hobby industry.  Magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics would frequently publish plans for ship models.

There has long been a cottage industry of accessories for ship models- things like ventilators, guns, deck fittings, etc.  Fewer of those now, but an increasing number of PE stuff that makes scratch building easier.  Those ventilators are the worst to scratch build.  I know casting metal accessories is not that profitable these days, but it seems like resin would be an okay material for those.

I like to scratch Great Lakes bulk carriers (ore boats), but the newer ones all have those unloading booms which are really tedious to make.  Sure wish one of the PE mfgs would do such a boom.  The same boom would work on ninety plus percent of such ships.  A boom in 1:350 would sure be great!

Have you considered building them in paper? These models, if done correctly and patiently, look great! And, they are quite durable and sturdy.  Sure, some can look cartoony, but these can be easily brought up to higher standards. Some of the companies, such as HMV, can be far better models than anything found in plastic.  And, you can rescale them to any scale you desire.  You should check these out.

Bill

Good Point .

 Now fact .I did build a Monterey , Matsonia and Lurline using chopped up S.S.United States models . Twern't easy either . Now I guess I'll give my stashes to the vets and start over in paper .Seems the way to go Price wise anyways . T.B.

A few years ago I used to be pretty big into the submarine simulation games on the computer. I remember Silent Hunter IV, in particular, had some great examples of various cargo and tanker ships that I always thought would be fun to build up. Some of the smaller Japanese cargo ships had quite a bit of character to them. Sadly, my scratchbuilding skills consist mostly of considering the idea for ten minutes, then discarding it. LOL

--Chris

TB,

I just posted a request on www.papermodelers.com for any information about paper kits of these ships.

Bill

E.J. Hammer ;

  Somewhere in my shop I have a scrap-book of my time on her . The only thing is I don't think I got any whole ship pictures . They kept me pretty busy .  T.B.