first wooden ship model

There's plenty of room for personal opinion on this one, but I'll give it a try.  I imagine some other Forum members will want to offer their own suggestions.

I ought to start by confessing that I haven't built many wood kits.  I tend to lean toward either plastic kits or scratchbuilding.  But I think I'm reasonably familiar with what's out there.

If you're an experienced plastic modeler I assume you're interested, at least to some extent, in the concept of scale modeling - that is, building reasonably accurate replicas of real ships.  If that's the case, the list of manufacturers that offer suitable kits is actually pretty short.

One British company, CalderCraft (also known as Jotika) and three American ones, Bluejacket, Model Shipways, and A.J. Fisher, sell wood kits that are designed by people who know what they're doing to produce genuine scale models.  Unfortunately the wood ship kit industry also contains several continental European companies who sell "plank-on-bulkhead" kits that have something (I'm not sure what) other than scale fidelity at the top of their agendas.  Caveat:  the kits from those companies (Corel, Amati, Artesania Latina, Mamoli, Euromodel, etc.) do vary considerably in quality; I'm sure some are much better than others.  But I have yet to encounter a kit from any of those firms that I'd consider worth taking home from the hobby shop - especially in view of the outrageous prices they bring.

I've never built a Calder kit - or even seen one in the flesh.  On the basis of the published reviews and ads, though, it's clear that this is a company that knows what it's doing.  Calder makes plank-on-bulkhead British warship kits that clearly are designed to make real scale models.  They have two big drawbacks, unfortunately:  scarcity and price.  The Calder 1/72-scale H.M.S. Victory, for instance, costs about $1,000.  The lesser ships in the range are cheaper, but I'd be reluctant to suggest a Calder kit as a first effort.

A.J. Fisher is an old, old American firm with a fine reputation for solid-hull sailing vessel kits.  The company has been dormant for quite a few years, but is now, under new ownership, coming back to life.  At the moment it only offers a couple of kits, but I'm confident that they're good ones.

The two big American competitors are Bluejacket ( www.bluejacketinc.com ) and Model Shipways (distributed by Model Expo:  www.modelexpoonline.com ).  Both offer a wide variety of kits in both the solid-hull and plank-on-bulkhead formats.

You may want to start by making up your mind whether you'd prefer to go the solid-hull or plank-on-bulkhead route.  Generally speaking the former will produce a nice model faster - especially in the case of a relatively large ship.  But the plank-on-bulkhead format has a lot to recommend it as well.  In that sort of kit you feel like you're building the actual ship or boat more-or-less like the real thing was built.  And both companies offer nice plank-on-bulkhead (or plank-on-frame) renditions of small vessels that don't require an enormous investment of time.

The big piece of advice I usually offer is:  start with a relatively small ship or boat on a relatively large scale.  Too many people dive into the deep end of the hobby with both feet, starting with a Constitution or a Flying Cloud.  Most of those folks never finish their first models - and most leave the hobby in frustration.  The learning curves in ship modeling tend to be short but steep.  To build a big Constitution takes several years.  Six months into the project, the typical modeler gets dissatisfied with the work he or she did at the beginning.  Rather than tearing things apart and starting over in those circumstances, it makes far more sense to invest one's time and effort in a smaller, simpler model.  Any sailor knows that many small ships and boats have their own subtle beauty and character.  A well-executed model of a sloop or a schooner, or for that matter a catboat or a dory, makes a fine mantle decoration.  And the month or two that went into its construction will be of huge value to the builder when he does tackle the ship-of-the-line or clipper that he really wants.

Specifically - in the plank-on-bulkhead category, Bluejacket offers a couple of large scale dories, a catboat, a lobster boat, and several other small craft that would be great starter kits.  Moving up the ladder in terms of size (and down it in terms of scale), the same firm's pilot schooner Mary Taylor and fishing schooner We're Here (a fictitious ship, based on the one in the movie "Captains Courageous") are good solid-hull starter ships.  The Model Shipways plank-on-frame skipjack Willie L. Bennett is a beauty - though some of the woodwork in the early stages is kind of challenging.  The MS solid-hull pilot schooner Phantom, colonial schooner Sultana, revenue cutter Harriet Lane, and privateer schooner Dapper Tom also would be good choices.  (Warning:  when you check out the Model Expo website you'll promptly discover that many of the Model Shipways kits are out of stock at the moment.  The company is in the process of re-introducing several solid-hull kits that have been off the market for several years, and apparently there's been some sort of glitch in the production process.)  I believe MS offers the Phantom and Sultana in "everything you need" kits, including tools, paint, and a copy of George Campbell's excellent book, The Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay.  One of those would be great to start with.

Those are personal opinions, but I hope they help a little.  Good luck.  It's a great hobby.

This has been discussed at Dry Dock frequently. Here is one of many threads discussing the topic:

http://forum.drydockmodels.com/viewtopic.php?t=1817&highlight=first+model

I am currently building my first ship model of any kind. It's the Caldercraft Sherbourne. There is a thread on this forum about it I started recently including an in-progress pic. Caldercraft are one of the companies referred to in the thread I've linked to as producing good starter kits. And their name usually crops up as recommended kits. However, if you're based in the US you might want to have a look at Model Shipways. As well as producing beginner-friendly kits these two companies are regarded as producing historically accurate models.

cheers
Blighty

Another manufacturer I should have mentioned earlier is Midwest.  It produces a fairly large range of workboats and recreational craft (canoes, racing yachts, etc.) called the "Success Series" that are designed specifically for beginners.

I hope that, in recommending pretty basic kits as starter projects, I'm not coming across as either a preacher or a snob.  But I've seen too many initially enthusiastic modelers get discouraged and depressed because they started out by picking kits that were either too time-consuming or badly designed.  (The latter problem is a big one.  A veteran modeler with twenty years' experience would have a great deal of trouble getting a decent result from most of those continental European kits.) 

And "small and simple" doesn't necessarily mean "inferior."  A model of a schooner, sloop, or small craft, well made and well finished, is a thing of great interest and beauty to any real ship lover.  I've seen models of fishing boats that have held my interest longer than many a frigate or clipper. 

When I was working at the Mariners' Museum one of the few models we actually bought was a 17' Thistle-class racing sloop, built by a fine gentleman from New Jersey named Dean Richmond.  I brought that little model back from Newark to Tidewater in a People's Express airliner, then drove it in a station wagon to the museum. (That was one of the more nervous mornings and afternoons I've ever spent.  Left my apartment in Newport News at 8:00 a.m.; got to work, by way of New Jersey, shortly after 2:00 p.m.  Round trip airfare:  $70, paid in cash to the flight attendant.  Those were the days.)  The museum's resident model builder, Marvin Bryant, and I then spent about half an hour simply staring at the model in silence.  We agreed that it was just about the only model we'd ever seen that was incapable of improvement. That was in 1981 or thereabouts; I don't think I've seen a finer model since.