Anyone who knows model railroads knows that there’s some really significant, really neat products available to that market. Model railroads scales can be quite adaptable to ship modeling, though the timeframe is generally limited to 1860s through 1930s and later.

Most ship modelers tend to stick to 17th and 18th century subjects, but there is some overlap for those interested in steam-era ships and late 19th and early 20th century sailing ships. And if you’re one of those those ship modelers, there are some companies that you should take a good look at.

I learned about an interesting company through past Nautical Research Guild conferences. A gentleman by the name of Andy Small started a company called Train Troll, and he showed off some of his products that might be of interest to ship modelers. I have to say, he had some really neat stuff. Now, I’m one of those…

For those of you looking for nice tutorial on card model building, check out Chris Coyle’s tutorial on The Nautical Research Guild’s Model Ship World. In this tutorial, Chris uses a small, downloadable model of a German WWII V108 Torpedo Boat produced by Digital Navy.

The company produces several card models, that you can download for around $35 to $40. However, they have given Model Ship World permission to host the downloadable files for their tutorial and you can get these for free. You will, of course, need a color printer and some good quality card stock paper to print on.

https://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/2701-intro-and-table-of-contents/

Completed waterline version of the V108 card model built by Chris Coyle and featured in his tutorial

Since I’ve been working on a couple paper models, I thought it would be a good idea to follow this tutorial and try my hand at building this relatively simple…