My own beginnings into ship building began almost 40 years ago (I can hardly believe that myself! )
It began with the good old Airfix kits and later progressed into a brand new range by the Matchbox company who, it must be said, soon acquired a reputation for bringing out pretty good models of unusual subjects, ie, not just another so and so which many other firms had already produced. These in turn led on to the excellent Tamiya vessels which are still regarded by many as the standard by which others are judged.
Most of the kits in this collection (all 1/700 scale) were built by myself about 35 years ago and have fortunately been kept in a glass fronted display cupboard and so survived intact (unlike the poor Airfix Wasa and Victory which were lost in action during a particulary savage parental spring cleaning assault!)

The thing which still amazes me is that I made these up long before I needed glasses as I do now and they were all painted using Humbrol enamels and the MkI eyeball with no magnifying glasses at all. Sob! those were the days!

The bases are simply balsa wood frames filled in with Polyfilla, moulded around the ship hull (before it was painted) and once dry painted with enamels. The balsa was finished off with a gloss varnish and the name plates were plasticard with letraset rub down letters.
The only scratch built additions were the aerial 'rigging' made from the kits own plastic sprue heated over a candle and stretched into thin filaments. This was long before etched brass enhancements were even thought up!

Here's the first, this is the HMS Ariadne, an Abdiel Class Minelayer as she appeared in 1944. This is one of the first of the Matchbox kits to come on the market all those years ago.
I'll gradually add more ships to this gallery, (about seven or eight I think) and I hope you will enjoy this 'Blast from the Past!'. Just remember, I was much younger when these came off the slips!!

Thanks for the comments guys. Hey Jase, I've been through the old Airfix ships too, unfortunately they were before I progressed to displaying my finished efforts, (I can still see some of them up in my attic though!)

I've just found this great website at www.matchboxkits.org ,go to this site and click on the ships section and you can get a preview of some of the models I'll be putting on here.

I was going to post the next one tonight but the photos are all 'yellowy' under the lighting conditions so I'll re-take them tomorrow under daylight.

Robin

Sorry for the long delay in continuing my gallery, the 'Ol Vic' has been taking up most of my time over Christmas!

This is the third of my 1/700 collection and is the first non Matchbox kit. This is the Imperial Japanese Tenryu Class Light Cruiser the "Kuma" of 1940 and was produced by the leader of the 1/700 brigade, Tamiya.
This was a lovely little kit with many small and detailed bits and pieces including a beautiful little spotter plane to which I added a tiny propeller (today I'd probably try and put struts and rigging on the damned thing as well! )
As with the previous ships, Kuma was also fitted out with stretched sprue aerials and rigging. The really helpful thing with the Tamiya kits is their use of a thin waterline base which can be painted separately before glueing to the bottom (no masking tape required!)

I'll try not to take so long with the next one!

Best Wishes and Happy New Year to you all!

Robin