Q&A for How to Build a Model Ship

Most model ship kits will come with the materials used to build planks. If you don't want to use a kit, you will need to purchase wood from a hardware or hobby shop and cut it to size yourself.

Unless you have shipbuilding experience, you should probably hire somebody to do this for you, there are various regulations and materials needed that a company may have a better and cheaper process.

You can build your own custom ship model using whatever materials your like. If you want to use a kit, you will need to review the materials provided by that kit to learn if they are natural.

Many of the glues or adhesives used in model ship building will hold even wet wood together. These adhesives are generally quite strong and shouldn't have any trouble keeping your ship together, wet or dry.

Short keels are used inland (like rivers, lake, or canals) where the possibility of tipping is lower.

Go to a place that sells the kits and find out what kind of wood is used in the kits. Then, use that wood.

In general, there are two types of wooden ship models -- plank on frame (or bulkhead) and solid hull. This article demonstrates the plank on frame type. Solid hull is pretty much what it sounds like -- a solid block of wood is carved into the shape of the hull, and may use decorative planks on the outside, or you might just score it to look like planks. Solid hull models come with the hull roughly shaped, and you have to sand smooth and to the correct curvatures and widths.