Canberra Model Shipwrights Society

The Canberra Model Shipwrights Society meets at the Hellenic Club of Canberra, Matilda Street, Phillip ACT at 7:30PM on the third Tuesday of every month February - November. The society caters for anyone interested in building static wooden models of boats and ships.

Experience of the members varies from beginners that haven't built a model yet though to experts with many years of experience and also one professional model builder.

Activities include maritime history presentations, model building workshops, a collaborative club project to scratch build a model of the brig Lady Nelson, and organising or participating in model shows locally and interstate. The society also publishes a newsletter and workshop notes.

The society ran a very successful course for beginners in model boat building for the first time in 2006 and may continue to run courses in future years if there is enough interest.

Model Ship Projects

We are both members of the Canberra Model Shipwrights Society and enjoy building historic wooden models of what we loosely call ships, but are probably more correctly described as boats. We hope to improve our skills over the coming years to eventually be able to scratch build model ships, but for now the commercial kits are challenging enough and offer considerable scope for adding our own improvements and for attention to historic detail.

Jim is building two wooden model kits:

The Flying Fish - A Grand Banks fishing schooner, 1860 1:50 scale by Corel
Swift - Virginian Pilot boat, 1805 1:50 scale by Artesania Latina

Bon Retour
Model boat construction

Robine has recently finished building the Bon Retour a 1952 French shell fishing boat (1:25 scale kit by Atesania Latina). This model was the principal project for a model wooden ship/boat building course run by the Canberra Model Shipwrights Society in 2006. She has now started building a model of the ketch Clara May.

Click on the image at right to see photos showing the various stages in the construction of the Bon Retour model including descriptions and tips for other beginners.