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HMS Queen Mary, 1913, Scratch Built

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JBLavender:
I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself and share some photos of my scratch-built model of HMS Queen Mary, 1913. I’ve been a ship modeler for a couple of decades now, and I build mostly ships from the First World War and before, however I will occasionally build WWII era Regia Marina subjects.

This model took over two months of near full-time work and contains over 1,000 individual scratch-built pieces. Construction took nearly 2 months of nearly full time work. The scale is 125’ to 1” or 1/1500.

The model depicts the Royal Navy battlecruiser as she appeared just after commissioning in 1913. HMS Queen Mary was part of the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron during the battle of Jutland in 1916. She was hit twice early on by the German battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger causing a detonation of her forward magazines destroying the ship almost instantly. There were only 18 survivors.

The model was made using the John Roberts plans and photographs of the ship. These plans were reproduced in 1/200 and 1/1500 scales and measurements taken from them. The hull was constructed from a single piece of boxwood. Single piece hulls are much harder to create accurately, and require constant checking of the work to make sure it’s correctly aligned. It’s easy to sculpt an asymmetrical hull if one is not careful. The bulk of the detail is brass and boxwood. The funnels were constructed from a thin aluminum sheet so they’d be almost scale thickness. In 1/1500, funnels appear very delicate and I try to replicate this on all of my ships. Working with aluminum is difficult since it doesn’t glue well nor does it take paint. With a little witchcraft I was able to overcome this. The rigging is 3 grades of nitinol and copper wire.

The water base was carved from wood and painted, and the whitecaps are canvas paste. No fancy resin needed, all traditional materials. The base itself was made from several exotic woods I had on hand which I cut and inlayed. 

macsporran:
Miniature perfection, Joseph, what a great way to introduce yourself. I'm always fascinated by models in subjects I have no experience of tackling. This one is superb.
Are you building a whole series of Jutland battlecruisers I wonder.
Sandy
PS you need a 1913 shilling rather than a 1943 one! 😊

JBLavender:
Thank you.

I’m sure I’ll get around to all of the ships of 1st BCS eventually. I currently have no plans to build any battlecruisers in 2023 but I do have excellent plans for all of them, including camouflage schemes. I’m currently working on HMAV Bounty, 1788, and that project is wrapping up. After this one, it’s on to Littorio, 1941. I tend to plan out the whole year because I make my own photo etch, and I do a run for whole year. For 2023 I’m planning RN Littorio, HMS Vindictive 1918, and HMS Mayala 1941.

The shilling is something I use in every photo regardless of era. I like the way it looks but more importantly, it’s exactly 1” or ~25mm, so it makes an excellent size reference.

Thumbs up:
Thank you for sharing your amazing skills with us,your ship looks amazing! The quality of members on this forum is a daily treat!

Dirigible-Al:
Nothing less than a masterpiece and SCRATCH BUILT!
HMS Vindictive sounds really exciting, built to the same standard that will look awesome.
Alan.
P.S. been a long time since I saw one of those shillings.

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