About Me and this Site

Being an accomplished model boat builder has been a dream of mine - ever since I was a kid. Today, some 25 odd years later I’m still no expert, but just as passionate about model boats as I ever was!

Hi there, and thanks for visiting my website!

My name is Petter and I'm the brain behind building-model-boats.com.

Most of what I know as a passionate model boat builder I had to learn myself, mostly by trial-and-error. If you’ve ever gone that route, you know how slow and discouraging it can be. On the up-side, I can't think of a better way to truly learn a skill than getting your hands dirty.

Mini-me and I testing
home made toy model boats.

I've tried my hands on a lot of things besides model boats. The most insane was when I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. It couldn't just be any guitar, I had to build it myself!

I know, not the sanest thing I ever did, but I ended up with a beautiful guitar made with exotic woods, binding and the whole enchilada.

This thing played like a dream...I was told.

Yepp, you guessed it. I never learned to play!! Crazy, but I learned a metric TON about things like inlays, precision woodworking and fine finishes. All good skills I took back to my passion - building model boats.



This site came to be, largely due to the trial-and-error I’ve been through. I’m hoping to set it up with tips on individual methods as well as entire projects.

For the projects, I’d like to keep it at intermediate level or below. The simple fact is, if you’re beyond that, you probably know more than I do anyways! Although, everybody is always welcome to hang around!


Another passion I have is ship plans. I’m a Mechanical Engineer by trade, and since I'm such a boat nut, making my own ship plans in CAD seemed perfectly natural.

Traditionally, model boat plans are expensive and it seems archaic we still ship them folded or in mailing tubes across the planet.


The other problem I found was just how disappointing some of these plans are. You pay top dollars, but often is let down by horrible paper copies of torn and distorted originals. This used to drive me nuts, and several times made me abandon projects as a result.

The issues with plans sparked the idea to make my own. First it was a step in my model boat building process to loft and ‘correct’ the flawed blueprints. Later I developed the skills to true up severely distorted plans and sometimes recreate hull lines from a deck outline and profile. I was on a roll, but more importantly, I had so much fun!


Now, I’m hoping to offer model ship plans for the projects I’m featuring at a very reasonable cost. The hope is to offer CAD generated plans that have never been scanned, copied, damaged or folded.

This is not only in keeping with instant access mantra of the 21st century; it also cuts shipping cost to nil while maintaining the highest print quality.

What else, let's see...

I was born and raised in Sweden in a wholesome town outside of Stockholm. I always tinkered and always 'knew' I was going to be an Engineer. Sure enough, I earned a MSME in 1997 from KTH in Stockholm. While in College I met my wife Anne, who’s American.

After having lived in Utah and California, we now live in Richmond, Virginia with our two-year-old son and dog, Dasher. I work for an automation company here, where I get to tinker and design factory automation equipment eight hours a day. Not as fun as building model boats, but not too shabby for a day-job!

Contact Me

If you want to get in touch with me for any reason, click on the link above (it will take you to a spam-safe entry form). Don't worry, I won't share your personal info with anyone. Period. Promise. Scout's honor.

Enough about this model boat builder wannabe.
Take me back to Building Model Boats