Boat Model Building Materials

Choosing model building materials for your model boats may give you pause. Wood is probably the most common, but plastic card, fiberglass, metal and cardboard have their place too.

Some have no problem at all picking out model building materials, while others really struggle and don't know where to begin. The list presented here is a mix of materials I like to use for my model boats.

Regardless of your preferences, you always have to consider what tools and work area you have available.

The main purpose for the list of model building materials is to throw around some ideas and opinions in case you're not sure what to use.

Sometimes it may be a good idea to just test a material and see if you like it. If that's the path you choose, start with a modest project. It can be a challenge to finish a big project with model building materials you don't like to work with.

Wood for Ship Models

Wood is the most versatile of all model building materials. Different woods have different properties - not only the superficial such as color and texture, but also when it comes to stability, stiffness and strength. Less obvious properties that come into play are: prone to checking and ability to bend without cracking.

To read more about different wood species suitable for building model boats, follow the link above.

Metals Used for Model Boat Building

Brass

Brass is probably the most common metal on model boats. On wooden ships you'll see pintle and gudgeon (the two halves of the "hinges" that hold the rudder), guns barrels, nails, eyelets etc. It'll work just about anywhere you want to substitute another metal.

Boat model building materials: Brass - different shapes.

For power model boats the most obvious parts to be made of brass are propellers and sometimes rudders. Brass is also useful for internal components for RC boats, such as home made rudder horns and other mechanical components. Brass wire makes good radio masts, handrails, cranes, davits etc.

Some other benefits as a model building material:

• Brass is a lot easier to work than stainless steel.
• It doesn't corrode like mild steel.
• It's harder and more resilient than copper.
• It solders easily with regular solder iron (unlike aluminum.
• It glues with CA and Epoxy, and can be painted or blackened.
• Etched brass parts are sometimes available commercially.

Copper

Model building materials around the house: scrap copper.

Copper is also useful since it doesn't easily corrode, is relatively easy to form and solders and brazes well.

One thing to keep in mind: Epoxy doesn't adhere well to copper. This can be used to your advantage though. Copper wire (stripped electric wire) can be used to temporarily hold an epoxy glue-up together, such as the "stitch-and-glue" process.

Both Copper and brass are used extensively in boilers, cylinders, pistons and other components for live steam engines.

Steel

Steel doesn't have a lot of uses in model boat building because it rusts and corrodes so easily. Live steam again being an exception.

Steel can however be used as inexpensive ballast weights for working models - both RC and free running.

Steel ballast weights needs to be painted or embedded in the hull for best result, well protected from any water that will seep in.

Lead

Due to it's high density, lead makes the best and most efficient ballast weights. A good ballast ensures that the center of gravity is as low in the hull as possible.

It should be pointed out that lead is branded as a 'heavy metal' and as such has been determined poisonous. If that is a concern of yours, then consider using steel instead. For many applications that may work well enough.

Pewter or Britannia

Pewter is sometimes used as a model building material for various fittings. They can come with a kit, be purchased already made or you can cast them yourself. It's not terribly complicated. It is however somewhat outside the scope of this website.

Boat Model Building Materials: Synthetics

Fiberglass

Fiberglass is most common in the form of strand mat or woven fabric. It can be used in combination with a resin on the outside of a wooden strip planked hull to seal and stiffen it. This is most common with RC model boats.

A hull can also be made entirely out of fiberglass (and resin). It requires that a positive pattern (also called a "plug") be made first.

After the pattern is properly finished and treated with release agent, a negative mold is made from the "plug". This mold now looks like a tub.

After the mold is cleaned up and again prepped with release agents, hulls can be made from the mold - one after another. A mold typically lasts to make several hulls (10-20) before a new mold has to be made from the plug.

All in all, this is a time consuming process, and doesn't really pay off unless you plan on making several identical hulls.

There is a lot more to it than explained here with mat weights and types, layup schedules, pigments, gel coats etc.

Carbon fiber and Kevlar are closely related to fiberglass in terms of working methods. If you are thinking of building serious competition models where every gram counts, this is what you need.

Resin

The resin used for fiberglass hulls are generally either polyester based or epoxy based. Messing with polyester resin is smelly and you have to have the appropriate facility to handle it, or work outside. The good news is this stuff is cheap.

Epoxy on the other hand has very little odor, but is considerably more expensive. Note that "lay-up" epoxy is different than your average "glue" epoxy. Typically it is a lot less viscous.

Plasticard or Styrene sheet

Styrene is the same plastic most plastic kits are made from. Its only natural that kit builders who wants to extend kit bashing or scratch building choose styrene. This material is most common for static display models, but is also favored by some RC boat builders and professionals.

Model Boat Building - miscellaneous materials.

Tissue paper or Rice Paper

If you've ever built a Guillow's balsa model airplane, you know what I'm talking about. This type of tissue paper has been used for centuries for sealing, and dealing, with the 'fuzz' that you'll see when sanding balsa wood.

Instead of pore-filling and the tedious back and fourth with applying sealer and sanding you can simply lay the tissue flat over the balsa and apply 'dope' over it. You can read more about the process on theTissue-and-Dope page.

Paper in Model Ship Building

Paper, Card stock, Fiber Board, and Bristol board are all pulp and paper based model building materials. It's easy to assume paper is flimsy and fragile, but that's not necessarily true. Click the heading for more on Paper in Model Ship Building.

Rigid plastic foam - Styrofoam, Divinycell, Rigid Urethane foam etc

Foam can be shaped much like a piece of wood and finished with fiber glass - not that different from how a surfboard is made.

The dust gets static when cut or sanded and can be frustrating.

On the other hand it is relatively inexpensive. If you are looking for model building materials to carve for a large model boat, this may be the ticket.

Return from Model Building Materials to Building Model Boats Home.