1/700ish semi-scratchbuilt HMS Warrior (1860)

Modeling Subjects Ships
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This is a small “semi-scratchbuilt” model of the 1860 ironclad warship HMS Warrior (now preserved at Portsmouth Dockyard), which I’ve built over the last week.

For those not familiar with this ship, it was the first ironclad armoured warship of the Royal Navy (maybe not strictly ironclad, as it was actually built of iron) and when built in 1860 was the most powerful warship of its time. It had a broadside armament of both 64pdr muzzle-loaders and Armstrong breech-loading rifled guns, as well as two large (110pdr I think) Armstrongs and 4-6 smaller ones on the spar deck. The ship was propelled by a single two-bladed screw, which could be lifted out of the water (to reduce drag) when the ship was under sail.

A while ago I bought a lot of old built ship models on eBay (mainly for a source of spare parts), which included a number of the Airfix “Historical Ships” range of small scale (most 1/400-1/600) sailing ships. Among them was the paddle steamer Great Western. I’ve already built this kit, so wasn’t sure what to do with it.

However the other day I noticed that, with the paddles removed, the hull is a reasonably close match for HMS Warrior. (Whether the real Great Western’s hull looked anything like the Warrior’s I don’t know, but the small Airfix kit’s hull does, though it is significantly wider). It even has massively overscale square “portholes” in the side at about the same height as the Warrior’s gun ports, and a stern gallery much like the Warrior’s false gallery in appearance and location.

I decided to try and “kitbash” a small model of the Warrior as a trial run for the much larger model I intend to build eventually.

Rather than trying to salvage the existing deck, I traced around it onto textured styrene card and cut a new one. The planking is still very overscale, but not as much!

The rudder was sawn off and a new rudder + propeller assembly scratchbuilt. The prop is a 1/600 4-bladed example with two of the blades cut off.

Deck detailing and armament is scratchbuilt from styrene stock, other than the funnels (which are actually propeller locating pins left over from a 1/48 aircraft kit, cut down and drilled out), the boats (1/600 items from the spares box) and the anchors, which are modified ones from the Great Western kit.
Masts and yards are scratchbuilt from styrene rod (the ones in the GW kit are overscale) . The spars aren’t tapered, but look OK to me considering how tiny they are.

Finally, I added some minimal “representative” shrouds (I tried to add rigging but found it looked overscale and unconvincing) and a flag.
The scale is around 1/700, the model measures about 16-17cm long.

Here are 3 photos of the completed model. It’s not as detailed as it could be and the hull shape is inaccurate (too wide + too blunt at both the bow and stern) but considering its tiny size it captures the appearance of the real ship fairly well. If nothing else it was an interesting scratchbuilding exercise!



I intend to build a much larger model of this ship (probably 1/150 or 1/200) in future. (As the real ship is 128m long, a 1/150 model would be about 3’, the same size as the big Revell sailing ships) How exactly I’m not sure! Possibly I’ll have to carve the basic hull shape from balsa or another wood.

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That’s a remarkably convincing little model. I haven’t been on board the Warrior, but I’ve looked at her (after opening hours) from the pier. The model could have fooled me.

It obviously would be premature to get into a detailed discussion of how to build a larger-scale scratchbuilt model of her, but I’ll take the liberty of making one suggestion. Forget about balsa wood.\

Balsa is the wood most commonly associated in the public mind with model building, and the one most commonly stocked by hobby shops. In fact it has one great virtue: light weight. For builders of flying model airplanes, that’s crucial. For scale ship modelers, it’s irrelevant. Balsa’s other attributes make it miserable for scale modeling. It’s so soft that it disintegrates under pressure from sandpaper, dents ridiculously easily, and caves in under pressure from a knife or chisel. It has a coarse, open grain that soaks up finishing materials like a sponge. Builders of operating models (the RC boating enthusiasts, for example) make intelligent use of the latter characteristic by using balsa as a basis for hulls that are going to be coated with fiberglass. Otherwise, balsa belongs in the same category as lead fittings and tea for dying sails: an absolute no-no.

The favored wood for solid-hull scale models here in the U.S. is basswood. I believe the wood known as lime in Britain is quite similar. Basswood is sold in a huge variety of shapes and sizes - including strips down to 1/32" x 1/32". The prices are just about the same as those of balsa. Decent American hobby shops carry a reasonable assortment, and it can be bought via the web from places like Model Expo and Bluejacket. Basswood is a little softer than ideal, and it takes a little effort to get it ready for painting. But it’s a nice, friendly wood to work with.