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.
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 <b>tips</b> 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 four-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!
About This Site
When I started this site in 2009, I had been kicking around the idea for several years - problem was, I didn't know where to start. That was way before Facebook, the blog-craze and all the free hosting options that are out there these days. The biggest problem with these platforms is traffic - there just isn't a lot of it.
In 2008, mostly by accident actually, I stumbled across SiteBuildIt! - a concept that actually teaches you, not only the mechanics of building a site, but also how to get traffic and earning money from your efforts.
It all starts with passion. Is there something you are truly passionate about? Something you'd like to have a site about? A site that could earn you some extra cash, or even grow into a full-time income? I'd recommend you take a serious look at SiteBuildIt!.
I believe this is the Number One Opportunity for anyone to build a financially sustainable presence online, whether it be a hobby, small business, charity or livelihood.
Support This Site
A lot of time and money goes into keeping this site running. All information on this site is provided for free, with the main purpose to spread this fun hobby, especially in this age of RTR and instant gratification.
If you like this site you can help me keeping it alive by showing your support in two ways:
- Buy my plans
- Use links to affiliates
Affiliate links (mostly to Amazon and ebay) generate a commission in an account I have with these companies. If you make any purchase through one of those links, you help support this site. So, if you're shopping for a camera or whatever, and you want to buy it from Amazon, you can use any link on this site to Amazon and I'll get that commission. I'm very grateful for any contribution you are willing to make to that end.
One thing I have to point out also is: Please DO NOT click on ads in an effort to support this site. Only click on the ads if you are interested and/or curious about what they are offering. At some point in the future, I'm hoping to get rid of all ads, but I've decided to keep them for now.
