Vintage shipplans from Popular Science magazine and Popular Mechanics magazine

[Foute Man]

There is so much more, this was just a small part of the available plans. Some usefull pages to help you on your search:

This is an (randomly found) list of ship model plans from the Naval Marine Archive, the Canadian Collection. Search on Popular Science or Popular Mechanics and you'll see when modelplans for a certain ship have been published and month/year of publication. However this list does not cover all ship plans published by PS or PM

A large part of the plans were drawn by Armitage McCann, this is a short article about the man and the models published in Popular Science (a list of his model plans can be found on page 2): page 1 & page 2

One of the Armitage McCann plans I could recommend is a 1/192 model of the USS Texas, published in 5 parts between november 1932 and march 1933 in Popular Science. There's also a 5 part article on how to make Clemson class DD USS Preston (published between december 1930 and april 1931)

Other contributors of ship plans are Donald W Clarke and Theodor Gommi. Donald W Clarke also made drawings of famous aircraft of the 1930's. I suggest to do a search on those names as well

Some suggestions: Liberty ship (published in PS in february 1944), SS Bremen (published in PS in 1929) and a 1-600 SS Normandie (published in PS in july 1935), Victory ship (published in PS in february 1946) Another gem is a series of articles about USS Midway, published in PM january 1954 (page 206) and continuing the next months

Do you want me to continue posting the plans I have on my hard disk, or do you think you can find them yourselves?

Enjoy yourself, and if you need any help in downloading the images yourself, feel free to ask, it's no rocket science

[Don Boose]

I very much appreciate you taking all the time and trouble to share these plans and resources with us. I remember those Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines with great fondness, and have a collection of Model Boats and Ships and the Sea that both printed 1/600 plans of ships.

It has been a great convenience to have you post these links and images, but (speaking only for myself) I think it's asking too much to insist that you continue doing so, since you have shown us how to access the materials.

Best wishes,

Don

[waynemac]

I missed some of the previous messages in this thread, so these might have been discussed already. If so, please disregard.

Model Boats magazine ran a series of articles in the 1970's titled "Fighting Fleets in Miniature" by Michael Ainsworth with 1/1200 scale plans of warships, along with the stories of some of the battles they fought in. They might still be covered by copyright.

Also, "Solid Model Memories" website: Marine Miniatures - Solid Model Memories

[wireandpaper]

Thank you Rechtsaf Man and Waynemac for these very useful information!
For me that I do not to detailed ships is very valuable.

[Foute Man]

Originally Posted by waynemac

I missed some of the previous messages in this thread, so these might have been discussed already. If so, please disregard.

Model Boats magazine ran a series of articles in the 1970's titled "Fighting Fleets in Miniature" by Michael Ainsworth with 1/1200 scale plans of warships, along with the stories of some of the battles they fought in. They might still be covered by copyright.

I think you're right here about copyright, as a lot of Ainsworth's drawings have been published in his book "Warships in Miniature" (Conway Maritime Press Ltd, 2001). This book is still for sale for very reasonable prices
Ainsworth has also published his drawings in "Warship International" in the 1960's & early 1970's. Those issues can be read on this online library website. This website requires a free registration, but you'll be allowed to read 100 articles/books for free every month. Recommended query (search term) = 1:1200 or 1/1200 (combined with "warship international")

Originally Posted by waynemac

Also, "Solid Model Memories" website: Marine Miniatures - Solid Model Memories

This is a great website/forum indeed, a pity the forum administrator closed the forum for new members some time ago.
In the aircraft section you'll find the sheets distributed by the Office of Naval Intelligence early in WW2, in order to get enough models available to train (Navy) pilots

And speaking about ONI: what about this file "Master File Drawings of German Naval Vessels", available as free public domain download here. Check out the end of the file for some (1-300???) model plans for Raubtier class torpedoboats, Narvik class destroyers, Köln class light cruisers and Leipzieg class light cruisers

[USSMissouri]

That is some cool stuff right there.

[altomentis]

In a tiny aside, my father built a 16 foot cabin cruiser from Popular Mechanics plans. He managed a sawmill and handpicked every piece of wood used. The magazine called the plans Sea King, and they were published in 1955.

[Foute Man]

Google Books is not the only place to find issues of Popular Mechanics, they can also be found in the online library of the Webarchive. In 1954 a series of drawings and articles was published (spread out over the first 4 months of 1954) about the USS Midway. These are drawings in about 1/580 scale, representing her more or less as built (before the first mid-50's reconstruction).
click on this link to go to the Webarchive. You'll notice there are 12 pdf's, the drawings can be found in the first 4 pdf's. The magazine can be downloaded in pdf or jpg/jp2 fileformat. It's not that hard to convert jp2 files to jpg format

sample:

[Don Boose]

Another great find.

Don

[Rata]

Thanks for all this effort and time to share this stuff Foute Man. Even if one never actually builds any models from these plans, just spending time looking and soaking up the nostalgia is pure joy in itself.