I have been building kits of all kinds for decades, now I am a proud father showing my son what I have learned. I had no one to teach me and with an eager 13 year old looking at what I have done it is great to have someone to share with.

This is his third glue kit. He was given it for a Christmas present a while back and it sat in the closet since. When his Mom and I got married, he wanted to build models like I have done and so we started off with simple kits and have worked ourselves up. I have a 'realm' downstairs where I keep all my personal stuff, we worked down there and while building I had the movie 'Battleship' playing in the background for inspiration. It has some excellent BluRay features so we watched the walk through featurette as well.

My Son's USS Arizona is now complete. It may not be 100% accurate to the actual vessel and it's markings, but for me the important thing is that he enjoyed himself while learning how to expand on his skills. The wire rigging is an approximation- he wanted it as a final touch and the references were a bit contradictory so we went for a look and feel of it. We may revisit this kit later and add hull decals and the flags, but this project has taken forever and he wanted to get it finished so we could move on the the next one.
http://i.imgur.com/ciHPmlP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Dfi4trC.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KCQZ3AD.jpg
The great thing is that he has a lot more confidence in himself as he works on these kits- this was his third glue kit and I remember how terrified he was on his first one, so afraid he would make a mistake. AS to accuracy, he is 13 and if he wants to paint something green it is up to him. As he progresses he can decide if he wants to be accurate and to what degree, as long as he is having fun that is fine with me.

Kit looks great, and it is something you will both have forever. I remember building kits with my dad, and hopefully my kids will look at the time spent with me in a good way.

Good start, when I built my first kit, I used a rubber cement to build an Airfix ship! Back then the Airfix kits came in a plastic bag, with a cardboard hanger. Ah, what a great memory.

Hi Richard,

Firstly...welcome to Model Shipwrights/Kitmaker site...you will
have a great time here.

Great to see a father and son team building models...quite rare.

He has done a great job on that model...being a 3rd model and
looking forward to seeing more.

A great day to you both and more importantly...

Happy modeling!

Cheers,
Joe

I can just second what was said above - personally, I did my first ship model at about the same age as your son, but than there was a break of some 20 years in my 'career' as a ship modeler starting when I was around 16 or 17. However, the seed was set and I'm still on it

But most important: welcome on board for both of you and happy modeling!!

Cheers,
Jan

It's great to see kids participating in this hobby of tangible things!

The larger Revell Arizona was a frequent subject of my youthful attempts at shipbuilding. Maybe that's where I developed my preference for larger scales, despite eventually building most of the Japanese 1/700 IJN kits?

Kudos to you, Richard, for taking pride in your son's work and sharing it with the rest of us.

--Karl