‘Timbers’ from a shrub
The king of materials for the scratch-build model shipwright is English boxwood. A slow-growing evergreen shrub, it has been prized for centuries by joiners, musical instrument makers and engravers for its hardness, stability and invisibly fine grain. You can buy it from specialist craft suppliers, but Malcolm Darch acquired his stash from a timber merchant in Bristol, England, who was clearing out his inventory. He has since topped it up with donations from local gardeners.
“The trees take 400 to 500 years to mature,” Darch says. “When given green, the wood has to be seasoned in a cool atmosphere. I have lots of branches drying under my studio, behind cold walls. They need five years, minimum.”
Darch converts the branches into the desired shapes using a thicknesser, band saw or lathe, and can create hand-finished planks just 1 millimeter thick for decks and topsides. —A.H.
the details of Agamemnon’s stern carving, for example, he tracked down a painting by the 18th-century artist Nicholas Pocock that the National Maritime Museum in London had mislaid. Its keepers had lent it to Admiralty House in Portsmouth, England, in the 1930s and forgotten about it.
Each model, when finally delivered to its eager owner, comes with a fat historical dossier detailing the career of the original vessel. There are copies of letters, bills, documents, plans, diagrams and anything else Darch has managed to unearth in museums and archives during months of research. Simon Stephens, curator of ship models at the National Maritime Museum, describes Darch’s thoroughness as “amazing” and regards the model-maker as an academic equal. “The quality and detail he goes into, and the amount of research, are of the first order,” Stephens says.
Agamemnon’s dossier is still a work in progress, but as the record of a busy and historically important ship, it will include copies of letters written by Lord Nelson during his three years as her captain. According to Darch, it will eventually amount to eight 200-page volumes.
Darch has no plans to retire, although after the rigors of