Jimmy Colangelo
My modeling interest stems from my lifetime career in support of US Navy ships and my passion and love for woodworking. I joined the US Navy in 1959 as an Engineering Duty Officer (EDO). This set me on a course to obtain a degree as a Professional Naval Engineer and a lifetime career working in support of naval ship design, construction, acquisition, operation, maintenance and support. My father was an Italian immigrant blessed with a natural hand-made craftsman gift. He instilled in me the endless joy of working with my hands. I had my own toolbox and workshop by the time I was 8 and grew up building and fixing things. My modeling effort reflects a blend of these two conditions.
My first model, built in the early 70’s, was the Model Shipways Rattlesnake. At the time, I couldn’t justify the cost of a kit so I just bought the plans, made and carved the hull from a scrap piece of pine shelving board and went on from there. I made a special wood box to store the model and took it onboard ship with me on a 7 month Mediterranean deployment to finish it off. I was the Chief Engineer with easy access to the ship’s shop.
My primary avocation has and will always be my workshop. I have assembled an industrial-sized shop outfitted with multiple numbers of every woodworking tool imaginable. My shop tends to be the collection point for a lot of wood scrap and other stuff that may someday have a use in a ship model. I like working from the engineering drawings and technical data the model represents, milling the wood stock required and developing the detail fabrication methods needed more than just putting together models from kits. I have discovered that working with the Chesapeake Bay workboat construction style used over the past century provides a great opportunity to combine my woodworking and modeling interest.
I am currently working on a 1:32 scale model of the Diesel–Powered Dredge Boat Metunga. With it I am attempting to improve my modeling skills by following in the footprints left by the late HRSMS member Jack Bobbitt as he published in a series of his articles in Seaways SHIPS in SCALE. My model is being built with wood strips I milled from rock maple bowling alley stock left over from a 1964 cabinet project.