Shipbuilder creates his masterpieces at 1/24th scale
November 17, 2009
By Christopher Huber
By Christopher Huber
If you ask Niels Wilhelm to show you his model collection, you will learn more than just what it took to build each hand-painted, custom-modified ship, plane or armored tank. You’ll get a pretty good history lesson, too.
“He’s proud of his model collection,” said Karl Wilhelm, his brother from San Diego.
The 54-year-old Sammamish resident has been constructing plastic and wooden models since he was about 8 years old. He continues to build his collection today, currently displaying about two-dozen tanks, 18 sailing ships and a few custom vessels in a small workroom at his home — a fraction of the 111 in his collection. The award-winners sit in clear plastic cases, while the tanks sit in rows on a shelf, as if part of a military parade.
“I think he has so much passion for what he’s doing,” said acquaintance Linda O’Connell, of Sammamish. O’Connell has coffee periodically with Wilhelm at the Northeast 4th Street Starbucks. “When you look at his boats you can tell that so much of himself goes into the final product.”
Niels Wilhelm produces seamless, polished models. His favorites are ones that took him more than a year to complete and demand the closest attention to detail. He hand-carves fixtures on the wooden ships and drills pinhole-sized holes into railings to fasten a mooring rope rung. You can tell he’s ready to work when he pulls the desk lamp down close to his face and leans in toward the model.
“It’s a lot of work, but once you get it done, it’s all correct,” Niels Wilhelm said. “I like to understand what it is I’m working on.”
His workroom has had a lot of use. The carpetless floor allows for quick cleanup and, when Wilhelm works, the smell of hot plastic wafts through the air as a drill bit pierces a model part. He said he’s spent much of his life since 1991 sitting at the workbench, meticulously painting, carving, drilling and snapping pieces into place. It’s cluttered, but mostly with tools, scrap plastic and wood strips and all his finished products. Partly completed models rest on the tabletop, next to an ever-present 1-liter Pepsi bottle.
“It’s always been my primary hobby, replacing video games and sports,” Wilhelm said as he reminisced about the days of building models and flying balsawood airplanes with his three brothers in San Diego.
“I probably got into it because Niels was into it first,” his brother Charles Wilhelm said from San Diego.
In 2008, Niels Wilhelm swept the non-engined ships category at the International Plastic Modelers Society competition in Seattle.
“Sailing ships were my first love when I was young,” he said.
It’s not just something Niels Wilhelm likes to do, however. Throughout his career as a carpenter, he has built models as a serious hobby on the side. But since being laid off last December, he’s devoted more time — up to four hours per day — to his work. It’s an outlet for his creativity, he said.
While working on a current project, a nearly three-foot replica of the 1850s ship Napoleon, Wilhelm said building models is therapeutic.
“This was a way to stave off depression,” he said. “It’s something to focus the mind on.”
Wilhelm draws similarities — other than working with one’s hands — between carpentry and creating modified model ships and tanks. As a “pick-up” carpenter, he would fix a foreman’s mistakes, he said. As a model builder, he researches the real-life ship, for example, and adds the features lacking in the plastic model out of the box.
“It’s just a very nice, exacting hobby,” Charles Wilhelm said. “He does a lot of research into his models, which brings him detail.”
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com.
If you ask Niels Wilhelm to show you his model collection, you will learn more than just what it took to build each hand-painted, custom-modified ship, plane or armored tank. You’ll get a pretty good history lesson, too.
“He’s proud of his model collection,” said Karl Wilhelm, his brother from San Diego.
Niels Wilhelm concentrates as he works on a model of the Napoleon. Photo by Christopher Huber
The 54-year-old Sammamish resident has been constructing plastic and wooden models since he was about 8 years old. He continues to build his collection today, currently displaying about two-dozen tanks, 18 sailing ships and a few custom vessels in a small workroom at his home — a fraction of the 111 in his collection. The award-winners sit in clear plastic cases, while the tanks sit in rows on a shelf, as if part of a military parade.
“I think he has so much passion for what he’s doing,” said acquaintance Linda O’Connell, of Sammamish. O’Connell has coffee periodically with Wilhelm at the Northeast 4th Street Starbucks. “When you look at his boats you can tell that so much of himself goes into the final product.”
Niels Wilhelm produces seamless, polished models. His favorites are ones that took him more than a year to complete and demand the closest attention to detail. He hand-carves fixtures on the wooden ships and drills pinhole-sized holes into railings to fasten a mooring rope rung. You can tell he’s ready to work when he pulls the desk lamp down close to his face and leans in toward the model.
“It’s a lot of work, but once you get it done, it’s all correct,” Niels Wilhelm said. “I like to understand what it is I’m working on.”
His workroom has had a lot of use. The carpetless floor allows for quick cleanup and, when Wilhelm works, the smell of hot plastic wafts through the air as a drill bit pierces a model part. He said he’s spent much of his life since 1991 sitting at the workbench, meticulously painting, carving, drilling and snapping pieces into place. It’s cluttered, but mostly with tools, scrap plastic and wood strips and all his finished products. Partly completed models rest on the tabletop, next to an ever-present 1-liter Pepsi bottle.
“It’s always been my primary hobby, replacing video games and sports,” Wilhelm said as he reminisced about the days of building models and flying balsawood airplanes with his three brothers in San Diego.
“I probably got into it because Niels was into it first,” his brother Charles Wilhelm said from San Diego.
In 2008, Niels Wilhelm swept the non-engined ships category at the International Plastic Modelers Society competition in Seattle.
“Sailing ships were my first love when I was young,” he said.
It’s not just something Niels Wilhelm likes to do, however. Throughout his career as a carpenter, he has built models as a serious hobby on the side. But since being laid off last December, he’s devoted more time — up to four hours per day — to his work. It’s an outlet for his creativity, he said.
While working on a current project, a nearly three-foot replica of the 1850s ship Napoleon, Wilhelm said building models is therapeutic.
“This was a way to stave off depression,” he said. “It’s something to focus the mind on.”
Wilhelm draws similarities — other than working with one’s hands — between carpentry and creating modified model ships and tanks. As a “pick-up” carpenter, he would fix a foreman’s mistakes, he said. As a model builder, he researches the real-life ship, for example, and adds the features lacking in the plastic model out of the box.
“It’s just a very nice, exacting hobby,” Charles Wilhelm said. “He does a lot of research into his models, which brings him detail.”
He also makes lists and checks them twice
Niels Wilhelm is also Santa Claus. You may have seen him over the past six Christmas seasons handing out candy canes to children around the Sammamish Highlands shopping center. The 2009 holiday season will mark his seventh year spreading the cheer. Wilhelm began the annual tradition when Ace Hardware owner Tim Koch asked him to don the red and white suit. Wilhelm already sports a full, white beard year-round, which O’Connell says is perfect for the job.
“He looks like the real deal,” O’Connell said.
Be sure to watch out for Santa Saturdays in December when you’re shopping anywhere from Starbucks at the Eastlake High School entrance to the Safeway grocery store.
“Wearing the suit isn’t just a part-time job, it’s an important part of the season for me,” Wilhelm said.
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com.
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