This branch gathers the disciplines that do not fit inside styrene kit building and still belong on a modelling bench. It brings together model railway work, with H0 figures, structures and miniature lighting for a layout, traditional wooden ship building from keel, frames and planking, and simple projects for younger hands. What they share is the material: wood, card, wire and a little low-voltage electrical work rather than injection-moulded plastic.
Each of them asks for a different bench, a different set of tools and a very different amount of time, which is what the guide below is for.
Three largely separate worlds, each with its own rules.
Timber forgives differently from plastic: it sands to shape beautifully, but it moves with moisture while glue cures and can twist afterwards. Card is the fastest route of the three and cannot be filled. The small electrical side of railway work wants a soldering iron, or at the very least certainty about which wire is positive.
Railway accessories make little sense on their own; they exist so that a layout or a diorama comes alive. A wooden ship is the opposite, a standalone piece that needs nothing else beside it. The pattern of work follows: a scene grows in small additions over years, a ship is one long project and then its materials.
A colouring book or a simple card project is an afternoon. Lighting a building on a layout is an evening. A wooden ship is counted in months, and that is worth knowing before the box is opened rather than after.
If you are after conventional kits moulded in styrene, those are in plastic model kits. Glue-free three-dimensional puzzles have their own section in 3D puzzles, and the remaining odds and ends sit in other modelling products.
