Behold! Continuing and regular in-progress updates on my scratch-built 1:35 scale static waterline display model of a US Navy Arleigh Burke class DDG-51 type destroyer, measuring in at a barely manageable 4.5 meters long and taking over half of my garage. Currently under construction in Pierce County, Washington in the shadow of Mt. Rainer and under the occasional flight path of the blacked-out and transponders-off JBLM 160th Night Stalkers. This fever dream of a passion project commenced in July of 2025 by Nick Hoke, retired from a 27 year long career as a first responder. Before that that there had been an enlistment and overseas adventures in the 1980's navy as a Leahy cruiser helmsman, and before that, back in the days before flying cars jetpacks and cell phones, I was a teenage Sea Cadet which was.. uh.. ffffff.. over forty years ago. So that's my connection to matters of naval relevance here. Now it's January of 2026 and I desperately need something to help keep me distracted from this absurd timeline, and this new challenging undertaking is checking a lot of my boxes. Therapist approved. And cheaper.
JULY 2025:
Step one was submitting a proposal to the proper authorities. Permission requested, permission and permit received and funds authorized to proceed ahead with this experience, starting with research and development. I scoured the internet and curated a couple thousand reference photos from public open sources.
Frankenbench was resurrected, retooled and repurposed with a bolted-on fabulously lightweight level and rigid extension ladder that gave one up for team and is now missing the top 12 foot section.
There are 74 of these DDG hulls commissioned and out on patrol, so there are almost enough public photos and images of them for me to study and reconcile different measurements and dimensions. Between all the ships' different refits and flights, virtually every individual ship has at least one noticeably different feature somewhere; some minor, some major. Built over decades now by different shipyards and different subcontractors, there is enough variance - including even hull paint color and typography (!) - to give me a bit of leeway to relax my margin of error accuracy to roughly ±01.14% transversely and ±0.16% longitudinally.
You've seen those little plywood laser cut decoration contraptions things, made out of hobby plywood? Yeah, that wood is sold in handy 12" x 12" square sheets, 3 mm thick. Absolutely perfect for building a boat like this. Cuttable with cheap disposable utility knives. I wound up using 13 dozen of the wood square sheets and two dozen of the knives. And five quarts of wood glue.
Frugality is one of my evident signature techniques. I could not find anywhere in my garage any kind of laser cutting or laser measuring machines, and there was no CAD. Only in my dreams. So this first phase was all done old-school Gen X style. I cut a few hundred pieces of wood and metal one at a time by hand into specifically measured different shapes to millimeter accuracy and glued them all together into a growing configuration of awkward looking weirdness.
Do you need a huge workbench to build a ship? No, not really.
I only had to use the garage floor a couple of times.
My cutting boards were whatever scraps of thick wood I could find laying around.
There was a bit of mathing and cross referencing involved in all of this.
The ratio of hours worked / injuries sustained from slipped knives came to roughly weekly incidents of resetting the days since last injury counter back to zero.
Shoutout to the shipyard CFO for setting up a first aid station next to my workbench after seeing the frequency of the slips slices nicks stabbings and lacerations to the lead shipwright's appendages. Both sharp and dull blades cut with equal regularity.
If you want to make one of these yourself, I can save you tons of time because this whole thing was a learning experience and I learned a lot. If I were to sustain a major head injury and choose to do this again, it would take less than half time than this one did.
You know it's not really a project until there's been some blood sweat and tears.
Graph paper is one of the ten essentials for a project like this.
Only one injury was serious enough to require a trip to the local urgent care to re attach my left arm.
As you can see, this is the first time I've ever attempted anything like this.
The wood hull didn't have to look pretty because two layers of metal are going to cover it. I know half of you are cringing hard at this photo. I get it.
Painters tape was also used a lot. Some of you are wondering if you could tackle a project like this... I say yes you can. No prior experience is necessary.
2nd month
Some parts were easier than others to assemble.
This scale model ship is almost 15 feet long. The lower hull took about a month, the hangers and aft deckhouse took another month, and the forward superstructure is still being worked on because reasons mostly related to geometry.
Before this, I had been expressing myself creatively online with various video and audio productions. But the enshittification of the internet started increasing with the emergence of AI - both the good kind and the bad kind. So I chose to pivot away toward something less digital and more physical.
It's surprisingly lightweight and sturdy. Over time, several different sections had to get hammered and cut out due to some misalignment and miscalculated measuring issues. For your viewing pleasure I thought about including the embarrassing photos of those learning experiences but they looked too much like either the USS Cole, USS Fitzgerald or USS John S. McCain on their worst days and it's still too soon.
I listened to chill music while doing this and (tried to) ignore the news; this is my happy place .
Yes yes yes I know this is the wrong kind of helicopter.
It's a placeholder for a proper MH-60R 1/35 scale model.
This nice pew pew is a Takom Mk.45 Mod 4 5"/62 Naval Gun kit. That gap at the bottom is intentional deck camber.
This kit was pretty easy to build. And yes of course it will get painted.
PHASE II: IT GETS METAL
One of my major goals for this model was that I wanted it clad entirely in metal, for an authentic appearance. I tested a few gauges and types of aluminum and settled on rolled roof flashing.
This first layer of metal is also going to look rough, I know..
November: It's month five and I still have only a vague idea of what I'm doing. The metal hull plating is a significant improvement.
160 is a fictional future hull number. Now if somebody serving on a real DDG sees this and wants to give me a special tour to let me study their ship's deck details IRL, I would gladly renumber this model to match.
This is actually the under armor aluminum plating - another metal layer is going to cover all of this. And then there will be haze gray paint. And scale non skid and railings and ladders and bitts and chocks and scuppers and VLS cells and just about everything else.
I'm building this as a generic exhibition build of a Flight III version, mod 2.4. Which means it will be sporting as God intended both a Phalanx CIWS forward and a SeaRAM CIWS aft; a sadly rare configuration and confirmed to me as ideal by a former DDG commander who saw my model and was suitably impressed. I was further encouraged by a shipyard worker who saw this and told me it was looking pretty spot-on. SEWIP: No. HELIOS: Yes.
Surprising everybody, I managed to cut every piece of metal with snips and scissors without any blood loss. I did however carelessly brush up against some of the ship's corners and edges and get some scrapes.
Full. Metal. Jacket. The only power tool used up to this point was a cordless drill.
After agonizing about the hangars, I decided to skip all the detail inside and plan for closed doors. In my defense, I'll point out that Phase V will include the creation of a dynamic looking diorama on the flight deck featuring a hovering MH-60R and flight deck crew figures and we all know that a properly authentic flight ops scene will require the doors to be closed.
I know this will disappoint some of you but this model is not designed for radio control. Because as you can see, there's no lower hull. Mostly because I have space constraints. Also a complete and properly engineered hull this large with running gear, batteries, and ballast would be 600 pounds GVW and require a hoist and a trailer.
This hand crafted XL scale guided missile destroyer model is apparently a one of a kind and probably the world's first; in all my research I have yet to see any model destroyer of this class anywhere near this stupid big. It has attracted the attention of a few curious passers by when my garage door is open and more than one delivery driver has stopped to ogle this up close and personal.
When completed, this is going to either a deserving museum or a private buyer. idk . tbd. hmu.
My goal is a museum quality model, which means this will be outfitted with a lot of accurately detailed 3d printed parts and pieces including yes the fairlead and anchor and antennas and rigging and RHIBS and radomes and UNREP transfer station identifiers, flight deck markings, flight deck nets, QAWDs, tie downs, et al. I was pleased to learn that "Museum quality" is a subjective standard, and at the rate I'm going it will definitely achieve that.
Like any and every good boat project I ignore this one occasionally. But I admit I did bring along on a two week Hawaiian vacation a large stack of drawings to pore over and study.
Score! High quality 1/35 scale flight deck crew figures!
To answer a common question, the big prints of ships plans came from the floating drydock.com and the rest from various internet open sources. Sadly, the Navy does not share any of their general arrangement deck plans or any technical details. I had to do my own research. Now that I've spent who knows how many hours studying literally thousands of saved photos from hundreds of internet sites, I can notice pretty quickly when the accuracy of much smaller scale plastic models of this ship class are not..quite..right. Same for quite a few of the computer 3d rendered models of these destroyers found online - virtually all of them have deficiencies in dimensions or features when closely inspected.
The navigation bridge windows here are placeholders and will upgraded. The clipboard has my scale conversion chart which I used constantly.
There are enough different build phases overlapping now that it gives me a fine variety of mini-projects to rotate and work on.
December: time for the second power tool, in this case a cheap sander to smooth out the Bondo I smeared into the joints. I did not realize how hard dried Bondo becomes.
It's kind of starting to look recognizable as a model warship.
The outer metal skin that will cover all this is going to be 36 gauge aluminum foil which will result in visibly authentic oil canning between the frames. Because I'm replicating the framing with pinstripe vinyl tape. The entire hull is going to get this treatment because a perfectly smooth hull at this scale would be just..wrong.
Progress has slowed considerably because it's winter and my garage is effing cold. That's okay, I'm inside gluing together stupidly small photo etched parts onto a scale plastic kit model of a Mk 15 mod. 31 SeaRAM for the aft CIWS mount.
This ship is going to have quite a few scale model crew figurines all over because why not.
Yes everything will eventually be painted very authentically - I have a lot of prior professional experience with haze gray paint. And it will be appropriately weathered with simulated salt spray and aging and rust. Nothing is going to be glossy on this model when it's finished.
I've got at least another year of work on this. Maybe I'll be able to finish before an apocalypse.
If you've made it this far and have questions OR CAN OFFER ME A TOUR OF A REAL SHIP..drop me a line and I'll get back to you.
THE GARAGE DESTROYER 