PORT TOWNSEND — Model builder Roger Torgeson has built dozens of detailed models of Navy ships, but curiously has never built a replica of the one he served on during the Vietnam War.
The Sequim man says if he undertook the project, he would want the model to be an accurate representation of the USS Constellation aircraft carrier when he was aboard.
That’s the level of detail he puts into every project he’s done for the past 15 years.
The first task he undertakes is doing thorough research on a vessel so that he can get it accurate down to the typeface on a ship’s stern or the paint scheme on five dozen aircraft — each one slightly different.
“To me, I enjoy the history,” he said.
“Why was it built this way? Though not so much specific to a particular fight.”
The former sailor’s model of the USS Langley won third place for aircraft carriers at the 2009 National Contest of the International Plastic Modelers Society in Columbus, Ohio. This August, he’s entering another aircraft carrier model, the USS Lexington, into the nationals at Omaha, Neb.
Torgeson, 66, exhibited both aircraft carrier models Saturday during the sixth annual model show and contest organized by the North Olympic Peninsula Modelers Society at Fort Worden State Park.
The club members refrain from entering their own models so that other modelers can win ribbons for their spectacular creations.
First carrier
The Langley was the Navy’s first aircraft carrier. A converted coal ship, it served into World War II but had to be scuttled on Feb. 27, 1942, after suffering extensive damage from Japanese bombers.
The Lexington-class aircraft carriers were built and commissioned shortly after the Langley went into service.
The USS Lexington, the fourth of five naval ships bearing that name, entered service in 1928 and was lost during the Battle of Corral Sea in May 1942.
The ship had left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, just a few days before the Japanese attack on the naval fleet on Dec. 7, 1941, and sent out search planes for the Japanese fleet upon hearing of the attack.
Found kit
Torgeson hadn’t planned to build the Langley model when a kit came out about six years ago.
“I wasn’t going to touch it,” he says. “It was a very, very rough kit and required a lot of work.”
But a dying man’s wish propelled Torgeson to undertake the construction.
His friend, Wally Bigelow of Pullman, had started the model but was nearing death from cancer when he asked Torgeson to finish it for him.
Torgeson set about doing the research, which consumes about a third of the estimated 250 hours he devotes to each project.
A fellow modeler visited the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to provide Torgeson with the level of detail he craved for accuracy.
“I did what I could do to make it correct,” he said. “A guy back East provided me with photos from the archives.
“I wanted to have it right.”
Get it right
The story demonstrates several facets of the serious modeler’s creed: Get it right and help one another out.
Torgeson said he continues to learn new techniques each time he attends a modelers show and contest. Modelers swap decals as well as stories.
“To me, it’s a social thing,” he said.
“The contest is really an excuse for going. There are guys you only see once a year, but you exchange information and reference materials, even decals.”
He has only recently finished the USS Lexington — though “finished” might be stretching the truth: He occasionally alters small details on his models long after finishing them.
The painstaking work requires lighted magnifier goggles, sharp tiny tweezers, clean work areas and plenty of time. A drop of sweat on a newly painted surface may mean hours of repairs.
But the reward is the admiration of other ardent modelers and the satisfaction of knowing he’s done his best to get the model vessel accurate.
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Philip L. Watness is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. He can be reached at whatnews@olypen.com.
