Disar Model Chinese Junk — 1:50 Scale Wooden Ship Model Kit

A sailing ship that was centuries ahead of its time.

Long before European explorers were crossing oceans in caravels and galleons, Chinese sailors were working the seas aboard vessels unlike anything being built in the West.

We call them junks.

The Chinese didn’t. The name came to English through Portuguese sailors, who called the ships juncos, from the Javanese word jong. Meanwhile, English sailors had already spent a few centuries using “junk” to mean worn-out rope. Same spelling, both coined by sailors, and only one of them was a compliment.

For centuries, junks carried silk, tea, spices and porcelain along the coast of China and across Southeast Asia. The design worked so well that nobody saw much reason to change it. They were still sailing long after the West switched to steam, and in some harbors they still are.

A Different Kind of Sailing Ship

The Disar Model Chinese Junk recreates a 19th-century Chinese junk in 1:50 scale. It comes from a shipbuilding tradition that developed entirely on its own, without asking Europe’s opinion.

Start with the sails. Horizontal battens stiffen them and give the junk its unmistakable ribbed silhouette. They’re also what made the rig so practical. To shorten sail, the crew simply lowered it a panel or two. On a Western square-rigger, the same job meant sending men up the rigging to wrestle wet canvas in the wind.

Then there’s the hull: broad, keelless, with a short stern. It was built for hauling cargo through rivers, harbors and the China Sea, not for posing in a European oil painting.

Inside it was one of the great ideas in shipbuilding: watertight compartments. Chinese builders divided the hull into sealed sections, so one leak didn’t become the whole ship’s problem. Benjamin Franklin noticed in 1787 and suggested American ships try it. Western shipbuilders thought it over for a few decades. Today it’s standard on practically everything that floats.

A Rewarding Wooden Shipbuilding Project

Manufactured in Spain by Disar Model, this kit is rated Level 2 on Disar’s five-level scale, which makes it a beginner kit. The hull is simple and the rig is the interesting part. Battened sails ask for a little more patience than the average sloop, but not a degree in naval architecture.

The box includes laser-cut wooden parts, cast metal fittings, pre-sewn sails and flags, a plan sheet, and step-by-step instructions built around color photographs. You supply the usual: glue, a hobby knife, sandpaper, filler, brushes and paint.

If you’ve already built your share of schooners, brigs and frigates, this one won’t look like anything else on the shelf.

The finished model measures 16.1" long and 13" high. That’s big enough to show off the rig and small enough not to require a new room in the house.

Kit Highlights

1:50 scale model of a 19th-century Chinese junk

Laser-cut wood with cast metal fittings

Pre-sewn sails and flags included

Battened junk sails, which are the reason you’re looking at this kit

Keelless hull with short stern, true to the type

Step-by-step instructions with color photographs and plan sheet

Level 2 (Beginner) on Disar’s 5-level scale

16.1" long: fits a shelf, not a garage

Specifications