This July 24, 2013 photo shows one of several model vessels built by Robert Bob McKinley, 82, on display at the Mirador in Corpus Christi, Texas. McKinley has built 15 scale-model vessels _ ranging from a 1000 A.D. Viking ship to a 1963 fishing schooner. He quit building ships in 2011 when he gave up his garage workshop as he and his wife moved to Mirador resort-style retirement center. Hes now dedicating most Monday afternoons to rebuilding a 30-foot-long, more-than-3,000-pound battleship replica aboard the Lexington Museum on the Bay, where he volunteers. (AP Photo/Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Rachel Denny Clow)

CORPUS CHRISTI — Retired refinery engineer Robert “Bob” McKinley began building balsa-wood model airplanes in the late 1930s as a boy.

Now the former Army first sergeant has shifted to shipbuilding.

“I’ve always put things together,” McKinley, 82, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “When I retired I had to do one of two things: build something or get a psychiatrist, and the ships are cheaper than expensive doctors.”

He was bewitched in 1993 by building his first ship — the clipper ship Sea Witch, he said.

The real Sea Witch launched from lower Manhattan in 1846.

Since replicating it, McKinley has built 15 scale-model vessels — ranging from a 1000 A.D. Viking ship to a 1963 fishing schooner. He quit building ships in 2011 when he gave up his garage workshop as he and his wife moved to Mirador resort-style retirement center. He’s now dedicating most Monday afternoons to rebuilding a 30-foot-long, more-than-3,000-pound battleship replica aboard the Lexington Museum on the Bay, where he volunteers.

Six of McKinley’s ships are showcased at Mirador.

“They’re all fascinating,” said May Kollaja, a Mirador resident. “Can’t imagine the hours he’s put in.”

Kollaja and other residents delight in showing visitors, friends and family, she said.

“We’re proud of them, and happy to have them displayed,” said Aaron DeNovellis, Mirador’s executive director.

All were built as gifts for McKinley’s family members, except three he plans to keep.

McKinley’s HMS Bounty — a replica of a British Navy tall ship built in 1787 — is under glass in the Mirador entry foyer. Its brass nameplate identifies it as his granddaughter Melanie’s ship.

“She’s young and doesn’t have a place for it yet,” the master model builder said.

MGM re-created a life-size version in 1960 for the filming of “Mutiny on the Bounty.” It took McKinley about 2,000 hours over a two-year period to craft his scale model, which is one inch for each 30 feet. Its sails are rigged to function and it’s the only ship he built with deck openings for views inside the furnished hull cabins and cargo hold, which reveal thimble-sized faux oil drums and cotton bales. McKinley acquired surgical and dental tools to tediously replicate tiny structures.

“Every rat line and knot is hand-tied,” McKinley said. “The only things not handcrafted are ornamental castings — cannons, front bow sculptures and bay windows for the captain’s quarters.”

Bow boards are attached with miniature nails to simulate the construction of the real Bounty. The beech wood, mahogany and boxwood boards are shaped by soaking them in water, then using a wrenching tool to bend them while drying them with a blow-dryer, he said. Deck boards are glued with black thread strung between them to appear super-realistic.

While he doesn’t float his models in water, some of McKinley’s ships have traveled to other places.

He built the King of the Mississippi, an 1870 river paddle boat, for his grandson Trey. It was displayed at New York Life Insurance Co. in Houston, when McKinley’s son was an executive there. After being accidentally damaged, it was repaired and is now displayed in the Mirador library. During his own travels the elder McKinley has sought ships he wanted to build.

He strolled the docks of Barcelona, Spain, for four hours, he said, trying to find the Trotamares. It’s a fishing boat built in Spain in 1958, that later was converted into a sailing yacht for private use.

“I never did find it,” he said. “It must have been out that day.”

He built his version of the ship on the workshop table, while viewing images of the Trotamares on his computer.

His favorite model is the Anteo, an example of a steam-powered harbor tugboat built before World War II. Similar boats still are in use in inner harbors in Italy and Spain. He crafted the draw works on the bow from 23 pieces of polished brass. They mock the mechanisms coupled from a real tug to a larger vessel for towing. McKinley’s features a hand-painted smoke stack, ladders, railings and intricately knotted bow bumpers. It too was displayed in Houston, but now resides in the nursing care wing of Mirador. It’s one of the ships he said belongs to him and his wife. “If Bob gets into something, he gets addicted,” said Betty McKinley, his teenage sweetheart, now wife of 64 years. “He’s found other ways to stay busy with it since we moved.”

He restored a replica of Lexington displayed at Corpus Christi International Airport, and spends many Monday hours visiting with tourists aboard the aircraft carrier museum about his restoration of its battleship model.

“Tourists messed with it sometimes,” said Rocco Montesano, executive director of the museum. “It’s a unique one-of-a-kind battleship with everything hand done — lead wheel weights were melted down to make its guns. We’re fortunate to have somebody with Bob’s skills take such pride in restoring it.”