tkay11

Oh, that's brilliant, Allan. Thank you very much! It accords with John's suggestion of less than 0.5mm. Tony

There have been a number of negative comments about the Lauck Street site, which you can search for on this forum. With regard to the 'Dummies' site, it was well worth the Can$40, and much better value than a lot of the books that I bought. It also saved me money by making me avoid buying more expensive equipment than I currently need. Tony

Thanks, David. I feel a tiny bit guilty at the moment, because I am still trying to build the ship's boat rather than just getting on with the kit (there is no mention of a boat in the kit, and I haven't seen anyone put a boat on the Sherbourne). This has taken up much more time than I thought it would. However, it is great fun learning all these new skills and, as has been repeated so often on this site, 'it ain't a hobby if you hurry'. The thing about the ship's boat is that it is teaching me about drafting and lofting plans from CAD. Then there's the practical side of discovering I can actually carve the shape of a boat from a few bits of MDF (medium-density fibreboard, as it's known in the UK). It may all come to naught when I come to the framing and planking, though! I'm looking forward to your Lady Nelson build. Tony

Don't worry about taking pics on your phone, Holty. Lots of people do this. The only thing you have to be careful about, as with any camera, is to try to ensure the lighting is good enough to show what you want. I can't advise you about clinker building as I decided that my cutter was built before cutters were clinker-built. If you want to learn about stealers, there is an excellent planking tutorial available on this site. If you click on 'Main site and article downloads' you'll find an excellent resource on planking. I too cursed when I realised it would have been better to leave off the sternpost till later, but as it turns out, with careful sanding, the result was fine. One way to protect the keel, stem and stern is to put masking tape over them while you sand away at the hull. There used to be lots of good builds of the Lady Nelson on the site before the crash. At the moment I am sure you will have seen Ray's build of the Lady Nelson, and Bettina is starting one as well. However, the Sherbourne build logs by Dubz and Sumner may well be of use to you because the Lady Nelson is quite similar to the Caldercraft kit of the Sherbourne. Those builds have been a great help to me in my own attempts. Also very valuable for great tips on how to manage without complex power tools is the site 'Wooden Ship Building for Dummies' which costs a one-off 40 Canadian Dollars. And of course there are the many tutorials and other brilliant builds on this site. As you look at these other builds, you'll find lots of great tips as to how to proceed and you'll also notice that we all learn from each other. With the better search functions of MSW2, you'll be able to track down specific questions far more easily than before. I'll be following your build with great interest as the Lady Nelson is a lovely ship. Tony

What a great idea. Thanks yet again, Garward, for very interesting ideas! Tony

Oddly, that might make my job much easier! Thanks very much, John, for the info. I have a lot of wood of 0.5mm thickness. Tony

I'm trying (no, struggling) to make a 16ft boat for the cutter Sherbourne. I'm basing it on the longboat portrayed in the AOTS Alert, although zu Mondfeld would probably call it a barge rather than a longboat. The method I am using is one of those suggested by zu Mondfeld in his book 'Historic Ship Models': namely, making a male mould from a wood block and then wrapping frames around it -- from which the mould would eventually be removed. In order to do this, I first transferred the plans to Photoshop and traced them, then re-sized to scale (at 1/64) to match the scale of the Sherbourne. Then, using the cross sections and the sheer plan, I made the mould. This I did not find very hard, and quite enjoyable. However, it was from here that my troubles began. Essentially, my problem centres on the frame size. Having had a look at Chuck's longboat builds on this site, I reckoned a frame made of 2mm x 2mm walnut would be ok, thinking I could wrap frames of this round the hull after suitable steaming/heating. However, the moment I started to think about this in detail, I realised that a 2mm frame would dig in substantially at the stern. If you look at the picture below, I have shown the placing of the frames I was thinking of by using black blocks on the diagram which would show me where to cut the template. I taught myself how to use TurboCAD so that I could experiment with different templates for the frames, but all this has shown me is that I still can't figure out how to approach the frames at the stern, notably for the last three frames I show in the picture. Even if I drop my frame size to 1mm x 1mm the frames at the stern would still intrude. I have a feeling I should build a false keel and then work my frames from there, but I'll wait for any advice. Maybe I'm approaching it in the wrong way, but to start with, I'd like advice on the following: 1. The rough original size of frames for such a boat. I was thinking maybe 2.5 inches square would look about right, which would translate into 1mm square frames at 1/64 scale. 2. Would it be better to develop the framing in a different way? 3. Would it be even better to give up trying this as I'm out of my depth and skill level, and just get on with making the boat as suggested in the kit instructions (there is no mention of a ship's boat in the plans or instructions)? I attach photos showing how I made the layers from the waterlines which I then glued together and then shaped with files. This method allowed me to keep a constant eye on the waterlines as the paper was sandwiched between the blocks of MDF (medium density fibreboard -- as it is known in the UK). So if people spot an elementary mistake here as well, then I'd be grateful for correction, as usual! Looking forward to any available wisdom! Tony

Unimat 3 is one of the earlier, very reliable and much respected versions made in metal, as far as I am aware. The new Unimat Classic is not at all related to this -- again, from what I know. Tony

Very interesting video of the building of the Rosalie, B.E. Thanks for posting the link. Tony

There's a great video by Bernard of a 3D build of "La Belle" following the Ancre plans. It's shown in the 3D build of Pandora by Jinyang. It raises the question for me of whether anyone could start some practicum or set of instructions on this forum on how to develop such 3D builds. At the moment I only know of one tutorial on the web about 3D modelling of wooden sailing ships and that is restricted to the creation of a hull shape. Are there any others around? However, there were two things that interested me about the build of "La Belle": The first is that the garboard plank and the one immediately above merge directly into the rudder rather than the keel, thus making the lowermost gudgeons of the rudder having to be bolted directly to the upper of the two planks. The second is that the gunport covers open sideways. Does anyone know if these were normal practice on French ships of the period? Tony

A great video, Bernard. I'm putting comments and questions about it on another post in the CAD forum on this site (the title is 'The video of 'La Belle' construction) in order to avoid taking over Jinyang's excellent build. Tony

I can't answer your question, Bava, but I can't see why you have to be daunted by the quality of other CAD builds. This is a familiar statement amongst the wood builders too. The fact is that your quality of craftmanship is very high indeed. We are all learning from each other in this business, and clearly some have had a great deal more experience than others. For me, I have never felt 'daunted', but what others have done certainly does inspire me to find out how they do it so that I can try my hand as well. I've been following your build with great interest, and I really like the way you've patterned the wood, the figurehead and bows. What would be very helpful to me as I learn from you would be some indicators of how you achieve the various bits of the build as you go along. That's what I try to do with my own build log. I realise I am a total novice, but I also know that others who are novices are often struggling with the same problems I have faced, so I try to explain how I overcame them -- even though others on this site have achieved better and more elegant solutions to the same problems. There's simply too many builds to follow each and every one to learn how others have done it, so the more info that can be given with each log the better! So, in short, don't feel 'daunted' but know that you are also a leader for some of us. Tony

Unfortunately I've lost the photos I took of the deck of HMS Gannet, a Victorian sloop of 1878 at Chatham Dockyard (I was interested precisely in the treenails as well as the details of the hanging of ropes). However, I attach the copy of the photo from their website of the forecastle deck. This shows that on this ship at least you can see the treenail sites, or rather the plugs quite easily. However, the colour of the plug matches that of the deck, albeit the plugs are a bit lighter. In real life, rather than in a photo, the plugs are even more distinct. So, as has been said before, it seems important to match the colour of the treenail site to that of the deck, and maybe to allow a ring to show round the plug (although no ring was visible on this ship's plugs). I am sure others will have pictures of Victory or other ships that will add to the discussion, though. Tony

Just to back up what Wayne is saying, I have been using TurboCAD for a couple of months whilst drawing up plans for the longboat on my model and although at first it was all very daunting, I am now more and more comfortable with it. There are lots of excellent tutorials which are free on the web and on this site for TurboCAD, including tutorials on lofting ships frames in 3D. On top of that I've benefited from tremendous advice from the pros on this forum. It's like any software -- there's lots to learn if you're new to it, but if you take it step by step it's no big deal really. And once you have the hang of a few basics you see its tremendous potential and and become eager to learn more. With every new version of TurboCAD, the prices of the earlier versions drop even further. There are excellent deals on Amazon for v18 now. Tony

Sjors, I was only joking about the animation! Of course I like it! You obsessive compulsive joker! Tony

I have found on the web a wonderful tutorial called 'LOFTING TUTORIAL: A ship hull in 3d' which you can download as a pdf file and which answers perfectly how to use TurboCAD to loft frames. I hadn't realised there was a function called 'lofting', but of course the moment I found it, a whole host of answers to my problem came at once. Thus 'prisms' are part of the lofting function. They all let you link different planes and points. Sorry if this is incredibly obvious to CAD users, but I'm posting this in case it's of any use to others who like me are starting up in the world of CAD lofting. Tony

Sjors, I notice that when looking at the screen you seem to be writing your signature over and over again. Is this a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder? It seems to be a hazard associated with model ship-builders. By the way, I reviewed the research I'd done before and if you do an internet search you'll find the same range of opinions which verge to: ok for wood, not for brass but ok for aluminium, expensive for what it is, ok for infrequent small jobs. Also Dave is quite right. The Unimats now sold have no relationship whatsoever to the original Emco versions of their lathes. The new 'classic' is made predominantly of a moulded plastic, whereas the originals were entirely metal. I hadn't realised that Frolich was using the earlier version, so thanks for that info, Dave! Tony

I'm sure others will be much better qualified than I to answer this question. I'm only chipping in because I was at one time very interested in getting one myself and in MSW1 there were lots of discussions about this. Most of the comments I saw were fairly negative about it, citing lack of precision, the business of re-assembly every time you wanted a new function and its lack of power. The general opinion seemed to be that it was better to go for individual cheap tools. Thus some Chinese-made lathes were touted as being worth-while. On the other side, I have noted that Bernard Frolich in his book 'Art of Ship Modeling' used a Unimat jigsaw, and others have used it quite happily. It may well be that for irregular use and small jobs (such as the ones we generally have in modelling) it is more than adequate. When I was looking at it, I thought more of buying the slightly more expensive metal line set. However in the end I spent my money on a circular saw as I thought that was what I was going to use the most. I'm still hankering after a lathe, though, but there's no room. And that's one good reason for a Unimat -- when there's not much room. Looking forward to the heaps of replies you're going to get! Tony

A few things I found on the Proxxon FET when setting it up: 1. I use a digital vernier caliper to make sure the fence is square by measuring the ends from the side and using the depth gauge. Once set up it seems to stay perfect 2. I use a cheap comb for African hair (just over £1) as a featherboard. It was simple to get it to a 2mm dimension simply by running it through the saw. It will probably go finer if I bother to cut it again. The handle it already has is perfect for holding, and so far I haven't needed to angle it by cutting across the base. 3. I oiled all the screws on the adjustment slide to make the adjustments really work smoothly (and I don't have it centred as it is the offset that matters). The micro adjustment works well for me now. 4. I made sure the saw was really vertical by using a set square and then clamping it securely. I don't intend at the moment to do angled cuts, so that seems fine. 5. I'm using the 50mm blade, 0.5mm thick with 100 teeth (Spring Steel Cutting Blade Ref: 28020) that comes from one of their other saws as it has a much finer kerf than the one supplied and, because of its smaller diameter, really does go below the table so that you can raise it to any level you want. The regular blade at its lowest comes to about 1mm above the board. I'm still learning how to work this thing nicely, but it seems to be doing the job just fine! However, I am aware that others using this saw have complaints about its level of precision and the amount of time you have to fiddle with it to get it just right. Tony

Yes, indeed that's it. And it works fine for lines. The only trouble is that when I try to do exactly the same with a perpendicular, the supposed perpendicular falls away at a variety of degrees depending on the position of the mouse instead of to the opposite surface and it doesn't snap to anything except to the start point. The object itself as a whole is at right angles to the world view plane and is on that plane. However, your drawing showed me the obvious solution -- just to draw a line down the middle of the beam using the M snap. This has solved the problem I was faced with. So it's like a lot of things. It's an oddity, but luckily I have two good workarounds now! If you know what I'm doing wrong, then of course I'd be glad to know. However I would hate to have you bothered by ferreting around when it's now no longer a problem. Thanks a lot for the help and encouragement, as well as for solving my problem! Tony

That's just what I wanted, Alexandru. Perfect. Thanks very much! Tony

This is one thing the UK has right. You can buy them by the boxful here without any questioning from any online store, including eBay. Tony

It's the bottom of the keel, as per the attached picture. It's not that I don't have a work around, since I can draw lines on the plane to which I can attach the keel. It's more that I want to find out how to put in a centre line in order to align it with the keel line I have made on the drawing. For some reason, even though I try to make the workplane conform to the facet (highlighted in the drawing) I can't get a line tool or a perpendicular line to work as I would wish in relation to the drawing. I would point out that the lines are exploded and not part of any group. You'll notice that in this drawing the stem has multiple nodes. I'm correcting this in a new version. Also ignore the keel on the section that is lying across the keel at the bow, since that was there only for alignment purposes. Thanks, though, for looking! Any suggestions welcome. Tony

Thanks for the links, SketchupModeller. They will be really helpful. At the moment I've been spending an hour or so trying to draw a perpendicular line to a 3D object in TC. I have yet to find the trick. But it'll be there somewhere. Tony

Thanks so much for the reposting of this wonderful build. It's as beautiful as it is inspiring. Any chance of your reposting the pictures of the longboat build for this model? I am trying to do a longboat for my own model at the moment, and it would be great if I could have another chance of looking at yours. I have been using layers of MDF as you did, and started carving out the shape. I forgot to leave space for the frames, so there's a bit more sanding being done at the moment. I seem to remember you covered your longboat in clingfilm to stop the frames being glued to the mould, but it would be great just to have a look at the overall sequence again if at all possible. (Hoping I haven't somehow missed your reposting of those pictures when going through your log), Tony