SardonicMeow

Last time I created a hull form in Autodesk Fusion. At the end of that log, I alluded to an issue with the work I had done so far. The problem that I have, is here on the plans. The lines are to the outside of the hull. That means that if I use the hull form as it is, create bulkheads with it, and then plank the model, it will be wider than it should be. Instead, I need to create bulkheads that represent the hull form at the inside of the hull planking. Fortunately, Fusion has a powerful feature called offset that handles this. It can create a surface offset by a given value that is normal to that surface. So I select my surface and create a new surface offset by the plank thickness. Here are the old and new surfaces. I generated station lines for the old a new surfaces at three points on the hull to show how the thickness is maintained. This diagram from the plans shows a cross section of the hull. You can see how the hull and deck planks lay. Note also the wale or "bends", above which the planking is thicker. The underside of the deck meets the hull planking at the gunwale line. I want to create bulkheads that match the inner side of the hull planking and the underside of the deck planks. I have shaded in green the portion of the target bulkhead shape. The next task will be to define the underside of the deck. Here is a view on the plans from the side. The gunwale is clearly marked. The deck at the center line is indicated with a dashed line. Is that the top of the deck or the underside of the deck planks? I can see that the mast coats are above the dashed line, so it must be the top surface of the deck. Because I need the underside of the deck, I just traced the line of the deck surface at the centerline and then created a new line offset down the thickness of the deck planking. Then I found the intersection of the edge of the underside of the deck at the waterway by intersecting the gunwale curve with the hull form. (I mirrored the hull form before doing this, so I could get the curves on both sides. Then I found the points where the odd numbered stations intersect with the gunwale and centerline at the underside of the deck. I joined these points with a curve. Here it is at station 1. There is almost no deck camber here at the bow. And these are the camber curves (black lines) for all the odd numbered stations. Using those curves, I created a surface which represents the underside of the deck. The surfaces are displayed here. And here is an example bulkhead (light purple lines) created by finding the curves at the intersection of the hull and deck surfaces. (As you can see, I also added some dowels for the masts.) This is good progress. I'm just about ready to create bulkheads. I still need to work out the form of the stern, which I dread, so I'll be putting that off.

Let's use the imported plans to create the shape of the hull. I start by going into Fusion's Form environment, which allows the creation of smooth objects out of t-splines. It begins with a single face, strategically placed between stations 7 and 9. The face is tilted outward at an angle consistent with the deadrise at that point on the hull. And then the face is extruded until there are five faces total. I found through previous experimentation that five was a good number. Fewer faces and I didn't have enough control points to create a matching curve for each station. More faces and the curves started to get wobbly. This picture shows how the grid of control points and lines (black lines) define the shape in gray. In most of the later images, I have hidden the control grid so that only the hull surface is displayed. Each edge was adjusted to conform to the hull curvature at the stations (7 and 9 in this case). Here is the same viewed from a different angle. Then the forward edges are extruded toward the bow to create the next section. And the new edge is matched to the curvature. And the same procedure was repeated for each station going forward. Note that I subdivided the grid between stations 7 and 9, and between 5 and 7, so that the spacing between grid pieces would remain consistent. Failure to do this caused the grid to abnormally stretch in a disproportional manner as new stations were added. It's starting to get a nice shape. Trying to get the shape right at the bow was trouble. There is probably a clean way to end the form in a shape that matches the curve of the stem, but I don't know enough about the Form modeling environment yet to do it. Instead, I just continued to extrude the form out and tried to match the correct form at the bow. There is some pinching and distortion of the form here, but that portion of the form is beyond the boundaries of the actual hull, and none of the shape at that point will be used. So it doesn't really matter. With the forward portion of the hull complete, I started the same process working aft. Here it is after a few sections are completed. And compete all the way to the final recorded station. I'll have to wing it later to capture the shape of the stern. Now I have two halves. It was necessary to work in two pieces separately, because if I tried to create it all at once, the forward pieces would, in a head-on view, obscure the aft pieces, making it impossible to view them as I worked on them. There is a feature to merge edges, which I used to unify the two pieces. After exiting the Form environment, it looks like this. How accurately does the shape conform to the lines of the hull? Well, we can validate it by generating new lines and comparing them to the plans. Fusion has a great feature that lets you plot the intersection of a form and a plane. Let's do that, first with the section lines. In the image below, I have already plotted stations 1 and 2 (purple lines) and I'm currently plotting the intersection of station 3 (red line). After plotting all the forward sections (purple lines) they can be compared to the plans. And the same for the aft stations. It looks good. Let's check the waterlines too. Below, I waterlines 1 and 2 (purple lines) have already been plotted, and I am plotting waterline 3 (red line). Now all the waterlines are compared to the plan. It's not 100% perfect, but at this scale, the deviation is no more than a millimeter. I'm satisfied. So, what's the point? First, let's mirror the hull shape. Let's consider how this can be used to create a plank-on-bulkhead model. I can choose any point along the length of the hull for a bulkhead. At the point where I want a bulkhead, I can plot the intersection of the hull form and the bulkhead plane. Add the deck camber and a notch, and I have a pattern for cutting out. So I'll need to decide how many bulkheads I want and where they will be. I also need to sort out the exact camber of the deck. But there is one big problem with my hull form that means I can't use it until it's addressed. If you've been reading all the notes on the plans, maybe you've noticed what I need to take into account. This has been a big update, so that issue will be saved for next time. Thanks for reading this far.

I order the Amanda F. Lewis plans from the Smithsonian. The ship was surveyed as part of the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey in 1936 or 1937. H. I. Chapelle drew the plans in 1956 based on that survey. And, wow, they're big. The scale of the plans is 1:32. Hmm, if I made the model in that scale, it would be just about 1 meter from tip of bowsprit to tip of boom... Tempting, but I think a model that large would trigger a spousal veto, so that's a no-go. 1:48 is what it'll be. I put the plans on one wall and photographed them from across the room. The various views were put into separate image files and brought into the Autodesk Fusion environment. Offset planes were created for each station position. As well as for each waterline. And for the buttock lines and diagonals too, though they might not be used. And with that, the 3D environment is ready for design work.

Welcome to my build log for the Amanda F. Lewis, built in 1884. She was a pungy, a type of schooner unique to the Chesapeake Bay. This will be a plank-on-bulkhead build at 1:48 scale. There will be lots of 3D design, there will be pirates, maybe a road trip or two, no doubt plenty of successes and mistakes. I hope you will follow along. Below: 1933 painting of the Amanda F. Lewis by Louis Feuchter, painting photographed by me at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. It shows the vessel during her later years.

I finally got around to experimenting with Fusion's form environment. Here's a log of a method that gave me decent results. (At least, decent enough to get a form that I can slice at will to make patterns for a plank-on-bulkhead model. As you'll see, it doesn't give me a clean form for 3d printing or rendering a picture. But making bulkheads is my goal.) I start by going into form mode, and creating a simple rectangle. I grab the upper edge and lean it out a bit. Then, holding Alt as I drag I extrude a few more rectangles. Here you can see how things exist in the forms / t-spline environment. There is a grid of control points (black lines) which control the smooth form (in gray). In the Y-Z view, I adjust the curve of the edges to that they match up with the correct station lines. Fusion allows this to be done either by moving the control points or by dragging points on the curve itself. I found dragging the points on the curve to be much easier. Here is the hull section viewed at an angle and from the side. To continue, I extruded (added another row or column of control grid points) in the direction of the bow. I adjusted the curve of the new edge to the station. And then another. Working my way toward the bow. At this point, I tried to match the edge to the stem, but things started getting wobbly and I lost my clean vertical lines, which I need to match each station. There must be a way to cleanly end forms, but for now, it eludes me. So instead I just kept extending the form forward as it was. The process going aft was basically the same. (I forgot to take screenshots. Oops.) Near the rudder I did curve things in a little. The form was completed and mirrored. It looks pretty clean. The true test is to see how it holds up if I derive lines from it. I created new lines by plotting the intersection of the waterline planes and buttock line planes with the new surface. The results look good. The only significant deviation I see is the forward end of buttock line 5. As always, there is more and more to learn. If you read this far, I hope it was interesting.

Mark, I've been looking at the last few pictures in your last update, and I fear that the shortening that you've done at the stern will cause some issues. To my eyes, it looks like the transom and sternpost are too close together and this won't allow enough room for the rudder stock to come up between them.

I grabbed the low res image of the plans from https://prints.rmg.co.uk/products/lines-plan-of-musquidobit-1813-j7636 Brought them into Fusion, and made a quick measure of the angles. I get 13.4 degrees for the foremast and 10.1 degrees for the mainmast. These might be off by a few tenths of a degree since I was just eyeballing my drafting lines in Fusion. I've done this for a few other schooners, and the masts are never parallel. There is always some difference in the angles of the rake.

I've been looking forward to it since you mentioned you'd be working on this one. I'll be following along.

Having reached the end, it's hard to know what to write. This has been a build like no other, and one where I created a lot of challenges for myself. The main goal was to expand my modeling experience and to try out some unconventional techniques. That goal, I think, was achieved. If I could go back in time and give myself advice, I would have recommended making this a fully scratch build and executing it in 1:48 scale (or even 1:32). I have read that when Model Shipways releases a new POB Sultana, it will be in 1:48 scale, and I can understand why. Working at 1:64 has been the biggest challenge, and many times I wished I didn't have to work with such small blocks and other components. I'm also disappointed by the sloppiness of some of my work, especially the painting, and the lack of crisp details on some of the components that I made. (And that big glob of dried glue, that I've been strategically hiding when I take pictures.) I still have lots of room for improvement. Thank you to everyone who has been following along with this build. Your comments and encouragement have been much appreciated. I hope to see you when I start my next one. Moderators, if you are reading this, please mark this build log FINISHED.

With flags, the most important thing to consider is the wind direction. I have been working with the idea of the wind coming from the direction as shown below. I think this is plausible with the sails in the orientation they have been set to. I worked out the flags and their sizes and created a sheet for them. Multiple copies were added to allow for mistakes and to try a few variations in size. It was printed out at the local shop. The colors a good, but the paper is a bit thicker than I would have liked. The flags were carefully cut out and glued onto thread, then formed by wrapping the paper around a toothpick until the curves looked good. The flags on the masts, showing the wind coming from behind, but not too strong. And this one back here gets blown into the mail sail. TODO: Tie down jib sheets DONE Make a zillion rope coils (it was closer to 60) DONE Glue on a zillion rope coils DONE Swivel guns DONE Flags DONE Ship's boat? I've decided that this will be a separate project, to be completed at a later date FINISHED We'll save crossing off number 7 until next time, where I'll reflect on this project and include a bunch of beauty shots.

Making rope coils. After some experimentation, I ended up wrapping thread around some pins stuck into a scrap strip of balsa. They were strategically glued, and after the glue dried, the pins were removed and the rope coils were pulled off. And the excess thread was cut away. Here are some rope coils on the fore mast. And on the shroud cleats I tried making my own swivel guns, but I wasn't happy with any of them, so I used the kit-supplied guns. The barrels were drilled out, but they were otherwise unmodified. TODO: Tie down jib sheets DONE Make a zillion rope coils (it was closer to 60) DONE Glue on a zillion rope coils DONE Swivel guns DONE Flags Ship's boat? FINISHED

Sail 6 of 6 is on. TODO: Tie down jib sheets Make a zillion rope coils Glue on a zillion rope coils Swivel guns Flags Ship's boat? FINISHED

I think it'll be a 19th century Chesapeake Bay craft, but I'm still in the research phase.

To attach the jib sails, I made hanks as shown below by wrapping blackened wire around a dowel, resulting in a spring, then cutting the spring into individual loops. Here's the inner jib. The line at the top is for the downhaul. Note how a pair of blocks splits the sheets into four separate lines. And here is the sail in place. The backstays for the foremast were also on the todo list. If you look back at post #173 in this thread, you'll see how I tied off some line on cleats in preparation for this step. I anticipated that those cleats would be completely inaccessible and it's a good thing. The mast trucks were 3D printed. Development was interative, Goldilocks style: too large, too small, just right. Here are the mast trucks after being glued on. It really makes things look finished. Looking good and almost done.

The fore topsail is on. And here's a view from the back. And a view from the top. It's quite a maze. Two more sails to go, plus the many finishing details.

A small update. Lots of lines that were loose have been belayed and glued. It doesn't look like much of a change between this update and the last, but I spent several hours tugging and adjusting until I was happy. I hung the fore lower yard from its sling and threaded the lifts and braces. The mainsail still has some lines that need final adjusting before it's permanently set. Another thing I did was redo the forestay, which had accumulated some noticeable slack. I've been unhappy about that for a while.

Here's the foresail. The brails that run through blocks on the gaff have been pre-threaded. The remaining brails run through blocks on the mast hoops and will need to be run after the sail is attached. And the sail is on. As with the mainsail, the sail is linked to the mast hoops with wire. There is one error here. The blocks for the third brail from the top should have been attached to the mast hoop fourth from the top, not fifth. You can see how the angle of the run of that brail doesn't match the others, but would be parallel to the others if it were in the right place. Unfortunately, when I realized this mistake, the glue was set and those were literally my last 2mm blocks. So I'll have to live with it. Down here at the tack, the sail is hooked onto a tackle that was previously threaded. The mainsail sheet runs through a pair of double blocks back here. And here it is, three sails down, three to go. Ugh, what a messy workspace. Next I need to get the spaghetti under control before moving on to the remaining sails.

Thanks for following along, Mark. It's hard to believe it's finally all coming together.

Prior to being attached to the mast, the main topsail's lower yard has its blocks pre-threaded. It is held up by its sling and lifts. Now the upper yard. The sail is laced on. The bunt lines are visible here on the front. And the clew lines are pre-threaded through the blocks on the back. Here is the upper yard, held up only by its lifts for now. The halliard is threaded through the sheave hole in the mast. But the halliard (black thread) currently goes nowhere. A block is carefully attached to the free end of the halliard and rigged. Also, the sheet lines previously threaded through blocks on the lower yard are attached to the sail. And with that, most of the rigging of the main topsail is complete. Still to do for the main mast: backstays and braces for the yards. And right now, nothing is belayed. It's all loose so that I can fiddle with how I want the sails oriented. I think the braces will wait, as I suspect they'll get in the way of my efforts to attach the foresail.

I'm starting with the mainsail. First, it's laced to the gaff. I decided it was best to attach the boom to the sail before placing it on the model. The tack of the sail is attached to a hook above the boom jaws. The outhaul passes through a sheave at the end of the boom and ends on a block which, along with another block on the boom, is a tackle for the outhaul. I pre-ran the line for that tackle. The parrels were added to the gaff and boom with some tape to keep the beads from coming off. The sail is attached first by the throat and peak halliards. Loose at first, then gently tugging little by little into place. Wire was previously twisted around each mast hoop, and this wire went through holes in the luff of the sail. Foolishly, I didn't attach the wire before the mast hoops were on the mast and impossible to remove. Therefore, it was awkward to get the wire twisted and it couldn't be done neatly. It's not bad from far away but doesn't look so great close up. The topping lift and boom sheet were threaded, and the sail is looking pretty good. Right now, nothing is glued. Everything is held in by friction and can be adjusted as needed. One sail down, five to go.

Making sails... I had the crazy idea of putting wire inside teabag paper in order to make sails that can be shaped. It was mostly successful, but didn't fully achieve what I wanted. For all the details, have a look here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/37106-some-silkspan-tips/page/2/#comment-1083821 Once I had wired teabag paper, the sail pattern was marked. Additional strips of teabag paper were glued on for reef bands, edges, and reinforcements And then the sail was cut out. And here they are. As you can see, I have already been experimenting with shaping the sails. Now everything can finally come together. My greatest worry is that, as I work on the rigging, belaying points and other things will become inaccessible, so I've been thinking hard about the best order to assemble everything.

Mark, the kit comes with some wire, but it's not formed into eyelets. I have been making eyelets by wrapping wire around a pin, then around the block. (I really should learn how to do this properly with thread rather than wire. But wire is convenient, especially on the smallest blocks.)

I have been thinking for a while about how to make sails for my Sultana. I want them to look good, of course, but also I want sails that appear full of air. Sails that hang straight down on a schooner just look sad. I purchased some of the material sold as artist teabag paper and have been experimenting with it. On my model, at 1:64 scale, the sail seams would need to be less than half a millimeter wide, with panels 7mm wide. Overlapping the teabag paper to achieve this would be nearly impossible. For such narrow seams, one would typically represent them with lines scribed by a pencil. But in this thread, there was mention of using wire to allow the sails to hold shape. And that got me thinking. What if there were a solution, a crazy solution, that takes care of everything? Below is what I came up with, after a few iterations of testing my ideas. First, the design in Autodesk Fusion. Teabag paper is taped tightly around a piece... ...that fits into the contraption. Then 34 gauge wire is threaded from one end to the other. Glue is spread and a second piece of teabag paper is placed over the first. To do this, I tried both a glue stick, and brushing on white glue. The picture below shows brushed on glue. As you can see, there are some inconsistencies in coverage, and these show up as blotches in the final product (though they aren't as prominent once the glue is dry). With the glue stick, there were fewer blotches, but because the glue stick couldn't fit into the edges, there was glue absent around the border. This allowed some wires to shift inside. Here I start to make the sail, using a pattern printed on office paper. The lines show up fairly well through the two layers of teabag paper. In this picture, by the way, is material from a trial using the glue stick. You can see how wires near the edges have shifted, reducing the usable area. Carefully cut strips of teabag paper are glued on for the reef bands and edge reinforcement. Cringles and an extra wire at the foot of the sail are glued on and covered with teabag paper strips. Once all the gluing is complete, the sail is cut out. It's not too bad. All the wires do allow some shaping of the sail. This picture doesn't show it very well, but there is some decent curvature of the sail, particularly along the edge at the stay. Anyway, I hope you found this interesting.

Preparing blocks... Blocks here... Blocks up here... (And this reminds be that I still need to fashion masthead trucks.) Blocks all over... There will be 102 blocks in total. Everything is ready for the running rigging at this point, but there's a final major task to work through. That'll be next time.

Here's a picture from a while ago when I made the boom, gaffs, and jibboom. The boom and gaffs have had blocks and some rigging elements added. Now to make the topsail yards. These require a lot of tiny 2mm blocks. I have been using blackened 30 gauge wire to attach them to the yards. And then footropes and other elements are added.