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Flooring timbers and limber hole details have been worked out. The flooring timbers will remain long, as shown, until the frames have been installed. I'll then fair the ends of those flooring timbers to match the geometry created by the frames. The frames themselves will 'NOT' be faired. They will remain square and be placed perpendicular to the inner face of the outer planking. Not fairing the frames saved an enormous amount of time when this boat was being built. There was no time available for such a laborious task as fairing frames! Note that the limber channels are offset from the centerline of the boat. In a flat-bottomed boat, even slight inclines, as well as the natural movement of the boat can cause water to collect in various places. Offset limber holes help to ensure that water drains more efficiently towards the bilge area, or the 'bailing-well' as is the case with the Philadelphia. The five 'magenta' colored flooring timbers are the timbers that I'm going to temporarily leave out while testing the bottom for warpage. They will be installed once it is determined whether or not stiffeners will be needed. Time to get busy with the flooring timbers...

Thanks David and Keith! It makes sense now. I had no idea that really old cannons were made up of longitudinal bars with the 'reinforces' sweated around them like a metal band around an old wooden wagon wheel. That's spooky! I imagine that it wasn't the reinforces that failed on those kinds of cannons but rather the longitudinal forge-welded seams that went kaboom! I wouldn't want to fire one of those without a very long fuse, say 50 feet or more! 😮

I'm curious about these reinforcement bands. Were they part of the original casting, or were those bands added 'after' the cannons were cast? I'm finding it hard to believe that they could have possibly been added as separate components, after casting, due to the complex geometries of the cannons themselves... as well as obvious blacksmithing and band welding problems. Please enlighten me as to the facts regarding the actual manufacturing process of those 18th century cannons and their curious reinforcement bands...

After cutting out the bottom shape, the bottom wanted to warp a bit. Not surprising. I now have it blocked up, again, and weighted down just to keep things under control until I start to install the flooring timbers that will eventually shore things up and keep the bottom flat from port to starboard. Each one of those 34 flooring timbers will have two 'limber-holes', 1" X 2" (scale = .042" X .084"), cut into them, close to the centerline, to allow for drainage of water back towards the bailing well located in the aft section of the boat. I'll be referring to the Smithsonian drawings, as well as other sources to properly locate those limber holes prior to cutting any of the flooring timbers. The current warpage of the bottom, after cutting, is very slight. I'm fairly sure that inserting stainless steel stiffeners into a few of the bottom timbers will not be necessary, albeit. We'll just have to wait and see for sure. I'm going to leave five bottom timbers out of the build, initially, for a few days. If the bottom holds its flat plane, I'll install the remaining timbers as is. If any tendency to warp shows up, I'll stuff the stainless-steel stiffeners into the middle of those five bottom timbers. Next up... bottom flooring timbers!

Howdy Cisco! I once had an idea for making gratings without power tools but haven't yet had a need to try it. This requires a vice, an aluminum angle and an aluminum flat bar. The grating jaws would screw securely to the jaws of the vice. Different sizes of grating would require a different set of jaws. A wooden block adjusts the depth of the cut. The cuts would be made via guitar fret saws, hack saw blades, hack saw blades laminated together, whatever type of blade setup is required to produce the proper width of cuts. Just place the strips of grating wood into the fixture, atop your depth block, tighten the vice and start sawing away.

Yes... 'another' redundant photo of that same ol' bottom. Things should start to move along a bit faster now that Tung-Oil has cured and I can actually start doing some productive work on this thing again. I needed to lay out the bottom timber locations, prior to cutting out the shape of the bottom, while I still had true and straight edges to square off of. You might notice that that the gaps between timbers vary. My dimensions for the locations of these timbers are taken off of the Smithsonian's drawings. This is how she was actually built. All of my layed out dimensions are 'ordinate' and taken from the centerline 'zero' point to prevent any accumulation of errors to occur while laying out those 34 lines. The small 'hash-marks' located along the center strake, beside my layout lines, denote where the timbers are to actually sit with respect to the line. If done properly, there will be no visible signs of any pencil lines/marks seen anywhere atop this bottom once all of the flooring timbers are successfully installed. Next up... cutting out the shape of the bottom, 'FINALLY'!

It funny you say that, Chuck. It just so happens that the 'Beer Drinking Guild' that I belong to recently took up model ship building!

Hmm? Perhaps it was a 'different' Bob who messaged me, and I confused him with 'your' Bob!

Bob noticed that I was following this log. He sent me a message! Bob told me about your thinking he might want a job on a barge... something he said in reference to barges, but he was actually only repeating something that someone else had said to him. He didn't want to hurt your feelings, nor did he know exactly how to respond. That wooden expression was just a pause, in confusion, while mentally searching for something proper to say. He told me that for decades he had navigated familiar waters, his hands as steady as the currents that he had once mastered. Now, with retirement looming and certain 'drudgery' weighing heavy on his soul, he was feeling restless and not ready to be put on the proverbial ol' shelf, nor interested in the lackluster opportunities afforded via a mundane job on a barge. Bob told me that his mind had begun to wander back to tall tales that he had often heard from seagoing sailors. Tales of exotic ports, uncharted islands and the vast expanse of an open sea. He told me that his heart was aching for one last, 'GREAT' adventure before finally hanging it up and considering a barge. I think Bob is looking for a seagoing ship to sail upon...

I've applied my last beads of Tung Oil 'pitch' to the caulking seams of the bottom of this bottom, and it's curing. This view is not the bottom. I flipped it after a few hours of curing to prevent the oil from soaking too deep into the caulking grooves. I'll flip it again just before bedtime. This view is the 'top' of the bottom, the inside. I should be able to start laying out the locations of my flooring timbers on this side of the bottom this coming weekend. The two lines that you see on the outboard starboard plank are not two butt joints. One line is a centerline mark, used as a reference point for laying out the 34 flooring Timbers. The line to the right of that centerline is a butt-joint location as seen on the bottom side. These are all pencil marks, no actual seams. These marks are important as they show where the actual caulked butt-joints, from the bottom of this bottom are located. They will be covered/hidden with 'splice blocks' later on. The lines simply let me know where to place the splice blocks when it comes time to add them. I'm also working on a 'gizmo' to better replicate hewn frame members made from branching trees that will show the grain flowing in more appropriate directions for a build like this. I'm not going to show my 'concept' of this gadget right now. I might want to sell a few of these before the Chinese steal the idea and start selling cheap knockoffs. The end result would look similar to the picture below. This is not a scale image. It's only a concept meant to help me in the development of this thing. Not perfect, but better than what I've so far seen in grain orientation for most Philadelphia models and kits. I'm not knocking anyone, nor their models; I just want to add a bit more realism than what is typically seen. My frames are going to be 90% exposed. I want them to look as realistic as possible.

I personally smell fraud and scams. "Buyer beware!"

Chuck, Please post a link for this five-phase plan. I'm curious and have been poking around on their site, but coming up with nothing but warnings for those who might attempt to dive that site. I can't find anything outlining their plans to raise this thing.

The counterweights did a good job in flattening out the bottom. There are two small dips at about 4.125" and 8.125" as the rule reads, but that's okay. The oil needs another day to fully cure. I'll target those two areas with new counter-weighting measures tonight. I also checked the thickness of the wood. I'm currently about .003" too thick for proper scale. That would equate to about .072" at full scale. After final sanding, once the Tung Oil cures, I should be right about where I should be in proper scale thickness. Now it's back to the ol' curing fan for this nice-looking bottom...

Chuck, Do you know why the Spitfire was never raised? Was it too badly decomposed, or what?

The inside of the bottom has been sanded, Tung Oiled and is now curing in front of the fan. Nothing else to do today... waiting on Tung Oil again. I had to put weights on the bottom to counteract the bowing that occurred from Oiling the first side. This should help flatten the bottom out again. If not, I'll hide some stainless steel 'stiffeners' inside of a few of the flooring timbers to ensure that the bottom does not ever try to bow again. I might do that anyway, as an insurance policy, because there won't be enough 'side-planking' on this model to effectively hold the flat bottom 'flat' during fluctuations in humidity, the passage of time, etc. Once the Tung Oil cures, I'll lay out the locations of the flooring timbers and start cutting those timbers.

Much better now. I'm back on track again.

That offset centerline just won't work for me. It would drive me batty! This is what I'm going to do to repair it and make things right. I think I can blend in the 'scabbed' filler pieces well enough that they won't be readily noticed. *Fingers are crossed* It's a good thing that I save small scraps and sawdust!

Here's a flight into 'fantasy'. I dedicate this cleaver idea to Chuck Seiler for giving me this novel inspiration and a 'great' alternative solution with acceptable historic purpose via a 'pinch' of believable and sound reasoning! Should the Smithsonian ever contact me about this, "I'll deny every word of it!" In 1776, a small collection of 'gunboats' were ordered to be built. There was no time to waste! The first of these 'gunboats' was to be named 'Spitfire'. Seven other gunboats of the exact same class were to follow and be built upon Spitfires original design, however. There were problems encountered with the Spitfire's build. After all of the flooring timbers were effectively fastened to the bottom planking, it was discovered that the shape of the boats bottom hull would not properly fit within the designed parameters of the bottom strakes due to the irregular widths of the strakes themselves. The irregular widths of the strakes were not by actual design, but rather dictated by necessity via the true dimensions of the local lumber that was actually available at the time. While not of normal practice, and for the sake of immediate 'urgency', it was decided to continue with the build of Spitfire by simply offsetting the centerline of the boat from the true center of its center plank. Notes of this gross error were taken, and the remaining seven gunboats, including the Philidelphia were all more carefully laid out prior to hastily fastening the flooring timbers and cutting out the bottom shapes of their hulls. This boat was never located nor recovered for examination. You'll just have to believe Chuck and myself! 😋

Howdy Chuck, I like the way you think! 😉 After the Tung Oil 'fully' cures on this bottom, and I'm able to sand the 'bottom' of the bottom and see the actual color/tone after sanding, I'll decide which way I want to go with this. There are currently quite a few options. My current desires are to display the model over a slightly angled, LED illuminated 'mirror' base that will reflect the actual bottom construction, something that would normally go unseen on a flat-bottomed model like this. The purpose for my wanting to do 'that' is simply to display accurate details, underneath, without the model ever needing to be physically touched, lifted up and eventually/possibly dropped, damaged, etc.

Okay... The plug has been cut, tarred, hammered into the bottom and caulked. Now this boat's bottom is going back in front of the ol' fan to further cure the Tung Oil before sanding.

Hello Paul! I've considered that. It would be the most logical and also the 'simplest' solution. The only thing that it would affect would be the location of the two butt joints of those two strakes. Nobody would ever know that those joints weren't exactly in their proper locations other than 'me', however. I keep rejecting that idea for some curious reason. I'm wondering if it's something phycological. Something subconscious that deep down I don't really like about what I've done, something that I think could be done better. The wood tone 'is' a bit richer and darker than I'd like, but that's my only 'other' gripe at this time. I also know that I'll be making more mistakes as I go. Maybe I need to use this current bottom as a prototyping platform/sacrificial Guinea pig for discovery and getting things correct on the 'real' gun-boat model. I don't have a lot of time, nor money invested at this stage. I could go either way. I'll be giving this some thought while I continue to work on this piece, before cutting out the shape.

I may need to rename this gunboat to that of one of Philidelphia's sisters, one of the other boats without documentation and drawings. Reason being, I made a mistake that is really bothering me. If you notice my previous photo, you will see that the centerline of the boat is not on the center line of the center strake. It's offset to the port side of center (the above view is of the 'bottom' of the bottom, flip it over for proper orientation). This is not correct for the Philidelphia, and probably not for the other boats either. I could try to chock things up to these gunboats being built in haste and in 'fantasy' this is how one of them 'could have possibly' turned out... or I could just start over and do it properly next time. I'm scratching my head. Maybe I'll build two gunboats. One to make mistakes on and another with 'fewer' mistakes. This is what went wrong. I glued all the strakes up using a centerline separating the bow half from the stern half. I found the center of each strake and lined them all up on those centers. What I 'should have' done was to shift the two outboard strakes, on the starboard side, a bit forward, towards the bow. I Remember running into that on my design but forgot all about it when I glued things up. This is because of the irregular widths of the individual strakes. Port side was fine. Only the starboard side needed adjustments. Due to my failure to offset those starboard strakes, the only way to fit the bottom shape onto the strakes, without gaps, was to offset the bottom. I didn't catch this until it was too late, when I placed my pattern atop the bottom to trace out the shape. I too was in a rush to get building, just like Arnold was back in 1776. I wonder how many mistakes were made, due to haste, in the construction of those 8 gunboats...? So here I am, making a decision. "Live with this major discrepancy, or start over?" This photo shows why I had to offset the pattern of the boat's bottom.

It's time to add the drain hole and make a plug for the bottom. I can't have my gunboat filling up with rainwater while it's being built!

... and can be turned into wooden 'toothpicks' too! 😮

Nothing much to see right now. This is just me being bored and wishing that I could do some work on the Philidelphia's bottom. I was wanting to lay out the outline shape of the bottom, for cutting, of which I could do, however. I was 'also' wanting to start laying out the locations of the numerous flooring timbers on the top side of the bottom, but I need to do some sanding first. I can't sand right now. The Tung Oil is still a bit too tacky and I don't want to risk sanding dust getting stuck to uncured Oil inside my caulking channels. That would ruin the effect. High humidity is the culprit, and it is seriously hampering the Tung Oil curing process! Tung oil hates high humidity but 'loves' a lot of air circulation. I've moved the slow curing bottom into a less humid environment and also put a computer fan on it to move a lot more air over its surface. If the curing still seems 'stalled', I'll put it into my oven with the oven light on (good for 90 degrees in temp) and add the fan too. That's how I cure/dry Biltong. I hang it in the oven with the light on, the fan blowing, and the oven door cracked open to let moisture escape. That works well for drying Biltong... it should work well for curing Tung Oil too, maybe. Not sure. All I know is that if this bottom has not satisfactorily cured, come noon tomorrow, I'm turning it into Biltong!