Matrim

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Couple of plan shots while I work on the middle and upper apron.
 
First up I am gradually refining my technique when creating build templates. My new structure is to extend the edges of joints with blue lines (the joints themselves being a burnt red), these lines are then used as a cut check when milling so I can start on the extension line and move inwards. I am also adding a lot of opposing green lines (I may even double these up in future). I use these as table saw cut lines that allow me place the wood at these points and know that (hopefully..) the actual cut line being milled will then be horizontal.

Example for middle apron  - it looks complex (which is why I simplified the colours) but does help when cutting.
 

 
The next plan (just done now) is a combined view of the forward keel, apron stem and some other. I plan to use this to ensure the eventual combined apron and stem is accurate.

Tidied up the sides of the piece and gap dry fitted to the pieces above and below. Leaving the 'extra' below the shelf (which will eventually by angled to allow the planks to sit) as I have generally read its better to leave 'meat' there..
 

 

Time for an update. I have been working on the rear deadwood plans (with a question elsewhere on site) while I waited for some thicker wood stock to arrive for the lower apron. I also have had some interesting thoughts on plan accuracy. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be obsessing overly about 'correct' sizes when the reality is that as long as I use the master plan as the target for every step then any inconsistency in lower steps will be counteracted. That's not to say that being accurate isn't good it's just that it's cope able if the process is correct. So as an example lets say I misunderstood Steel (very very possible) and I made my rising wood 1mm to high! As long as when I seat my frames I use the model height of the rising wood (say 9mm (random numbers) versus the should have been 8mm) and thus make the floor depth say 29mm instead of 30mm then the problem gets ironed out. An issue would only occur should I just use plan measurements for the next piece. Hopefully that makes sense to someone.
 
Anyway onto the next piece which is the lower apron (wood having arrived). It's not 'done' yet as this is my practice piece which I only use if by a miracle its perfect and this wasn't but only due to the last cut.
 
For the plans I did my usual job of adding lots of helper lines, the usual orange ones indicating parallel to cut lines and the green were sighting lines to try and help line up both plans. You will notice this also needs a mirrored plan due to the ledge.
 

This is a cut out of the full sheet which includes the other two apron pieces. One of the things I found very helpful when cutting this piece is ensuring all four sides of the blank were square (and not just two L sides which is what I usually do). This is due to the key fact that the bottom left of the apron is horizontal and flat and the three vertical lines are all at right angles to that line. Therefore I can cut my pattern and place it on the bottom of the wood blank and know I can use the sides of the blanks in the mill to allow me to accurately cut the inner of the right hand vertical cuts..
 
Anyway the process I ended up with was as follows. Overly detailed perhaps as ever..
 
1 - Cut blanks oversize
2 - Thickness blanks to target width with thicknesser
3 - use table saw to make certain all 4 sides were both flat and at right angles to each other
4 - Add pattern to one side using the bottom left vertical and horizontal lines as the line up points
5 - Use the left vertical side as the mill base and cut out the inner of the right two vertical joints (in this practice piece I actually did this the other way round with 6 and 7 which made things harder so this is how it will happen next time)
6 - Use the table saw to cut along the big orange line (which is parallel to the face of the joint)
 

7 - Use the step 6 cut as the base inside the mill to allow me to mill the face of the joint



8 - Use the sc roll saw to cut along the upper edge of the apron.
 
 

 
(Plus rough fit with fore deadwood above)

9 - Add the reverse pattern to the other side of the plan using the upper cut, and left two straights to help align.
10 - Use a scalpel to cut out the upper section of the paper pattern (above the red line) which marks the ledge position.
 
11 - Use the mill to cut out the depth required for the cut. Not exact here but the best procedure seemed to be to start on the right and move to the left (best sight line) and basically cut outside the line a little then slowly move it into the line. You end up with lots of tiny humps which will need smoothing out later but the key is that this gives an accurate side of the shelf.
12 - Use the scalpel to repeat step 10 but on the other side of the piece
13 - Repeat step 11 for the other side of the piece.
 
 

For 11 and 13 I hit a problem with how I was holding the piece and in the test cut changing this half way through (as the clamp started interfering with the mill) adjusted the depth of cut slightly causing the last 20mm of one side to be .1-.5 mm deeper than it should be
 
14 - Tidy the ledge curve with a scalpel
15 - Sand the end to the correct size
16 - Dry fit with surrounding pieces to see if continuing is possible. With the test piece it dry fitted nicely on the stem and with the upper deadwood above - all three needed some tidying but nothing major from the looks of things which was a relief.
 
 
So the pictures are actually with a slightly different order than above but it gives the general idea.
 
Thanks for reading.

Update time. Once the vertical cuts were dealt with I briefly used some of the 'wrong' pieces to test how easy it would be to accurately cut the side cuts and rapidly decided the game wasn't worth the candle (nice old phrase that, apparently way back when prior to electricity candles were expensive so gamblers had to decide if the potential prize through playing was worth the cost of the candle (or not)to have light to play by - causing that phrase to move into the language). Anyway though I could have worked round it I decided it wasn't worth it so essentially wiped the side cuts and just cut to all the pieces to width.
 
I then needed to cut the end butt joints and ensure they fitted well with the adjourining pieces. For this I generated 'joining templates' which consisted of the majority of a rising wood piece and the next two joints to either side. That way I could put pieces together and ensure they matched.
 

As you can see the blue indicated the 'live' piece and the black either side adjourning pieces. One sheet was produced for each section.
 
I also cut out the side templates (roughly) and stuck them to the pieces. This was to roughly check alignment but also so I could see from the side potentially issues as well.
 

Things seemed good so I rapidly hit another problem (and one that Mark P had noticed when my fish plan was produced) and that was that I had not included every line I might have needed on my base plan and specifically in this case the forward mark where the keel stops. Now the rear section lies very close to the Aft Perpendicular but as its angled I was less trusting of this. So after some failed attempts to measure on the master and then use a ruler to set the keel at the correct location (never working) I then produced another throw away plan by drawing vertical lines on the master plan for all the forward keel boxing joint lines, the fore perpendicular (which was on the fish plan), the forward rising wood joints (in red) . This could then be placed on the fish plan with the fore perpendicular being the join between the two and then allowed me to place the keel exactly. 

I need to insert some temporary battens to hold the keel at some point soon as well.

Anyway this was obviously important as the keel is the fulcrum of the entire build and the rising wood needs to be exact otherwise it would throw everything off
 
 

 

Next up 'wood' wise I am going to glue and bolt the stem.

Plans wise I am moving to the lower/upper apron and the fore deadwood.
 
 
 

Stuff is still happening though my updates are not particularly good. I spent some time on the transom plans which can be seen in the thread here
 
and those are now done (whether I have to re-draw when wood is cut remains to be seen - at the moment I'm waiting until next month when I can afford some more fixogum before starting some test pieces.
 
In the meantime I switched back to frames which will need doing sometime. My frame structure will be staggered (at least that's the intention) so when building the individual frame plans I am putting a horizontal line at the furthest point of the frame then the individual futtock can be sized accordingly when cutting onto the model. I am also keeping both forward and reverse lines on all plans (red and blue with Waynes guide). On the mid frames there is bugger all difference but there is slight. I am also 'just' using one line to build the relevant thickness for the inside where I am less worried about the slight shape differences  - this will change when moving away from amidships as having the inside bevel will help fairing.
 
One other thing I did was to print one of the central frames out and stick it on cardboard and then just test fit on the keel to see if it 'looked' right. Seemed okay once I had counterbalanced the weird balancing of very thin cardboard
 

Couple of plan shots while I work on the middle and upper apron.
 
First up I am gradually refining my technique when creating build templates. My new structure is to extend the edges of joints with blue lines (the joints themselves being a burnt red), these lines are then used as a cut check when milling so I can start on the extension line and move inwards. I am also adding a lot of opposing green lines (I may even double these up in future). I use these as table saw cut lines that allow me place the wood at these points and know that (hopefully..) the actual cut line being milled will then be horizontal.

Example for middle apron  - it looks complex (which is why I simplified the colours) but does help when cutting.
 

 
The next plan (just done now) is a combined view of the forward keel, apron stem and some other. I plan to use this to ensure the eventual combined apron and stem is accurate.

Tidied up the sides of the piece and gap dry fitted to the pieces above and below. Leaving the 'extra' below the shelf (which will eventually by angled to allow the planks to sit) as I have generally read its better to leave 'meat' there..
 

 

Hi all,
 
I have decided I am not using my table saw particularly well and was wondering whether anyone could give practical reasons for changes/improvements. Some of the issues are due to bad practice on my part that i have recognised but with a few I am not sure of the best way to adjust too best practice.
 
I - The first is that I have tended to use both fence and mitre (incorrectly assuming this meant more accuracy). On re-reading the instruction guide recently I noticed it said use one or the other but never both. Here I am merely curious as to the logic and what damaging effects this could cause thougb probably explains the blade locks I get frequently enough.
 
II - The second is that I have some difficulties with the blades. I seem to settle (consistently) on a slitter blade (so thin) as when I attach a more normal wood curring blade it does not cut nearly so nicely. It might be that I am not secuting the blade correctly which might explain this.. Anyway using the slitter blade I tend to get a lot of blade 'stick' which I guess is due to overheating/inability of the blade to extract the wood shavings it is cutting and the overheating causing the blade to flex. Are there any recommended blade types or tips to making a better job of attaching them in the first place. In another thread I noticed some comments on the line of 'attach a steel ruler to the fence just prior to the central point of the blade so that the wood can deviate more freely' - but this seems an extreme solutuion and I would prefer to utilize the saw correctly to avoid this if I can. I have also seen comments that perhaps the fence is not 'set' but the other 'bad' use points probably explain this better so I fully expect this to be how I use it as opposed to the machine itself.
 
III - When looking at the instructions I also (re) noticed the - tighten the forward locking bolts of the fence 'first' - I cannot  guarentee I have always done this but will in future and this might also explain some of the blade sticking which is dangerous beyond anything else. I am curious as to why this makes a difference.
 
IV - Changing blades - I tend to find this difficult and the wrench on the locking bolt sometimes gets 'stuck'. I wonder now if I am securing the bolt on the blade with too much force (I am purchasing some more imperial wrenches to ensure the fit is correct as my 'pick a wrench and see if it fits' approach might cause some slight gaps especially if its a metric wrench close in size to the imperial wrench sizes required 3/8 and 11/16 respectively )
 
 
Anyway for all those table saw experts I would be delighted with any explanations/improvements advice. This saw is a wonderful piece of kit but also the one I am most wary of for 'danger' and taking practical steps to do things correctly /better will both reduce (but never eliminate) that danger and ensure the quality of work produced improves.
 
Joss.
 
 

Couple of plan shots while I work on the middle and upper apron.
 
First up I am gradually refining my technique when creating build templates. My new structure is to extend the edges of joints with blue lines (the joints themselves being a burnt red), these lines are then used as a cut check when milling so I can start on the extension line and move inwards. I am also adding a lot of opposing green lines (I may even double these up in future). I use these as table saw cut lines that allow me place the wood at these points and know that (hopefully..) the actual cut line being milled will then be horizontal.

Example for middle apron  - it looks complex (which is why I simplified the colours) but does help when cutting.
 

 
The next plan (just done now) is a combined view of the forward keel, apron stem and some other. I plan to use this to ensure the eventual combined apron and stem is accurate.

I just cannnot resst buying books on historical ship design .It's like tools and apparently their close sister 'drugs'.

This is useful, especially as I just planked (thankfully) the inner layer on my last kit using the water bend - dry on kit method which was fine for the sides but horrible for the front so am well up for planking 'better'

Thanks all, with the extra waterlines I am happily drawing out the easier filler frames first before moving to the angles on the wing/deck

Thanks all, with the extra waterlines I am happily drawing out the easier filler frames first before moving to the angles on the wing/deck

Thanks all, with the extra waterlines I am happily drawing out the easier filler frames first before moving to the angles on the wing/deck

Oops.
 
Doh! I blame working in 3D, it's unnatural.
 
But on the bright side, we're getting closer and I'm learning things.

That is the wing transom! That is the one where the upper surface comes to an angle. Below is s set of transoms for another ship. 'W' is the wing transom, viewed from above. The grey line is the lower outline of the transom. Note that conventional numbering of the other transoms is from above to below.
 

Did anybody notice Transom 6 hiding in there?
 

Edit: added Transom 6 and Station 29.5.
 

A section of an inverted cone sounds like a pretty good description, but shouldn't there be some curvature to it? Perhaps a section of an inverted bullet shape?

It's more like an inverted cone: the top edge of the wing transom should come to a point or angle.

You need to run additional waterlines and buttock lines here that fair with the rest of the aft hull.