Jaager

Two lessons from this: It is not practical to scratch build unless you are or can access your own sawmill/millwork tools. Looks to be heading to you will have to be sawyer as well. It makes sense that in the UK, most old buildings are refurbished rather than removed and replaced.

I just checked Home Depot site. A 2x6 8' long is $8 that is actually 1.5" x 5.5" x ~2 m With a bandsaw and thickness sander you could get 2 layers for one side or 1 layer of the whole hull for ~ 16 L? If 1" layers - which is maybe too thick. You can probably get by with 6-8. A 2x6 x 10' ~3m = $10 or for you ~ 20 L. With 1/2" layers each board = 6 5.5" x 1 m Two boards may be enough. CYA = 3 boards that is ~60 L. If you beg nicely, you may find a local cabinetmaker or woodworker with a bandsaw. The lumberyard will maybe cross cut the board into 1 m lengths ( Measure your max hull length - add a buffer - longer than needed is wasteful, too short is a disaster.) The few cuts you need and using a softwood, the job is zip/zip. They may also have a big boy thickness sander.

Nu, unless you developed a magnetic attraction for the subject. I wrote that to make a point. The point is: with a wood ship model kit, all is never lost if you make a mistake. With wood, the same (or most often) better components can be self manufactured. The barrier to scratch is more imaginary than real, unlike with a kit of molded plastic pieces,

For WL bread and butter, I think that shaping the end grain of plywood would be a perfectly awful experience. Your provided prices are a sign of sanity over there. It is still about twice what we pay for similar. It takes things back to doable for the OP.

A search of SD's previous content yields this " I bought 3 kits the Syren, the Marseille (C. Mamoli 1/64 kit), and the HMS Victory cross section." Based on posts, I am guessing that Syren was the first build. I suggest not giving any priority to the planking ambition for a while. Since your shortcut on acquiring experience did not lead to the result that you wished, why not follow as tried and true a course as there is at present to get up to speed? The Model Shipways Shipwright Series has a fairly low entry fee. The finished models are attractive, small, would look good on library shelves (in their separate "glass houses") and being boats, would give you the chops to build the boats that every large vessel carried. Your model of Syren is made of wood. It would not be difficult to acquire the raw materials to either backup to the stage where things went bad, Or duplicate the whole K&K from raw materials and build a Syren v.2 that has superior materials.

OK The lumber is planed. When you buy an off the shelf 1" board, it is probably 3/4" thick. You are paying for the wood chips. I advise accepting reality. Buy the off the shelf boards. Get a board wide enough to do half of the hull. Glue port and starboard at the midline. Measure the actual thickness and loft your WL to match what you can get. Find out which builders lumber yard or building supply is used by your local contractors. Get what they use. No Net, visit in person. The on-line guys seem to be real sharks.

Basswood is not a species for you. It is a North American species. It is our substitute for Lime/Linden. And it is a poor one at that. Your lumber yards do not play nice, your Pine is an import from here. You don't want it under those conditions. It looks like your substitutes are English Cedar or European Douglas Fir. Look at builders lumber yards. Go with domestic species.

I was spotting you the work needed for lofting of the WL on the tug. I purposely have set my focus to end at 1860. I am buried under by all of the choices as it is. Including steel would put me into a positive feedback loop. I do think that the transition steel vessels up until 1914 contained some very interesting and bizarre subjects - almost totally ignored. I missed the part about the two part bilateral symmetry. Perhaps the reason is to have opposing tension. Lifts from a single board may allow a bend: crook/crown? I have always assumed that the hollow requirement was to reduce the damage caused by changes in humidity. With wooden ship models of vessels before 1860, the difference in weight that being hollow produces seems like it would not be significant. For a CVN, or BB at 1:48 the difference would be significant. But then a CVN could probably carry HMS Victory 1765 on davits as a very large lifeboat.

For those of us who build wooden sailing ships, the plans come with WL. Rather than doing any lofting, the WL from the plans determine the lift thickness. The hollow insides are a requirement from the USN museum.

The Birch is the outside layer. It is for looks. It should work as long as it does not get wet. There is a Birch ply for boat building. The liner ply are not junk and the bonding adhesive is waterproof. An extreme that you do not need and unlikely to be anywhere as thin as you want. The Mahogany that you can get is not really Mahogany. Real Mahogany was timbered to near extinction fairly early in the 20th century, so it is a protected species. I would look real hard for something else. Most everything called Mahogany has open pores. This means that it is scale inappropriate if it is on view. Going to a builders supply and getting clear Pine would be a low cost option. If their thinnest project boards are too thick, make friends with a serious woodworker and see if he would turn Pine 2x4's or 2x6's into sheets that are your target thickness.

There is such a thing as sawn frame POF and I guess what you have drawn could be considered to be that. As fat as you have it drawn, it does not meet the spirit of what POF is though. You are not after a hull that represents what POF is intended to show anyway, so dealing with definitions is not relevant. If you scroll cut that pattern from a Pine plank, it should do what you are after. If you use a plank of 1/2 the thickness and cut twice as many "frames" but with half if them having an opposite grain orientation, when glue bonded in pairs, it may greatly reduce any breakage. If you use a pattern with alignment holes, doing it as pairs - one of the pair could be two pieces - Vertical grain - meeting at the "Y" axis in the center of the keel - two pieces for that frame. The other be two boards meeting at the "X" axis about halfway up. The result would be three pieces for that frame. It would be much easier to cut out the pieces. Bamboo skewers as dowels = idiot proof orientation if you plan it well. That is essentially the Hahn method. It may be overkill for a hull meant to float.

I am not really sure just what you mean by sliding lid, but I am imagining a sheet of wood fixed between two rabbets. It slides in the rabbets. At best, only 50% of the plane can be open. A roll top could maybe get you a 90% opening. Instead of a single sheet, the movable part would be slats with rounded edges and bonded to a tough fabric. The rabbet would need to have a navigable curve and continue down the back. In any case, the rabbet is a dado cut on a table saw or a straight bit router cut..

First: this is not a frame. It is a mold. The first Italian POB mfg used a term that translated as "bulkhead". Those parts are not bulkheads. Western wooden ships did not have bulkheads. Chinese seagoing junks did have actual bulkheads. But with POB there are no actual frames. There are no parts that should be called "frames". That the grain for a mold has to support a curve covering as much as 210 degrees is the reason that plywood was first used to make them. From an esthetic point of view, plywood is a wood product, but not actually wood. Now another semi synthetic material: MDF is used by some mfg. For actual POF, the frame should be made up of timbers. The timbers should have grain that matched the line of the shape where it lives. The original builders used compass timbers where there were curves. This is not really practical for a scale model. It can be done, but it a lot of work, a lot of luck, and a lot of waste. An end grain to end grain bond has almost no strength. A single frame is a breakup waiting to happen. A pair of frames with timbers that half lap the butt joint of the partner and glue bonded together is very strong. This is what a 'bend' is.

It sounds like a problem with the distance between the blade and the fence at the rear. Are you using the new accessory? Guild Product Thin Strip Saw Jig Thinking on it, I am guessing that if the rear of the fence is pushing the stock back into the blade, the jig will not remedy that.

For POF, Pine is a low cost wood to use for frames that will be hidden. It works as well as is needed. I dislike Basswood and its tendency to be fuzzy and for the fibers to roll make it a poor choice for frames from my perspective. For POB, either Pine or Basswood will do. For reasons that seem good but really are not, Balsa is favored by many. It is certainly soft and seems like it would be easy to remove what is not wanted. But Balsa is ugly to work. It does not plane, rasp, file, or sand nicely. It is fibrous and wants to tear. A sharp edge will want to dig in and stop a cut. Most POB modelers who do fill all of the gaps between molds use a horizontal orientation for the filling wood. A disk sander makes it easy to get a tight fit between molds. The down side is that the shaping is done in situ. Major wood removal is done on the whole hull. I recommend the filling be done with the wood mimicking actual frames in orientation. The inside can be left fat enough for Bamboo skewers to be used to join and orient a stack of layers. The mold shapes can be used as the pattern and a disk sander can be used for shaping the individual slices. Then joined using the Bamboo and final shaped . Then slud into the gap between their molds. A throw away end piece can be used to make up the difference in thickness for the mold with the pattern on the other side. The holes for the Bamboo dowels make orientation easy, so the identical pattern can be on both ends. If the sum of the layer thicknesses come up a bit short, poster board can be used to shim the difference.

My experience with yellow PVA (Titebond II) is that it has as long of an open time as I need. Theory only: If the POB molds are plywood, would priming the open edge with an insertion of PVA and letting it dry long before the planking stage, to fill the gaps provide a better bonding surface? For standard POB, I don't see that racing thru the planking stage is practical. POF or POB with Pine or Basswood fillers the whole way, if the planking is clamped using brass pins with hitch clocks can be done as quickly as tolerated. Pins in plywood end grain is mostly a wasted effort. Drilling the holes to match the proper pattern adds a significant time factor though. It replaces a racing engine with a lawnmower engine. The pins nipped and filed or pulled and replaced with Bamboo trunnels, adds a different look. Many more of them are needed for the finished look than required for just holding down a plank. The resulting look is a modelers convention. Except for the largest scales, pins and trunnels that are the proper scale diameter are all but impossible.

To enforce the advice already offered, both machines will pay back more than what they cost IF you scratch build. For kits alone, either will be a machine in search of a job. They will be expensive door stops. For any machine: do not anticipate! Wait until you have a job to do that a machine will facilitate and buy a quality machine to do it - IF it is a job likely to come up repeatedly. Hand tools will perform any duty that we need to do. It just takes more time. Are you going to build scratch models for sale? (To make this worth you investment in time and materials, you will need a gimmick - a shortcut.) Do you have a major project in mind? If you have an unlimited budget: go wild.

You are very likely correct. I just prefer using a sanding belt/drum with coarse grit on a small assembly. A large board cut using a chisel or hand plane does not appeal to me. It is also not a lot different than the work needed to loft a lot of moulds for single layer POB. Traditional WL based bread and butter needs a change in perspective. The main factor for me is my obsession with POF. For me, the lofting is the same whether I build with spaces or no spaces, show the framing or plank over it, use stylized framing, use NA or French all bends, or (the Fates forbid) use the furkopfta English framing. By that, I mean decreasing timber siding in the upper works, single filling frames between the bends, shifting out of line top timbers to frame ports. I am much more comfortable with the pattern intervals of Station to Station as opposed to WL to WL.

I do not think that I would care to control the speed by foot pressure on a floor switch. I have a one dial bench switch. The speed dial is also the On/Off. If I find a power level that I like, I have to keep finding it. That is easier than a continuously random foot pressure control and enduring fatigue or a cramp if it is a long job. Foredom sells a bench control with two switches. On/Off plus a speed dial in series, so that a favored speed can be retained. It is no problem to add a foot controlled On/Off in line. I use a momentary foot switch with my drill press - because I want the bit in place in the starter divit before it starts cutting. The bale will run you about $6. I advise making up a big - all at once - order from Foredom. Whoever they are using for shipping right now seems to have the goal of getting as rich as possible as quickly as possible. If their level of shipping costs is the future, local brick and mortar businesses will have the possibility of a major comeback.

For UK, I have to amend my suggestions: Yellow Poplar is an Eastern US native species. It is about as hard as Lime, but the colors of the wood is harlequin like. It is best hidden or painted and has no features that would make it worth paying import prices to use. Poplar is also a name given to wood from members of the Cottonwood family. Most of the wood from these species is best used as mulch or pulp for paper. You do not want to mess with it. Basswood is a brother to Lime/Linden. It is not near as good as Lime and is about half as hard and more fuzzy. For your interior supports - 1/4" Pine would be strong, but easier to scroll cut. As Roger suggests, maybe use 1/8" stock, paired and done as timbers with the butt joints overlapping laterally: do true frames as 1/4" bends - make it 1/4" frame and 1.4" space. With a base of 50% wood for the planking, a single layer would be enough. The moulded dimension can be wider than the frame of a wooden ship would be. It can be stair like, but leave a hollow inside for a motor, batteries and a RF receiver as well as ballast. Even more water immersion friendly would be a hull with no spaces between frames. Think a sliced loaf of bread - bread and butter rather than a sliced hoggie roll bread and butter.

Now the budget fun begins: How much wear has the flex shaft had? Is adding lube enough or is a new one needed? Speed control - table or foot pedal - on/off or rheostat - Hand pieces - chuck and/or collet? Accessories - right angle (bulky) - drill press - router - router table - vise held block (anchor) for a hand piece mount - even a hammer chisel hand piece and a belt sander

If this is a steel vessel - and POB is your method the molds do not need to be plywood. Plywood is ugly to work. The open grain at the edges makes a poor bonding surface. if you are US - Home Depot has 1/4" x 2" x 3' Yellow Poplar for ~$3 using a hand fret saw would be an easy way to free the molds by following the patterns. 1/4" Pine will work - just avoid stock with sap. For the outside, the paint finish is the most important factor? Most any wood will do. Species that do not resist being bent are easier to plank with. Open pore species such as Oak, Ash, Willow will do, it is just that open pore species require an additional pore filling step for there to be a smooth finish. A closed grain species does not need a sealer, it just needs a primer. You may be able to find packages of veneer at Wood Craft as stock to be spilled I am not sure just how long term stable is rotary cut veneer is as bent planking. If bend in the plane that was curved to when sliced is where it is bent, it may be very stable. I think Basswood is too soft and too fuzzy for your purposes. Pine veneer could be used for the planking - but most species of Pine are easy to dent. Premium species intended for use as something with a clear finish will do what you wish, but you will be paying more than is necessary.

It probably depends on the material used to form the lines that you are using. The traditional material was plant fiber. For larger scales, linen/flax yarn twists up into very convincing scale rope. This is a 'be your own rope works' material. [Very difficult to find high quality linen yarn now]. Cotton thread is often used and is readily available (or at least has been). This tread is not spun up the same way as rope so as it comes, it is not a convincing approximation of scale rope. As a feed choice for a ropewalk it does better. For these - shellac or white PVA. The PVA used for woodwork has a significant concentration of acetic acid. For archival purposes - bookbinders PVA - pH neutral - is a safe choice. There is a building wave of using man-made / synthetic polymer thread as feed stock for a ropewalk. This material does not have the same pores/channels/gaps at the microscopic level as cellulose based thread or yarn. I do not know which bonding agents are compatible. PVA becomes a series of long chains - intruding into pores and gaps and tangling with each other. I don't know if PVA has its own version of Tris for cross bonding of the linear chains. Fibers=> Yarn => Thread => Rope For linen, I guess that technically - scale rope is actually thread. The crushed and combed flax stem fibers are much larger than even cotton yarn. The difference in feel against skin is probably why cotton became such a big hit with the mass market once an economical way was found to extract the seeds.

I don't imagine that you intend to initiate a contest. I think that you should want excellent, or at least good instructions. The best of a group that is all junk -is still junk. One aspect of wooden kits is = the basic process is pretty much the same for either of the two methods for construction: POB and the evaporating solid carved hull. How to do the assembly is well covered in how-to books, the wide spread journal articles, and the build logs here. You can do an excellent assembly with no instructions from the kit manufacturer. The sameness of the process is probably the reason that POB instructions from older kits are a bit general - it probably seemed pointless to "sing Kathleen - one more time". The part that you cannot fake with general sources is the plans. They should be detailed, clear, and precise. Accuracy is a whole different thing. If the subject is developed from existing plans, a half model from the original builder, or a table of offsets, you should expect true accuracy and any reconstruction should be footnoted as such. If the subject is one where all that is available is the name, supposed type, and length, breadth, depth, and displacement or cargo capacity: There is no accuracy. It starts and ends as a fantasy. Another part is the quality of the wood. With this, there are far more losers than winners. With the advent of laser cutting, there is no excuse for poor precision, so if that is a kit's criticism, stay far away. With laser, die punching is totally obsolete. You will do better by freeing the parts yourself using a saw - hand or machine - the difference is how long it takes you. The fittings - often not difficult to substitute. One new - in fad aspect is plastic printed fittings. Based on history and precedent - I make this prediction: these parts will prove to be very ephemeral. The very properties of the plastic needed to be melted and squirted into a predetermined stalagmite will also make it prone to ready oxidation and continuing polymerization to a brittle state which will shatter or crumble to powder. The intensity of any UV light falling on the object will probably affect the half life.

The captain and the sailing master were not passive cogs in their sailing machines. For exact angles of rake, you would probably have to exhume one of these officers and ask them. Even then, you would probably have to specify the exact date, because there was probably fine tuning based of the season. For some of this, Horse Shoes and Hand Grenades is sufficient.