Jaager

Following your encouragement - I will let the reins go a bit looser. I followed Anthony Deane's design instructions for a bit. I tried to use his Body section method to produce the shapes of stations at every second bend. It would have saved a lot of lofting. His was a version of whole moulding. It works OK using intervals similar to those that van Yk described - 4 points along the keel and since his was a drafting table method = using waterlines and buttock lines to fine tune the shape. Three of the whole moulded sections can be "slud" (moved) along the keel to get fatter or slimmer at the ends - fine tuning the design. But it is too blunt a tool to be effective for any shorter intervals. I thank you for providing the key to this insight. For presently used modeling methods for POF - lofting the outer and inner edges for both faces of every timber - the Body plan is mostly of no use. For pre 1860, I believe the Body plan was everything for the mold loft. It was only the stations that were drawn on the floor at full size. The patterns for the mid line of the bends that were at the position of each station was what was sent to the wood shaping crew. POB sort of uses this method, except that for kits too many stations in the middle get dropped and in any case, the surface area for the lands is not as wide as is really needed. I think we can thank Dizzy Dean for introducing slud as the past tense of the verb = to slide.

It is not the design aspect that is my interest. It is something a lot more mundane. It is the mold loft product and what it actually was. I think the present description is true for very late 19th C thru early 20th C. It was probably heavily influenced by what was necessary for iron and steel. Materials that require much more precision and engineering, than does wood.. After 30-40 years of the dominance of iron, I think a short lived fad for large wooden hulls took hold and those workers and architects who were back to building larger wooden hulls had probably been filtered thru the 'new, modern' iron techniques and applied that to wood. At the beginning - the era of van Yk - starting with 4 lofted bends and all the other timber shaping done by eye on the ways, it was probably a long evolution until every timber was shaped using a pattern from the mold loft. I doubt that even by 1860, that degree of pre engineering was at all common. I suspect that the replacement of wood with iron for the larger hulls produced a situation where those with the necessary skills and experience to eyeball the needed wood cuts aged out and they did not pass on what they did to enough workers to support a large industry. Our practice of lofting every frame timber is a copy of what was done around 1900, but not the replication of actual practice before 1860 that we pretend it is.

For almost all the parts on a plan that we will make, the size of a particular unit that we work with will fit on a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. It is satisfying to have the whole on a single sheet, but it is not necessary. My point is that a home copy/print computer accessory can do the job at a practical level. For the cost of a couple of $30 copies, you can almost buy a scanner/printer. The ink is so expensive that the printer can almost be a free item and they still make out like bandits. Just be alert to the "adjustment" in scale that each scanner "adds". The "return to 1:1" factor is constant for a specific machine, but different between machines. Using a pantograph now is pointless punishment.

Ab, Thank you. A feud between two powerful shipbuilders each with an epic stubborn streak - perhaps a script writers explanation. Pieces are coming together for me on the evolution of west European Atlantic coast building methods. The method describer by van YK differs from the English et al. frame first method by not all that much. For this initial frame first method, no plans are needed if the key individual can "see" them in his mind. It is a result of being born a genius. It can't be taught, the in your mind part, but if lesser followers in other countries like this method and its more predictable results, they can learn to do on paper, what the first guy did in his head. While back home, the rules of the first guy are used. Dean

Ab, Some of the old illustrations and ones that you have used, show the erection of about 3 to 5 bends along the keel that affect and maybe effect the exact shape the shell takes. Was this a part of the shell first method or the alternative one? Dean

Generous thought, bad idea. The commercial guys use kilns and fumigation and probably other methods to keep from exporting diseases and insects along with the wood. The amateur export world has gained us Starlings, Japanese Beatles, Dutch Elm disease, Fire Ants, to name a few. If your guys are still sloppy about what comes in, I would not bet on their being any more careful about what goes out. The wood that you offer is from wide spread agricultural species. If you have something indigenous that is kept in check by your eco system, letting it out in this way could lead to a real disaster. This is a realm best left to professionals.

Mark, Rather than cut into the spine to form a rabbet, scab a thin veneer that makes the keel wider. As thin as can be managed so that the planks look as though they dip into the keel. No way to tell now deep it really is. Was it a Jerry Lewis movie - Don't raise the bridge, lower the river? Dean

From the link that Bruce D provided - its is obvious that the Suits have altered the design - sacrificing quality for profit, like that is anything but the rule. The old swivel is significantly larger and I bet the collets are less precise, not that the originals were up to anything but wood as a target.

The one that I find most comfortable to use is a General Tools 92 Swivel Head Pin Vise However, it is an old version and I am fairly sure it was before China became the fabricator, so I do not know if the same tolerances obtain.. Compared to these others, it is like a kid from Dog Patch showing up at a exclusive boarding school dance, but it works for me.

Chris, This monograph will provide everything you could need or even want and is value for the cost and if you hurry, YOUR postal rate may not be painful. The ship - is not too different from the Conny in cross section, as far as tumblehome, with a tad more deadrise, but no hollow at the garboard. Like the Conny class, this ship has as much in common with a razeed 74 as it does smaller frigates. The cross section is nothing like Amarante, Aurore 1697, Belle Poule 1765, or especially Renommee 1744 -which looks like nothing so much as a narrow waist BBW in exaggerated jodhpurs.

Mark, I measured the frame scantlings as 2/3 wood and 1/3 space - 9.5" x 9.5" x 9.5" . If you add trunnels to your outside planking, following that interval would match what ANCRE has. I compared Belle Poule center cross section to Renommee to see how close they are - Belle is a bit wider and deeper and Renommee is a bit more extreme in the degree of curving. Again with your filling between molds, = a low cost option Mill boards from a clear Pine 2x4 stud (~$4?) having a thickness that your laser likes, and that the appropriate sum of lamination is just a push fit between molds. In your Corel Draw, draft an inside moulded dimension for each mold ***- The line of the fore most or aft most mold of each pair can define the inside for a particular unit, so no additional shaping there is needed. Now that I think on it, the center mold does not even need this line drawn for it. When you draw the inside line add 2-4 alignment dots - inside the pair lines - and use a drill press to drill a hole the diameter of whatever bamboo dowels you have. Given that it is inside and hidden, off the shelf bamboo skewers can be used as is, no pesky draw plate work needed . This will perfectly align the stack of layers. PVA glue up each stack of Pine layers Add an additional 1/4" layer on the outside of the stack - on the side nearest to the mid line. Bond it with double sided tape. Have the two mold shapes on patterns rubber cemented to either face of the stack of layers. Sand the bevel for each stack - off the hull, pop off the 1/4" layer (It was needed because it takes into account the mold thickness for a precise bevel). When you place the filler stack between the molds, ~ 95% of the shaping has already been done. If you wait until now to cut the bevel on the plywood mold, it should be easy to remove exactly what should be removed and with the Pine there, near impossible to overdo it. *** ( I would say thick enough, but not too thick.) The Navy demands that solid carved hulls be hollowed out, in their museum acquisitions. An adaptation for heat and humidity, I recommend taking the hint. I did some reading and discovered that Painter and Gimp and PaintShopPro are "raster" based and Corel Draw is "vector" based. I don't know what the practical difference is, but raster works for my needs.

Mark, I misunderstood your narrative and thought your stock of plywood was other than flat. If you have fixed a warping and then cut, I must have mentally jumped to thinking that if the ply wants to bend, then any fix will be temporary. It will still try to bend again - unless you add in a counter force to prevent it. Mother Nature is kinda relentless. As for a solid hull, if you mean the Marseille hull, it is yes, while I shape the hull and until I add the keelson, and bilge riders, it will be solid. I followed Delacroix as per frame timber scantlings. My scale is 1:60 - essentially the same as your preferred scale. ( I am still overwhelmed by the size of that ship's hull.) As delineated on the plans, the space is small - all the frames are bends - the members of the pair of frames are each sided 0.24" and the space between each is 0.07". Above the LWL I made them all, solid Maple, below the LWL the 0.07" space has a temporary Pine filler, held in place by an adhesive that I can easily debond and pop the Pine out. The filler allows for the hull to be shaped and sanded and still have sharp and crisp edges on the bends. With a space this small, with future hulls, (doing Marseille over in my head) I would make the frame thickness 0.275" each, and omit every other bend. The temporary filler Pine below the LWL would then be a total thickness of 0.55" also. Doing POF and leaving frames on display, I think a bit wider space is more visually interesting. If I remember it correctly, Davis presented a 50% wood and 50% space as the the way actual hulls were framed - maybe 1900 and later hulls were, but not even close before 1860 for warships. Hahn used the 50/50 assembly too. He focused on the time of the American Revolution and I found that frigates at that particular time were all but solid timber - just ~1" air spaces. Framed that way, any visible display as unplanked would be fairly boring to see, so omitting every other bend is a logical technique. Starting around 1800 it seems to have become (on average) 67% wood and 33% space. for me, increasing the frame thickness by 50% to be able to omit every other bend looks unnatural, The frames are just too thick. For those, I frame the hull using scantlings that are the same as the original. Dean

Do you have access to the Philadelphia Maritime Museum? It does or did host the John Lenthall collection, which seems to have a large number of plans for USN ships covering the first half of the 19th C. It would be helpful to know what if any data they will provide over the Net.

Jeffrey, You would be very well advised to heed Chris' suggestions. The smaller scale solid hull version of Phantom should not overwhelm. As a pilot schooner, the basic shape is elegant. The rig is uncomplicated. At the 1:96 scale, it is operating at the border of replication and simulation of detail. The amount of detail is such that it will leave you wanting to do more - the next time out, if you contract this bug. If done well, this model will do you proud. The quality is there. HMS Beagle - one of the Cherokee class of ten gun "coffin" brigs, second only to the Cruizer class in the number of hulls built using the basic plan. In spite of this, specifics for the Beagle have been difficult to find. This ship is the one most significant to someone from the Biological sciences with an interest in ship modeling. For a long time, Beagle was the subject of a frustrating and unrewarding search. Mamoli produced a kit, purported to be HMS Beagle. To my eye, it does not look like a Cherokee plan was used as a basis. It looks more like a squashed collier and while shortened in the long axis, the depth looks to have been unreduced. The wood supplied looks awful, the details and parts poorly done and out of scale. I question if even the most skilled of us could produce a silk purse from this sow's ear. Then Karl Marquardt wrote the AOTS volume for HMS Beagle. A lot of is probably a very well informed series of best guesses, since no definitive treasure trove of "the answer to it" data as yet been found. I just looked on Amazon for the book and alas, a copy is really expensive. I bought a second copy - a reprint edition and not the quality of the original. I was intending to slice the binding to get flat pages for undistorted scans of the lines. Luckily, given my reverence for books, I did not have to do this. As far as I can discover, none of the AOTS volumes come with separate plans that can be obtained my any method. It is clinically diagnostic evidence of serious brain damage on the part of a decision maker at the publisher. - editorial over! The new OcCre kit for HMS Beagle looks to be heavily influenced by what Marquardt provided. The hull looks like a Cherokee class hull. The wood provided looks to better quality. The weave n the sail cloth could use a lot of improvement. A brig hull and a smaller one at that, is not like being buried under a mountain as it would be with a frigate, much more so with a liner, but it is still a challenge. Rigging three masts - with the bow, it is essentially four masts, just out of the chute and at a scale that allows some of finer details can become frustrating. But it is the level of deck detail - Marquardt inspired is my guess - should give pause to a beginner. You could wind up feeling like you are trying to sprint in a flood of molasses.

Dziadeczek, For successfully turning canon barrels @ 1:96 scale, please accept a deep bow in admiration, that scale pushes the physical limitations of any wood species. Did you need new glasses when an armory's worth of ordinance was finally turned?

Based on an article in (I think) Model Shipwright, about using a duplicator with a Unimat SL , I found a generic unit at Penn State Industries. https://www.pennstateind.com/store/universal-duplicator.html I have not had occasion to use it yet, so no idea how effective it is, but you can take a look.

Mark, Since I enjoy "denken experimenten" - armchair experiments: The problem that I am looking to help you solve is the warping of an individual mold. I was not suggesting using something other than your 1/4" ply. Just that you use more of it. Use your laser tool to do most of the work. I am thinking that it is imperative that each mold be dead flat before attachment to the spine. Using a filler that is added after the molds are glued, will not help in making sure the mold is dead flat before assembly. The area at the spine - that is notched for the main molds, would be removed for the additional layers. If the bend is at the notch, just this being a thicker ply is not a fix, because it is not thick there in the middle. But the edge of the additional layers can be close enough to the spine (tight tolerances) to force it to be perpendicular. Would not 1/2" or 3/4" of ply would be less prone the warping than 1/4"? The scrap ply between your molds on the sheet can be glued on the center face sides as lots of pieces and placed away from the edge as a way to further thicken it, putting what is otherwise waste to use. Each mold would be built up and mostly sanded before being fixed to the spine. If you over do it, scab some veneer along the edge and re sand that. I mean this with all respect, but being required to use thin ply because of the laser imitations .... is this sort of fitting the work to the tool, instead of fitting the tool to the work? I find that sanding the end grain of plywood - especially softwood ply - to be a less than rewarding chore. The rough quality and voids in construction grade ply.........ugly. But with solid wood, a sanding nightmare was the last aft section of the ship Commerce de Marseille. The "ply" was 8 layers of 1/4" Hard Maple - a 2 inch solid lamination. A good property of Hard Maple is that it is difficult to remove too much too quickly. The downside is that it is difficult to remove much at all. The bevel is very acute. A ton of work, trying several methods, it was ultimately done using the rounded end of a 4x36 bench belt sander using 60 and 80 grit media. Since my sections can be manipulated as a separate unit, I can take the work to the sander. A problem is that it is difficult to position a vac nozzle where it can pull in the ton of saw dust produced. I bet I still have drifts of Maple flour in the corners of my garage. I looked like a end of shift coal miner if the coal was blonde instead of black. Dean

I am referring to the grain pattern. If the obsession in play is trying to get wood that looks identical to real wood scaled down by a factor of 50 or more, dull and boring is good. Very few species come close to meeting that standard. I got bopped obliquely in a parallel thread, because I am a bit loose about what is acceptable quality for Black Cherry stock. I am comfortable with low contrast grain. I would not be happy with a burl plank or flame edge. I gave away to a woodworker, a 8" x 2" 8 foot board of what I later learned was Ambrosia Maple ( probably $100 retail ) , because the pattern was not appropriate to anything I would use. I would not plank with that. Some kit mfg seem to provide stock that is almost as bad. Black Cherry is a joy to work with in any instance. It would be a crime to paint it. But, while stock with "busy" grain or inclusions may not be selected for clear finish display, it works more than well enough to use and paint. I admit to being a heretic in that I have frame timbers in USS Porpoise 1836 (II) ( U.S. Ex. Ex.) that have inclusions and am not bothered by that.

I think that the method used to cut the veneer is an important factor. If it was rotary cut - a long blade and a BIG lathe, ( efficient and no waste to kerf ) the grain pattern is not natural and it wants to curl. If it is sliced off on a vertical or horizontal plane - a band saw, (they probably lost more to kerf than they got as wood if it is thin) different patterns can present. Those who use large veneer pieces are generally looking for characteristics that are the opposite of what we want. They want "figured" and "interesting" while we want dull and boring. You want to look at each piece and decide what you want to show. If it is to be painted, the grain pattern does not matter, just how much it wants to curl.

Gaetan, You are spot on about the difference in effort expended in sanding or cutting between Black Cherry and Hard Maple. Maple requires a lot of work. But, Buxus s. is significantly harder than Hard Maple. In light of the obsession with Boxwood, Buxus s. is about 1.5 times harder than Castelo, which is 1.25 times harder than Hard Maple. Depending on your focus, relative hardness has not been a determining factor. If no grain is the important characteristic, Chuck has the answer with Alaskan Yellow Cedar. It does not get much more reduced than that. I think Port Orford Cedar is similar. But it is not much easier to source than AYC. Out of necessity, I concede some grain. We are using wood after all. I am happy if the wood does not have open pores and the difference between Spring and Summer bands is moderate.. Oak, Ash, Hickory when scaled have pores large enough to be soup bowls @ 1:48 and most Walnut species are not much better. An interesting species is Bradford Pear. It is hard and has a bit of a waxy surface. But it grows fast and it is possible to get a surface for a frame that has 1 - 1.5 year's growth rings. It is a bear to cut with a chisel too. It was/is popular for municipal street planting, Attractive blooms, leaves, relatively compact, easy to care for, but for one characteristic = it branches a lot and the branches are at an acute angle. Their mechanical attachment to the main trunk becomes less as the branches increase in size over time. A powerful wind storm can split off most or all of them. It sort of looks like a peeled banana with just the peel. After a major storm, it is easy to get a serious supply.

To add to this: if you are a chainsaw harvester, even if you own a wood lot with Hard Maple or Black Cherry or Black Walnut, it is highly probable that it is better to buy the rough sawn and kiln dried product from a hardwood mill or dealer. Better to sell it to the industry and buy it back processed. Seasoning takes time and the wood may not play nice as it dries. The work of a lumber jack is more than a little dangerous and most of them do it full time and know what is hazardous as a matter of experience. For non commercially available species, this is about the only way, and if extreme care is taken , should work out OK. But if you can get it another way, it is very false economy to play lumber jack.

Gaetan, My evaluation of your list: Not good choices, because of obvious and out of scale grain and pores - Ash - all three Hickory Oak - both editorial comment: is really awful in how it looks in scale - hits you between the eyes. For framing Not good choices, because it is soft, blunt (not crisp) edges, fibers roll - Aspen - both ed. a trash wood put in service for economic reasons Basswood Maple, soft/ especially silver Poplar, balsam ed. a trash wood put in service for economic reasons Sycamore, American - "lacewood" I hate it. When I started with this I bought a large supply because of what Underhill wrote about Sycamore. Turns out - what the English know as Sycamore is actually a Maple that is a bit softer than Hard Maple, but close enough. The North American Sycamore ( Platanus occidentalis ) is different - it is similar to Black Cherry in hardness and looks close enough to Hard Maple in color to be difficult to isolate. The fibers roll, it fuzzes when sanded or cut, it stinks when cut. It has flecks in the grain - the "lace". From what is left. Elm, white - I do not know Elm, rock - I think I have some. I bought what I thought was Black Cherry from a picker who got it in an estate sale. it is very hard, not as unobtrusive in grain as I would wish, but acceptable. Dulls blades. Color is similar to aged Black Cherry Elm, red - got a "deal" for a couple of planks from a cabinet maker in Lexington, turns out - he shed it because it was too cupped to plane to a reasonable thickness. I do not need it in a 4 or 8 foot length, so I salvaged more processing shorter lengths. I advise giving cupped boards a pass if you can. The wood is similar to Black Cherry in hardness. Too much grain. Sassafras - way too much grain - got some with the Red Elm - the way the grain presents, I think it will make an interesting base board, especially if dyed blue or green - it looks like ocean waves. Beech, American - similar to Hard Maple except for a grain peculiarity - visible but not obvious "dashes" Beech, European - similar to Hard Maple - just a bit darker Birch, Yellow - similar to Hard Maple Yellow Poplar - Tulip Poplar ( Liriodendron tulipifera ) soft, easy to work, sharp edges, no visible pores, can get really large boards not expensive - the problem is the color - it is streaky - nice yellow to green to a color that reminds me of a treated pier piling. If you can select out the yellow, it is great. Black Cherry - Excellent - hard enough - has grain, but it is not obtrusive - it will oxidize to a darker color over time - similar to steamed Pear. it is softer than Pear I harvested some Sweet Cherry - the wood is near identical in grain and hardness, but the color is yellow green. Black Cherry has small inedible fruit, but Black Cherry syrup - pharmacy compounding - is made from the bark. If you want darker but beautiful frames, this wood is the champion. What you get from a lumber yard now will be light pink - color development takes time. Hard Maple - (sugar) about twice as hard as Black Cherry. The closest in a commercial domestic wood to Buxus. Not near as hard, but hard enough. Color is similar to Buxus, but more blonde than yellow. The Maple that I buy is plane cut. I like two inch unplanned. I slice off frame thickness boards for my thickness sander from this. Maple has peculiar grain characteristics. The plane cut surface has the normal faint oval pattern. A slice perpendicular to this can yield a variety of faint patterns. From the desired scale parallel layers, to flame, to tiger striped - it all depends on the distance from the pith. The flame and tiger on the face of a frame timber is certainly not scale, but it is not bluntly obvious. I think it adds interest. Hard Maple is strong, holds a crisp edge, is hard enough to keep your from getting into trouble when doing aggressive shaping. I think both Hard Maple and Black Cherry will serve your purposes excellently. I can get either for less than $10 bf - maybe half that for Cherry, but I sense that there is a covert inflation in play - from my increase in food costs. I mill my own wood and I find rough, unplanned stock provides more wood - even if it does not sit against a saw fence as sweetly as planned stock. If you like it, buy more than you think you will need. I remember getting already dark red, clear Black Cherry from Homer Gregory Mill for $1 bf way back when. Both the quality and cost are long gone.

I concur with the above -"you do not really want to this" advice. To quote Chris Rock: "sure you can do it, but that don't make it is a good idea." With such seeming ambition, you might consider further what Matrim suggested. Come over to the dark side and scratch build. Are there not close to home plans sources in Sweden and Denmark for locally significant vessels that have never been modeled or at least not done to death?

Mark, You are using this particular plywood because it plays nice with your laser ? Why not produce duplicates or triplicates of each mold and glue laminate them on the outboard side of each master? It will increase the strength and give a better land for the planking. The down side is more work rasping the bevel. Dean

There are a significant number of cultivars (varieties) of Buxus simpervirens. They range from low and wide to tall and thin. Complicating the subject for the US - a different species altogether = Buxus microphylla , is commonly used for garden purposes. Also, the variety of Buxus s. most common here in the original colony region, "English" boxwood, is not likely to serve our purposes. A shallow Web search returned a number of choices for cultivars. None seem to focus on selecting a variety with a tall straight trunk with few lower branches. This would be counter to what is wanted in a garden. There must have been reasons growing such a variety in southern Europe at one point and perhaps a lucky individual could still find a plant or two to harvest. I do not know the member data for this site, but I suspect that few of us would come close to still being alive when a Buxus s. of a desired variety, planted today was large enough for harvest. Calycophyllum multiflorum is not Buxus s. the Boxwood moniker applied to it is the product of advertising. It is not what the Old Boys used. While it is hard and yellow with indistinct grain and all but invisible pores, it seems to be a species that does not sustain a significant commercial demand. Although the social pressure to use the "hot" species is all but impossible to resist, it may be kinder to a budget to use a species that is domestic and commercial where you live. Or, if you have a chainsaw, a large band saw, and drying shed, you can obtain excellent wood on the hoof that is desirable but not commercial. Be advised that my direction for viewing this is larger scale (1:60) POF. The volume of wood used in framing timbers is a large one, especially for a two decker or larger. Adding to the pain = it seems like 50% winds up as saw dust.