Jaager

Might that depend on how long the plates had been kept after delivery from the rolling mill? Our "just in time" system is a very recent development. The mills were probably lower in rate of production, delivery time and weight per load, the inverse of now.

The photos of HMS Victory and USS Constitution in dry dock - the copper - did not seem to be dented like that in the photos here in previous threads about this subject. Did I miss that?

Do current builders use thinner copper?

The copper nails were not rivets. They were flattened near flush with the copper sheets. They would be all but not noticed below the extremely large scales.

Alder should work. A species near the plywood hardness makes shaping it more work to no real advantage. Going all the way inside the hull gives a base that is firm enough for one layer of planking - if two layers is the design. If the below the waterline hull is to be coppered, adding the plank thickness to the filler dimension and scabing that layer to the face of the molds (bulkheads) = no planking needed in the way of the copper. No - to using it as a deck underlayment. Trim the inside of the filler to be a bit thicker than the frames would be. They do not need faring - rough and staggered at that face is sufficient.

Your last photo - the masts' length - is it a matter of perspective that they look longer than a schooner would actually carry?

Pin pusher = a tool that looks like a good idea, but really does not work a expected. For the below, a small hammer and or a curved Kelly clamp (forceps/hemostat) Use a pin vise or rotary drill to make a hole for the pin that is smaller than the pin diameter. A hitch chock can be used to apply more force. Hitch chock = a small piece of scrap wood with a hole thru it sited just below the head of the pin to apply force to the plank surface. If you do not thru drill the pilot hole, the pin can be bent over the chock. You are left with filling the hole. Bamboo skewers - a single edge razor blade - a drill gauge for a draw plate or a real draw plate. Really tedious - the character of the bamboo species makes a difference in yield and how long it takes. The chock can be split off and the pin nipped and filed - if it is brass or copper wire. Fe pins will rust and disintegrate.

Jim, My evaluation of Yellow Poplar -Liriodendron tulipifera - a tree that grows fairly rapidly. very straight, large diameter trunk. tight grain, closed pore, at the soft end as far as density, easy on tools, holds a sharp edge. The color - yellow to grey to green tends to make it a problem in a visible clear finish situation, Interior and painted - excellent for most any part. I prefer harder species, but that is a personal bias. Planking - excellent - need to pick the pieces carefully if color is a factor. Black poplar - Lombardy poplar - Populus nigra - a whole nuther thing. The free grows straight, fast, dies young and a bad winter can be a disaster. The wood is very soft, fibers tend to roll, can be fuzzy, weak. More suited for making pallets. Can be used if the tools are very sharp and there is no stress. It will not be a joy to work. Planking - probably will dent easily, getting sharp edges = difficult, splitting will lead to a lot of waste.

Fixing a dowel or wood balk in lathe jaws and being able to turn a even - constant tapper - a nice dream. Reality and practicality drown that dream in mot instances. The spars are often too long for lathe models in our price range. In scales where they are short enough, their diameter = difficult to resist the lateral force of a cutting tool without breaking. Clamp an electric drill to turn the spar and use sandpaper to shape it. Amazon (and probably others) sell low cost ball bearings with a range of OD and ID sizes. A jig to hold the bearing is easy to make and wooden or cardboard wedges can support the outboard end of the spar with no friction heating up the spar piece as it turns.

Go back in your mind - to your past builds and envision the steps that took the most time or were repetitive. Then try to imagine a power tool that would speed that up. Then, start your next project and when you get to such a place, buy the tool that you think will help. By focusing on kits, your tool needs will be significant less than a scratch builder. A heavy and an expensive power tool investment is going self sufficient in your lumber. Full size cutting and milling (resawing). Scratch POF responds well to the appropriate tools. Scratch POB can get by with less. Unless you intend to fabricate your own new power tools, that require working steel or Al, two seductive tools that will not get enough use to justify their cost = a lathe and a mill. You are in a position to cut an individual path, should you wish to come over to the dark side = scratch POF. You have easier access to plans of vessels important to your region - Chapman and the Danish museum.

Access your available woodworkers suppliers. My go-to is WoodCraft - it is a close drive, and has an active Web sales site. The product that you want is hardwood veneer. A species of wood with tight grain and closed pore. In the US - the lower cost species = Black Cherry - Hard Maple. Take care in the choice. Most veneer is for the very characteristics that we need to avoid = high contrast and interesting grain. Many of the species are also open pore. When reduced by a factor or 50-100, the pores would be soup bowl size or shallow ditches. Factors that are desirable - natural, quarter sawn or plane sawn, no pre-glue backing, as thin as can be had. You will be adding a fixed additional thickness to the hull, so all planking- including the wale needs the treatment. If the veneer is too thick, the rail will not appear to extend out enough. If you fatten it, it will be too wide. If you copper the bottom - the thickness of the copper chosen may match the veneer and no planking needed under it. If it is not too late, consider not having the swimming body look like a smallpox survivor and use a smooth copper product - in place of an out of scale - too few anyway - embossed product. The veneer will require a heavy precise straight edge and a sharp knife - most of us seem to prefer a #11 style edge. Using a luthier's knife and a leather strop with gold or green compd - used frequently - will aid in developing better working habits.

Why not spill and build up from pieces? Bending thru the thick dimension is fighting against the nature of the wood. Dziadeczek, I am betting that the wood in question is kit supplied. African Walnut is probably relatively low cost and can be advertised a something special by kit mfg. Black Walnut ( Juglans nigra ) is in a class by itself. I would guess that although a reasonable cost and available here, it is probably neither in OZ. Queensland Walnut is native to OZ and may be superior to the African species - if Mark can mill it. All Walnuts share a problem for our purposes - open pore and some have grain that scales poorly.

It depends on the tools available to you. If you can mill, a visit to your local HomeDepot or hardware store can supply you with a best quality framing 2 x 4. They will crosscut - 2 ft for me. One should cover more than one POB. Some times Fir or Pine - just choose clear, and low sap. Easy on a saw blade or cutting edges but holds an edge.

If turning spars is your goal, a generic corded electric drill and a speed control - not sure a dimmer switch will work, but low cost if it does. If you can set a remote ON a maintain the internal speed control setting, no additional switch is needed. Even 1/2 inch drills are significantly less expensive. For this, a lathe is a sledge to kill a fly.

To essay as to why this search may be a dry hole The two "POF" schooner kits - Are not what an actual POF hull would be. They appear to be at best 1/3 room and 2/3 space. Almost a cartoon, if the frames are left unplanked. The Hahn method - a modeler's convention - not a reproduction of actual hull framing is 1/2 room and 1/2 space. The actual framing - from the early 18th century until 1860 was individual to the ship and country of origin. An average - would be closer to 2/3 room and 1/3 space. The other extreme - with some Continental frigates - all room except for all but invisible air circulation gaps. Framing these as built and showing the frames - it would be essentially a solid vertical wall - not visually interesting at all. Leaving out every other bend - a more interesting hull. Since this is Hahn's period of interest, perhaps this is a source for his style. It is my experience that a true POF hull - either done using a modeler's convention style e.g. Hahn/ Navy Board or actually mimicking the the actual vessel would be difficult to mass produce. It is labor intensive, No two parts are identical. Current methods - especially Hahn or Navy Board - have a high waste factor in timber wood stock - almost profligate. And the wood species needed for the timbers can be expensive. In actual practice, a first rate almost required a forest to frame. In England, the first real one was so expensive, the tax revolt was a tipping point for a major change in governance. The requirements for timber stock for a model in the larger scale range almost feels as significant. With the methods in current use, about the only short cut is to start with a set of plans or monograph with the individual frames already lofted.

Lacquer has its own thinner. The irritant factor of the traditional version is fierce - you will want to be breathing a different air supply. The more recent "green" version is not an improvement in that regard. Lacquer can be wiped on, but it is high gloss and builds thick layers. Poly - polyurethane - is a plastic. Works great to finish and protect a wooden floor. Both tend to produce a thick, high gloss finish. Great for a toy-like finish - if that is what you want. I think a convenient factor with wipe-on poly - water is the solvent. Shellac is a wipe on finish. The depth and gloss can be controlled. Shellac tinned 1:1 is an excellent primer coat. About anything else can be used over it. Shellac uses alcohol - methanol or isopropanol 100% - or ethanol that has no water- Shellac likes water - it likes it so much, that it turns white to show its joy. Shellac and boiled linseed oil is traditional vanish. A shellac pad with a bit of linseed oil is French polish. Pure Tung oil can be wiped on, thinned, 1:1 it is a primer coat, or done over Shellac, as many layer as you care to apply, but can take time to dry/polymerize. Tung oil uses mineral spirits as a solvent. Sutherland Wells sells a "cooked" Tung oil is several grades - pre polymerized - fewer layers - faster drying - gloss level a choice. Renaissance Wax can be used over Shellac or Tung oil.

If you want to riff a bit, AAMM sells a monograph. Just one sheet, but also photos of a contemporary museum model. Amiral Paris included it in Souveniers de Marine, but there is not as much information there as there might have been, since I think Paris was part of the ship's crew on the Antarctic voyage. i

Quarter sawn Maple veneer - A good steel ruler with a tapered edge and a sharp luthiers knife - with practice = scale planking. WoodCraft if you have no alternate vendors. As Dziadeczek says get the finish off and down to raw wood. Go easy on the calking seam simulation and consider a Walnut shade rather than black. Subtle, rather than smacking a viewer between the eyes might be worth considering. A glossy finish on the deck of a working schooner would be death to work on - often wet and almost always moving. Shellac is an alternate finish - 1/2 strength for first coat. If it is too shiny, 0000 steel wool can knock that down. Shellac also meets Oddball's Credo.

It is likely that it is heat and not water that allows lignin bonds to reset. Water plus heat produce steam, which is more efficient in heat transfer than dry heat - seasoned wood has air spaces - insulation like.

Bruce, It looks like you have beautiful, clear stock. It does not get much better than Holly. Fortune turned her smile onto you there. I don't know what your building material is over there, but here, the most common construction lumber is 2"x4" x 8' Pine or Fir. It is not expensive as far as wood goes. If you can mill it, it works well as fill stock between the moulds. Do an inside curve, rather than solid to the "keel centerline piece" to save wood and weight. It can be a several lamination. If an additional throw away layer that is the thickness of the plywood moulds is added, two adjacent mould patterns layered in a drawing program with locator guides added - bamboo skewers - straight from the package make good dowels - if you have a drill bit that diameter and a drill press to make sure the holes are perpendicular. Only need to manipulate the pattern for one side - flip horizontal is a big time saver and assures lateral symmetry. Most of the scroll cutting,, layer assembly, shaping to near final curves - done off the hull. - paper or cardboard shims if there is play between the moulds. Do this all the way and it is like having a solid hull. One layer of planking is enough. The planks have about as good a glue support as possible.

I guess I must be missing something about double planking a series of POB moulds. The outer layer is done in a way that covers whatever is under it? Unless the hull is intended to actually float ( and POB is a poor choice for this) why bother with a filler for the first layer? It will not be seen anyway if longitudinal gaps between planks is what is being "fixed". If the run has hollows, a wooden scab is probably a better fix. Bruce, Have you milled your Holly logs yet? If you did not immediately get the logs into a kiln, unless Blue Mold is restricted to this side of the Pond, it is likely to have invaded your lumber. If so, the bad news is that the wood will not be white, rather grey or light blue. The good news, the integrity of the wood is not compromised. It is just as hard, bends just as well - really an excellent species for our needs. It accepts aniline dyes well. The fungus does not affect that - except for the final shade.. I am thinking that infected Holly may yield a more realistic deck than a marquetry white stock.

I have one I really really don't like it. (Actually two - I inherited one from my father.) My Jarmac is sort of pitiful too. Neither is in the same galaxy as a Byrnes table saw. Way under powered, your photo of the motor really brings that home. Feels - cheesy, lots of play - It needs fixing to a sturdy base. The open back can be covered with a plate of cardboard or hardboard with a hole and connector for a shop vac hose A spacer at each bottom corner between the bottom of the unit and a base may provide better air circulation. The fence is long enough that a clamp might be fixed to the back to better lock the position - once you adjust it parallel to the blade. Gonna want to affirm that it is parallel with each movement. The OEM gauge is not all that great. There are 3rd party miter gauges - just not many that are cost effective. You can make a sliding table - definitely worth the effort. With something like this: STEELWORKS BOLTMASTER 11285 Flat Aluminium Bar, 1/8 x 1/2 x 36" A tempered hardboard base a top edge and bottom edge piece of wood 1/2" by 1.5" full width - to keep the slit base as a single unit. A belt and suspenders level of attachment - ( glue and screws/dowels ) = hardboard can debond from itself. a piece of Pine perpendicular to the above outside the bottom support - to cover the blade as it comes thru. -to keep from crosscutting your fingers or hand. I am not sure that the tilting blade feature is not a solution in search of a need. Having to re tune the blade back to 90 degrees every time does make it more trouble than it is worth. I advise against being too hopeful in how thick of a billet this saw can rip or crosscut.

Which component is this intended to be used for? It is too thin for frame timbers - except for miniature scales. In which case - not safe even if flattened. Deck planks - not safe. By not safe - what I mean is that the wood is showing where it wants to go. Even if you flatten it, it will "want" to go back to this shape. Hull planking - already a good start for conforming to frame contours - it may prove to be a challenge to rip if it can't be pushed flat as is. If you still wish to flatten, rather than a water soak, try steam. A steam iron or hand steam generator clearer and a lot of weight.

There are some available directly from Chinese vendors at Aliexpress. The shipping can be reasonable if you are willing to wait for the mule train to walk across the the bottom of the Pacific. Years ago, I bought one from MM and fixed it to the base of my EuroTool DRL 300 drill press. Needed a couple of holes drilled in the base. Does what it is supposed to do.

The 1992 article is on a CD for sale on the NRG store page.