Jaager

Which edge of the plan has the bow? If it is at the right - you are seeing the starboard side. Most plans are oriented this way - my guess: most draftsmen are right handed - thus the bias. I would go with there being left:right symmetry - including the fittings such as cleats. The mast hoops are for the large sail oriented along the midline of the vessel. Some are 4 sided - with a spar at the top edge. Some are 3 sided - with a line holding up the top. In any case, the sail is raised and lowered like an upside down Venetian blind. So that it does not flap and spill the wind, an edge the of sail needs to be fixed to the mast. It must also be able to go up and down easily. This is done using the hoops. Depending on design, they either slide on the lower mast itself, or a thinner mast mounted just behind and parallel to the Main mast - if the Main mast assembly is too complicated to allow something to slide on it easily. In your case, twelve hoops are lashed to the front edge of the sail at equally spaced intervals. If you do not intend to mount sails, the hoops would be in a stack at the bottom of the mast.

If you use Tadeusz method - each layer could be made from two pieces using the join seam as the centerline. One point - I think the USN requirements for submission to their museum include a solid hull be hollowed out - more shell than solid apparently. I think the take home message is that for them to require this - they probably experienced stability problems with hulls that were totally solid. Made up of two pieces - except for the lowest layer - the inside could be cut out before the join. In the situation that Mark addresses - try this: At the level of the shear line at the bow and stern - mark the point that you determine is the exact center. Drill a small hole. Into each hole - push in a cut off large (carpet) eyelet needle - the eyelet close to the surface and centered, Use mono filament line pulled tight. tape it down along the way to keep it from lateral movement and score the line with a #11 - then ink it or 6B pencil lead. hould work for keel line and deck line.

Trunnels were not one diameter. Many of the existing Tables of Scantlings and individual building contracts specify trunnel, bolt and spike size - which varied with plank thickness or other variables. Pencil lead sounds like a poor choice to me. It is very brittle - has no strength - and is probably impervious to most any bonding agent - graphite is used as a lubricant. The method I use is bamboo - skewers available in grocery stores in several lengths - Use a single edge razor blade to split. I use drill gauges to size General 15 General 13 Use sand paper to grip - either with plyers or fingers. It is one of the more tedious and monotonous processes to do. I use actual dowels instead of simulations, because way back when I started, one or more of the godfathers of this craft advocated dual attachment where possible - glue and a dowel - ( It was either ; Underhill, or Longridge, or Davis - probably Underhill) An actual draw plate is intended for use with wire, not wood or in the case of bamboo, grass. But with a proper draw plate and a short large diameter wire, you can get just about any wire diameter yu need and the wire gets a lot longer as you go. Ductility is one of the defining characteristics of a metal.

I did a little on-line investigation - one source called it more like caulk than glue. It was pointed out that if UV can't get to it, it will not undergo the necessary chemical reaction. I think it is more of a surface tack weld than a glue. It might work to hold two pieces in a location so that PVA glue can set up - when the pieces are where physical clamping is not possible, but can the UV material then be removed easily and leave no trace?

Although it is 1805, Steel has a Table of Particulars for seven types of ship's boats. These dimensions were probably used directly or as a foundation to work from for a long time after - just as they were probably the result of at least a century of prior experience. They are reproduced in Scantlings of Royal Navy Ships - Yedlinsky,A. - Sea Watch Books. The Boats of Men-of-War - May,W.E. - Naval Institute Press

Nick, About building your own sander: there is no way any motor on any Dremel can provide the power needed. Way back when, making your own was the only way to have one. There was a set of plans, sold thru NRG (I think) (I can't find them now). Essentially, ~ 1/2 HP motor - in a box - the top is at an angle to support the sanding table- piano hinged at back - two pulley wheels and a fan belt - two BB pillow blocks - steel rod 1/4 - 1/2" - and a drum mounted on the rod to hold the sanding media. The variables - motor speed - too fast and it burns rather than cuts the wood. Too slow ... takes too long. Pulley wheel diameters can have some effect - a smaller motor wheel trades speed for power. Something in the 1500 RPM range for the motor. What is the drum? - I had Hard Maple fixed to the rod and a Pro turned it for me - Size? - sand paper here was 8.5 x 11 inches - so the drum is 11" long and 8.5" circumference. The table needs to be stable - no warping - it needs to meet the drum precisely. I have a threaded rod holding up the far end and it determines the gap between the table and drum. This machine produces a LOT of dust. I made a box with a mount for a 2.5 inch vac hose to fit over the top. 3 layers on Amazon box cardboard glue laminated together with TiteBond - enforced in the corners with 1/4 x 1/4 inch sticks and covered with duct tape - almost no cost - just the hose mount - works fine. How to hold the sanding medium --- I use Weldwood Contact Cement - coat both surfaces - a heat gun will allow fairly easy removal when the medium is spent and Naptha will clean the drum. What would I do differently? Make the drum 12 inches long - So that I can mount 4 inch cloth backed sanding - 3 of them different grits - I have to trim off an inch from one of them now. When the drum is turned - have a " V " groove routed along the length - having it able to fit a metal clamp that clears the table is good - at any rate, you do not want the raw end of the medium to meet the piece of wood that you are sanding - it will strip the medium off. I would give the motor better venting and air flow. I would try to find a metal table instead of 3/4" ply with angle Al fixed to each edge. The point of this? If you do this up to the necessary spec, the cost is probably not going to be much less than a Byrnes unit would cost. It will cost you time as well as parts, The same time spent as OT at your day job, using it to buy a ready built, may be a more economical path.

This there not an Amazon presence in the UK?

POB is not my method of choice, but the face of the "bulkhead" nearest the center is the dimension for the plank. What you get is a square bulkhead with after or fore material being in the way of the plank laying properly. You can shave away a lot and leave a knife edge. This gives you very little surface to attach the planks. You can try to fair what you shave away to follow the curve of the hull. This gives you the width of the ply to support the planking. A difficulty here is that distance between the bulkheads and the wide gap makes it difficult. Here is an alternative: go to a hobby site and order a good supply of Basswood sheets - they seem to come in 1/32" - 1/16" - 3/32" - 1/8" - 3/16" - 1/4" - 3" wide or so x 2 feet. Fill the gap between the bulkheads with a sandwich of Basswood layers - shim any gap. The wood does not need to fill the space all the way to the keel. Cut the rough shape with a hand fretsaw if you do not have a power toll to do it. Basswood is not a chore to cut. There is Balsa available is like supply, but it is TOO soft to be reliable. Plane, shave, file, chisel, sand - to get a fair hull - what you get is essentially a solid - and depending on the inside dimension of the the sandwich, a hollow hull. You get a good surface for your planking, solid enough that you only need apply one layer of planking - or if you copper the bottom - no planking at all there - just add the plank thickness to the bulkhead dimensions. For sanding blocks - A cork block - I band sawed off a 1 inch slice and cut that into curves pieces. Yoga stuff - easy to cut to any curve - rubber cement should hold the sand paper. I swear I saw this recommended here some time ago.

I have been happy so far with what is a Euro Tool DRL-300. I have only used it with twist drills. Actually, the X/Y table I drilled the base to mount costs more. I am not sure that the table will be all that useful - I site my holes using patterns and I am guessing that the drill bearings are not engineered to withstand much lateral force if it is used as a milling machine. Light cuts with a sharp bit might not apply that much stress. One useful aspect of the table is that it plus a 3/4" Birch ply layer fixed to it and another 3/4 piece lose on top take the over drill, puts the work at a good height. The DRL-300 seems to be widely available - in generic versions in a $55-85 US price range.

Mike, I was working off your saying that you would find a 3rd party with a real bandsaw. Your bench top saw is not up to the task, is my thinking. I guess you could find some species of wood tougher than Boxwood, but not many. Check the Net for a woodworking club or such in your town. See if there is a member with a 14" saw who will help you. In a reverse situation, I would want the person making the request to supply the blade and leave it with me when done. You would need to find out the size blade that their saw uses. I am very partial to the Wood Slicer Resaw Blade. For ripping seasoned wood - especially like Boxwood - it is as about as good as it gets. It is thin, sharpe, almost no set to the teeth and 1/2" is wide enough. I don't think a wider blade reduces blade wandering, it just costs more. I am guessing that the import hassles make it an impractical choice for you. From what I have determined, I think the blade that Highland uses is an import from France, so whatever the Wood Slicer really is may be available in the EU under a different name. A bladed planer is a wood waste expensive way to true up a board. To keep from losing too much stock, you would need to fix the Boxwood to carrier - similar to what a bandsaw would need - two problems here are keeping whatever you use to mount the stock away from the planer blade and would the addition of the carrier make the result too thick for the planer. If you use a sanding planer - the throat opening and max stock thickness will likely be a problem. 2 inches is already too thick for my thickness planer to take.

Mike, About the Boxwood. 24 inches is nice, but longer than you need if you are 1:48 or smaller scale. If it were twisted, there usually is a place along the length where a cross cut gives you two reasonably flat pieces. To square it up - a bandsaw - fix the Boxwood to a flat board with a straight edge to ride against the fence. I use drywall screws and right angle framing braces - small round head screws will hold the brace to the carrier board. Aline the Boxwood so that the overhang at the outer edge of the carrier board will get you a straight face losing the least amount of wood. One true face. Turn the Boxwood so that the face you cut is down. The wood will be easier to fix to the carrier since it will not want to rock now. Get a right angle true face with the new overhang. With two straight flat faces at a right angle, you are set to cut it with just the table and fence. The poser will be figuring out how thick to make the stock slices. As I said, 2 feet is a bit long and awkward but certainly doable. The Byrnes saw will take 15/16" thick stock, but Boxwood is fiercely hard. Jim has a big motor on the saw, but Boxwood is tough work that thick. I would figure out the max thickness lumber I need and use the bandsaw to give me slices near that thickness - with enough extra to sacrifice to the planer to get 220 smooth on both sides. Getting at least one edge 90 degree true and straight is pretty much vital also. My condolences about how much of this rare wood you will lose to waste and kerf to get usable stock.

I just had a thought - if you are limited in funds, you might could get a table saw to double as a disc sander. You could try using as saw blade blank or a worn out diamond blade - as thick as can be gotten and use contact cement to attach sand paper to one face. By using a near zero clearance insert you can have a closer tolerance between the table and the disc than most disc sanders. You want some gap for the wood flour. The paper is easy to remove using a heat gun and both Lowes and Home Depot have 10X paper that stands up pretty well. I grant that it is not as convenient as a stand alone sander, but it could get you the function at minimal extra cost.

Mostly theory on my part. Beginning with old school/traditional : I have more Pau marfim than I realized - and it is good that I got it while it was available, but most any reasonably hard straight grained species should do. When I first started, Yellow Pine was a suggested species, the thing is, Yellow Pine could be one of several species of pine. I asked my grandfather for some ( he was home builder ) and what he gave me was a plank of what might be an all but extinct species of pine with distinct grain that is fairly wide and the summer wood is really hard. There was a species of pine that was widely used before WWII - very hard - too popular and all but lumbered to extinction. What I have may be that - turned up, it looks like a made mast. Now, Birch is great, but the machines that punch out the dowels, do not place a high priority on being dead on with the grain, so starting with a plank is better. In working with it, I think Hard Maple is a good choice. It takes more work, but I am partial to species that are hard. In Texas, you may be able to find a Yellow Pine that is straight and hard. I think that what is used for framing lumber is not going to be useful. The flooring stock may be useful.

There is a problem with using a dowel as starting stock: it is hit or miss with the grain being straight, luck mostly. Over time, the wood will seek equilibrium. If the grain is not dead straight, the dowel will bend. The way to avoid this - split out mast and yard stock from a board of a species of wood with straight grain and plane it down to shape the mast. A lot of basic books on ship model construction have instructions for doing this. If you are not intending to immerse yourself in this ship modelling endeavor, you can cut a square tenon for the mast heel - close enough is good enough to start - you can always file away, or glue a scab when doing the final mast mount. As for cutting the tenon, micro saws, small back saws, needle files , Xacto blade chisels, or if you want to invest: palm chisels will do the job. When I started, I knew nothing about wood working or the tools involved. This is a way to learn. One factor to consider at this point: The farther down in the hull is the heel of the mast, the less profound will be the effect of mast wedge adjustments at the deck level when doing the final positioning of the mast. You will have more room for play.

Pure theory here: Make sure there is no play with the ways and the cross slide. If it was a quality machine when new and has been well maintained, it is likely better than most units now being made. Make sure it has standard specs for attachments like 3-jaw and 4-jaw chucks and collet chucks and Jacobs chucks and live centers. If it was a popular unit, there may be 3rd party sources for replacement motors - I am fortunate that Unimat does. The max length you can mount is something to consider. A straight up lathe is great for making other tools. For this purpose, it is pretty much irreplaceable. If it is not convertible to a milling machine, the functions it can perform in wooden ship construction are not as many as a lot of other machines - masts, yards, cannon barrels, barrel barrels, windlass drums, wheels, capstans, mostly. It is not even vital for these, as there are other ways to get there.

You may be giving this more attention than it warrants. I take it that this is a fully planked hull with the keelson essentially not really visible? Saying keel notch - this is POB with no keelson at all? In POF there would be a mast step on top of the keelson - or assembly of sister keelsons - depending on ship size and how serious they were in resisting hogging. Most mast heel tenons were square it seems. The mortise in the mast step would be square. I can see where an octagonal tenon and mortise would be easier to allow side rake adjustments. Your kit is not designed for this level of detail. You imply that you are going to use the dowel that comes with the kit to make the mast. If you were shaping the mast from split out straight grain stock, I could see maybe paying attention to what a hidden mast heel tenon might be. In your situation, centering a hole in the heel and mounting a cut off 6 P or 8 P nail with the point out should be sufficient. Just making a hole in the plywood center spine to receive the nail point may not be a stable support. You can use a solid piece of wood on top of the keel spine to receive the nail. Getting it square to the edge of the plywood is difficult , is too narrow and is not stable. Make the mast step at least 3xs wider than the keel spine. Either cut a mortise in a thicker step to slip over the spine or glue lateral supports on either side of the spine. You will need to adjust the mast length to compensate for this assembly. Either cut off a bit of the dowel, or notch the mast step assembly down into the keel spine.

I like a sanding table. I had no interest in the oscillating function so I built my own around a Fasco D226. I prefer using readily available sheet sandpaper so I use sleeveless sanding drums. More choices for grit. Less expensive. The drums weight less than the hard rubber sleeve drums and I find that sleeve drums can get out of line when tightened to hold the sleeves. I added a fence to turn it into an edger/shaper . I have a 3" sleeve sanding drum, but it was out of round when tightened and vibrated the motor because of it weight. And, 1/20 HP motor will not allow for aggressive wood removal. For inside curves, the smallest drum I have is 3/4" - so the keelson area requires hand tool work. The sanding table is also great for outside curves and I like sanding with the grain. The table is OK for sanding to the line on the max outside lines, but freehand seems to work better for outside bevels and inside everything. It also allows use of the whole 3 inch face of the drum. I use mostly 220 grit paper so not too much can go at once. Unlike a disc sander or sanding belt, it will try the throw the piece if it can. The impediment to this is that the D226 has a CW 5/16 shaft. CW is good - I am right handed. Mating a 5/16 " motor shaft to a drum with a 1/4" shaft requires custom metal work. I have a lathe - Unimat SL1000 - so it was not difficult to use pieces of 1/2" cold rolled steel bar - most any hardware store has it - as well as the set screws and taps - to bore a 5/16" hole in one end and either a 1/4" hole (or 3/8" hole for the smaller drums) or turn a 1/4" shaft on the other end. (Some of the drums have a removable 1/4" shaft.) Turning and boring steel is messy to clean up - you can't ignore the kerf - and it takes a while - tungsten carbide twist drills seem to hold up well for boring. Being able to adapt a 1/4" / 3/8" / 5/16" / or 1/8" shaft to the motor shaft opens the table up to being able to use other attachments - for me so far - Microplane shapers and carbide cutting burrs - the finest grit is more than enough- for removing bulk stock when there is a lot of bevel.

My guess is: filler top . In any case, what you show is a nightmare. Tapered timbers - shifted timbers. re-enforces my preference for planking everything from the main wale on up. In which case, it is easier and makes for a more stable hull to fill the spaces above the main wale with timbers.

Rather than settling for Denken Experimenten ( thought experiment ) do the real thing. Basswood is available for low cost. Joann, Michaels, even Walmart seems to have sheets in several thicknesses, so if the experiment fails, you will only be out of some time, time that will have increased your skills at worst. Use the 3rd party stock. I know one and done is appealing, but if you get into scratch building, you will wind up having to redo a lot. The redo time will be less than the time taken by the nagging memory that continues to occur if you do something wrong and let it go. Another suggestion: place your simulated deck beams on either side of the moulds/bulkheads. No play when you assemble it on the hull and you do not need to be precise in how much of the center spine you cut away. It just needs to be enough to clear your beams.

Maybe you should start low tech = The middle one works best for me. The wood is usually thin enough that hand drilling goes quickly. You need bits: This one is convenient. When you break a bit, replacements come per gauge - usually in packs of 6-10. If you know the gauge for the brass nail, having backups is good. This is a handy tool = This one along with this: I use as my draw plates to make trunnels from bamboo skewers - end caps in most grocery stores.

Chuck, I suspect a lot of your problem is the species of wood. Walnut - even Black Walnut - Juglans nigra - which I serious doubt is the species you have is open pore - and the species used in Europe ( European/African sourced) look even more open grain and brittle. You may consider using another species of wood. There are vendors here who can supply veneer that will play nice. You can dye a light colored wood if Walnut is the shade you want. You an get wider pieces and do a proper job of spilling ( der. "spoilling" - it means cutting away a lot of perfectly good wood to get a plank it fit the hull curves properly. If nothing else - and you are local - Woodcraft - has veneer - you want the sort that is not expensive anyway - the high cost burl/figured material are the characteristics that you do not want - they do not translate well in the 1:50- 1:100 scale range. Checking their catalog - the following are examples of what you may consider: Cherry Veneer 3 sq ft pack 9.99, 12 sq ft pack 21.50 Beech Veneer 3 sq ft pack 10.99 Maple Veneer 3 sq ft pack 10.19 , 12 sq ft pack 20.99 Maple and Beech will dye darker - so will Cherry, but why guild a lilly?

If it is intended to adhere to glass,then poly will provide a plastic surface that is about as close to glass as can be had. You probably want to give the surface a good rubdown wit 0000 steel wool, before, between and after each coat. Vacuum and tack rag the dust and steel fragments throughly after each treatment. Any steel left can rust and stain. 600 grit Silicon carbide paper may be a good alternative to steel wool.

Having had bond failure between Weldwood contact cement and flame treated copper plates - a method in the 1970's Model Shipways catalog - investigate the best conditions for bonding with your chosen adhesive and use that to determine what treatment to give the hull. It has been a very long time since I saw the brig Eagle hull, but as I remember, the cement under the failed plates was copper colored, making it difficult to tell they were missing. I suspect the heating process produced a micro layer of a copper oxide that was not compatible with Weldwood. I also use it to attach cloth backed sanding medium to the platten of my thickness sander. A heat gun makes for easy removal of the spent sanding medium. I suspect that Weldwood is medium time frame adhesive. My present thinking on coppering is to use a high quality archival smooth surface paper painted with copper and verdigris shades and use PVA to attach it to a raw wood hull.

My first thought was snarky- especially for the English shipwrights: Why do a simple butt joint when you can do a scarph? Then thinking about it - the structure is subject to constant motion and stress in all 4 dimensions - though the effect of Time is much more gradual. A straight butt joint would be difficult to fasten in a way that was not subject to early failure. Quick research answer: Not a butt joint or a scarph - a third element : a lateral knee was worked in. It spanned about 1/2 the width of the rail timbers, each arm would be long enough to support a couple of horizontal trunnels into each rail segment and the inner surface would be an arc rather than an abrupt meeting of two planes.

For ways and static surfaces, I am now using Renaissance Wax. For the threads and general lubrication, I used to use light machine oil. I had a quart from Sears that I used up. I could find nothing like it on line. I guess I do not know the correct name for it, I use mineral oil from the laxative section of a pharmacy for lubrication now. No problems so far. Used to be light and heavy Mineral oil available, now all I find is plain mineral oil. Using a Scotch Brite Pad with WD40 works a champ to remove rust before rubbing down with the wax.