Jaager

A mask is still pretty much a necessity.  The cloud of fine particles is impressive.  You still want a shop vac sucking up the dust.  At least in a garden, the vac will not make you deaf.
I think that the sweet spot is ~1700 RPM for the drum.  Faster will probably char and slower will make an already tedious operation last much longer.  It would probably take  a motor of 1/2 HP or greater to avoid it getting hot.

I have a Vanda-Lay Dremel-powered drill press. Vanda-Lay makes some interesting tools and their quality is probably second only to Jim Byrnes' Model Machines tools. That said, there is no question that the Byrnes thickness sander is the better tool and the better buy, as well. I see from checking Jim's website that they are not taking orders for machines at the moment because they took time off for summer vacation, but will be back shipping machines in mid-August. I suppose this is why they don't have the prices for the machines listed on their website at the moment! As I recall, the Byrnes sander is about the same, or even less money than the Vanda-Lay thickness sander with the motor. I have to say, owning a Byrnes thickness sander, that it is the "better buy," even if it costs a bit more than the Vanda-Lay. 
 
These sanders require some power to work effectively. I don't doubt that you can power one with a hand drill motor as Vanda-Lay suggests and a few have noted above, but I would think that would put some serious power demands on a hand drill motor, particularly if you are using it for a prolonged period. I also don't think there are any hand drill motors that put out anything like the RPMs that either the Byrnes motor or the power tool motor Vanda-Lay sells for somewhere around $300 do.
 
The fact that the Byrnes' integral motor takes up far less bench space than the Vanda-Lay, regardless of how the Vanda-Lay is powered, is no small consideration, not to mention that the integral motor on the Byrnes machine is far more "elegant" than the cobbled-together power options for the Vanda-Lay.
 
There are two big differences that put the Byrnes head and shoulders over the Vanda-Lay. The first, but not the greatest, difference is that the Byrnes is exceptionally accurate and is easier to adjust. It has an indexed adjustment knob that allow adjustments in increments of .002". The Vanda-Lay may be just as accurate but I expect it is more fiddily to set. The second, and biggest... huge... difference in the two machines is that the Vanda-Lay has a three-inch wide drum. It will only sand wood three inches wide or less. The Byrnes machine has a six-inch wide drum! The Byrnes sander will handle twice the width capacity of the Vanda-Lay and the Byrnes offers the option of loading its six inch wide drum with two different grits of abrasive sheet, each three inches wide, on the six inch drum. This allows you to use half of the drum for coarser sanding and the other for finer sanding, should you desire to do so.
 
So, for the same price, all else considered, the Byrnes is twice the machine in my estimation.  
 
I realize that price is often a serious issue for all of us. All I can say in that regard here is that the difference in price isn't much to get twice the machine in the Byrnes. It can't be said enough that the cheapest tool in the end is often the most expensive one. You could buy any one of the Byrnes Model Machines, use it for ten years, and if you didn't beat it up, probably sell it easily for half or two thirds of what you paid for it. Not so with the Vanda-Lay. If it's a difference of even a couple of hundred bucks, how long will it really take for you to forget the "pain" of that? These days, where I live, at least, that's maybe three half-way decent dinners out with the Missus. If you get the Byrnes, you won't be sorry.
 
 
 

Excellent advice from Allan. If you can afford it, the Byrnes unit is the way to go.

It looks similar to the Jim Byrnes sander.   I cannot speak for the Vanda Lay unit but my Byrnes unit is about 15 years old and runs like the day I bought it.  Thousands of board feet of wood have gone through it.  It is a bit more compact than the Vanda Lay unit with the motor built into the frame. No matter which unit you choose, DO NOT use it without a vacuum hose attached. If you do not have a shop vacuum set up, portable or otherwise, you will need one.  The amount of fine power sawdust created is immense and will cover everything, including you.    Wear a mask!!!!!  
 
Allan

I think that Desmond describes a different species of wooden ships.   The 1850s were the end of a long era of guild style shipwrights.  It seems like there is a wall not too much later.  The main stream changed to composite and then iron and steel.   The generation to generation chain of passing of knowledge about wooden ship building was probably broken - except for minor and independent yards.  The old lofting methods replaced with a translation of iron and steel lofting over to wood.  The lofting of every frame was a new practice - taken from metal methods - metal is not open to variation on the fly. 
The all bends with intervening spaces equal to the bends in width was new.  I would not trust Desmond to be relevant to any ship built before 1900 or so.

I think that Desmond describes a different species of wooden ships.   The 1850s were the end of a long era of guild style shipwrights.  It seems like there is a wall not too much later.  The main stream changed to composite and then iron and steel.   The generation to generation chain of passing of knowledge about wooden ship building was probably broken - except for minor and independent yards.  The old lofting methods replaced with a translation of iron and steel lofting over to wood.  The lofting of every frame was a new practice - taken from metal methods - metal is not open to variation on the fly. 
The all bends with intervening spaces equal to the bends in width was new.  I would not trust Desmond to be relevant to any ship built before 1900 or so.

I had an extra deep basement dug in July during a drought.  It was stopped when limestone shale was hit in one corner.   In the Bluegrass region of KY, the underlying rock is an an ancient sea floor and just as flat.  It is a giant swimming pool.  Turns out that for six months of the year, the water table was well above the floor of my basement.   I became quite experienced with sump pumps, pipe flow volumes.  It seems that constant pumping generates favored flow channels.  The more you pump the more likely is ground water  going to flow towards the pump.  Larger volume pumps, larger diameter discharge pipes - where to place the outlet?  a viscous cycle!   Then there is the problem of electric power interruption during storms that are recharging the ground water.  A generator.   A normal home generator has a gas tank with limited time.  An ice storm that crushed a lot of KY and had long transmission lines in Alabama snapped off like a row of dominoes and drawing off the repair crews from KY is going to require more time than you have gas for.    I feel your nightmare.  I do not miss living it.   A wish for a basement decision do-over is something that I will take to my grave. 

from
American-Built Packets and Freighters of the 1850s
Wm Crothers
MacFarland & Co.  2013
 

from
American-Built Packets and Freighters of the 1850s
Wm Crothers
MacFarland & Co.  2013
 

If you have a scroll saw, a bandsaw,  or a hand frat saw,  and a disk sander  a near infinite variety  of sanding block shapes and sizes can be freed from a cork yoga block.  They are sorta large and cost ~$20.  The sanding media can be attached using rubber cement or even with staples. 

It comes down to your objective in building your model.
 
If your goal is to produce a model that is as historically accurate as is reasonable, forgo any embossing or dimpling of the copper plates.
Way more nails were used than any punch tool will produce.
The nails were hammered flush.  They are difficult to see even on the existing 1:1 reproductions or the few survivors whose currently done copper plates are a joke when compared to the practice of 200 years ago. 
A model would have to be larger than 1:48 for visual evidence of how the plates were attached to be valid.
Any plates made of actual copper will be over scale thickness on 1:48 or smaller.  Think painted paper instead.
 
 

For a water rinse, if your supply is hard water, it may be wise to use distilled water.

For a water rinse, if your supply is hard water, it may be wise to use distilled water.

Would a clamping jig on a sliding table and a gang of slitting blades to make a dado be an easier solution?

For a water rinse, if your supply is hard water, it may be wise to use distilled water.

Would a clamping jig on a sliding table and a gang of slitting blades to make a dado be an easier solution?

Then there was the diet pills that contained live tape worm segments.  Well, they did work.
 

If you have a scroll saw, a bandsaw,  or a hand frat saw,  and a disk sander  a near infinite variety  of sanding block shapes and sizes can be freed from a cork yoga block.  They are sorta large and cost ~$20.  The sanding media can be attached using rubber cement or even with staples. 

I had an extra deep basement dug in July during a drought.  It was stopped when limestone shale was hit in one corner.   In the Bluegrass region of KY, the underlying rock is an an ancient sea floor and just as flat.  It is a giant swimming pool.  Turns out that for six months of the year, the water table was well above the floor of my basement.   I became quite experienced with sump pumps, pipe flow volumes.  It seems that constant pumping generates favored flow channels.  The more you pump the more likely is ground water  going to flow towards the pump.  Larger volume pumps, larger diameter discharge pipes - where to place the outlet?  a viscous cycle!   Then there is the problem of electric power interruption during storms that are recharging the ground water.  A generator.   A normal home generator has a gas tank with limited time.  An ice storm that crushed a lot of KY and had long transmission lines in Alabama snapped off like a row of dominoes and drawing off the repair crews from KY is going to require more time than you have gas for.    I feel your nightmare.  I do not miss living it.   A wish for a basement decision do-over is something that I will take to my grave. 

I had an extra deep basement dug in July during a drought.  It was stopped when limestone shale was hit in one corner.   In the Bluegrass region of KY, the underlying rock is an an ancient sea floor and just as flat.  It is a giant swimming pool.  Turns out that for six months of the year, the water table was well above the floor of my basement.   I became quite experienced with sump pumps, pipe flow volumes.  It seems that constant pumping generates favored flow channels.  The more you pump the more likely is ground water  going to flow towards the pump.  Larger volume pumps, larger diameter discharge pipes - where to place the outlet?  a viscous cycle!   Then there is the problem of electric power interruption during storms that are recharging the ground water.  A generator.   A normal home generator has a gas tank with limited time.  An ice storm that crushed a lot of KY and had long transmission lines in Alabama snapped off like a row of dominoes and drawing off the repair crews from KY is going to require more time than you have gas for.    I feel your nightmare.  I do not miss living it.   A wish for a basement decision do-over is something that I will take to my grave. 

Here is a link for some supplementary  information about skipjack construction:
 
https://modelexpo-online.com/assets/images/documents/MS2032-Willie_L_Bennett-Instructions-web.pdf

You may have better luck if the English word is spelled correctly not david  but davit.
I think that a rough definition using "fish" as a verb   is:   
a fish davit would be  a line with a hook on the distant end attached to the outer end of a pole
 
to fish means hooking something in the water and pulling it up.
 a cathead crane can get a heavy anchor up and out of the water but it will hang like a bell
to tie it down means rotating it ~ 90 degrees and securing it to the side of the ship so that it is not a wrecking ball.
Given the weight of the anchor on a liner fishing and rotating the fluke end was probably a non-trivial chore.
I wonder if the tool used to do it - the fish davit - could not be loose -  a disposable item - not really a permanent part of the hull?

It was a long while ago, but I a photo of an open sided assembly line decorator model production in Vietnam.
The think the formula is:  a country with a skilled, but under utilized work force, willing to work for much less than their skills are worth because their economy is temporarily stuck on a sandbar.   When the economy recovers or has its initial bloom, this sort of operation probably has to reappear in the next country with the proper factors.
There used to be something named Starving Artists - a large room with a lot of people, each behind their own easel, all copying a master painting projected at the front of the room.    I imagine something similar for mass produced decorator models.  I do not imagine someone just looking to earn enough for their next hit could be a satisfactory worker.
 
Your two have something extra - the designer had an eye for elegant design, the lines have artistic curves.  The wood is not pallet quality crap. It looks like Acer, or Beech or Birch.
 
They are not actually ship models as we would define them here. They are simulacrum of ship models.  Tasteful background decoration.

As for the request in the title of this post:
rather than use something that is a cartoon and out of scale do a site search =  silkspan
low cost  - it used to come in three weights - it or similar products might be available with those options from dealers catering to fabric covered flying aircraft builders.  Those dealers may even have the heating irons with a curved surface and a power control knob which would be about the ideal tool for bending wood.

Here is a link for some supplementary  information about skipjack construction:
 
https://modelexpo-online.com/assets/images/documents/MS2032-Willie_L_Bennett-Instructions-web.pdf