CTDavies

Hi Wacko, thanks for tuning in. The next shot is a close up. According to my CAD programme the distance between the Room and Space indicators (as I call them) is exactly 5' 6-1/2". Could that be right? I have basically no idea on sailing ship designs so I'm going to have to rely a lot on your generous help here. Of course I could try and locate some of those historic books on ship designs and dive into them for a year before I start on this, but that wouldn't be much fun, would it? I do have Avery's double set on Ships of the Line and the first volume has a lot on designing, so I'll be reading that one a lot in the next few weeks. Here's that close up:

I am a big fan of Harold M Hahn's Ships of the American Revolution and decided, to keep this design fairly straightforward, to adopt his way of framing using his double and single thickness method as used on his HMS Alfred design. While working on this I found, to my genuine surprise that this corresponds with the short vertical lines under the keel that are obviously Room and Space indicators. Some gun ports had to be shifted slightly.

I'm going to have to work out how to embed images into the text. Bear with me, I'll get there eventually. Next thing I noticed was the wales, strakes and rails aren't always parallel. Aftwards of the dead flat they are, but towards the bow they run closer to each other. At first I thought this might be a scanning inaccuracy but McKay's Profile is cearly the same and several of the models in Winfield's book also have this feature. Again I decided to stick to McKay's Profile.

Ok, at first I was hoping to take part on the group build HMS Triton, but as my intention was to copy the complete design into my computer to make my own CNC cut parts, I was turned down by the admins due to copyright concerns. As an ex kit manufacturer myself I fully understand their views, although I think that home designed CAD kits/models are a way of the future that will soon take up a much bigger part in the modelling world. After that failed attempt, I tossed around a few ideas for a while and stumbled over Rif Winfield's The 50-Gun Ship on that famous internet auction house, which was quickly purchased. The 74 is the secret love of my life especially the Bellona, but as a first ship building project I thought I might be biting off more than I can chew with something of that complexity. I have been building models all my life, mainly airplanes with a lot of plastic and a nice number of scratch built flying scale models and a few cars, but now, It's time for something new - a sailing ship. Winfield's book has some very nicely done drawings, what the aircraft guys would call three views, done by a Mr. John McKay in 1997. I scanned part of them and imported them into my CAD programme (for my own use!). As an architect I use one of the most popular german CAD programmes at work, designed especially for architecture called Nemetschek, which is what I will use for my Leopard project. The eagle eyes here will notice that I'm using the dated 2004 version as that's the one I've got. I'm calling this a project as I don't know if I'll ever finish it, so please consider this more an ongoing learning process than a build log. I started off with the Outboard Profile. It was scaled up to full size in the CAD programme and the whales were traced on a new layer by using circular segments and here the first problems popped up. From an engineers standpoint, I was expecting the whales to be of a full circular segment but they turned consist of several, at least two, each with a different radius. For now I decided to stick to McKays profile.

Hi All, newbie here, Chris from Germany. I'm thinking about starting a 1:36th scale HMS Triton and have looked at the first keel drawing and have started some minor CAD work, but first a bit about myself. I have been building models all my life now but mainly aircraft and for the past several years flying scale WW1 aircraft. I designed my own, and for a short while had a company that sold my designs, but this was stopped when real work got in the way and time became an issue. For about the last two years I have not built any models at all (apart from playing around with a Pocher Mercedes) but have started restoring an E-Type Jaguar instead (I have recently become somewhat of a car nut). Work on the Jag can become frustrating at times because I can't do very much myself due to lack of experience and equipment. When a friend asked me recently how I actually restore it I answered 'I drive parts around in the back of my car'. Let's see if I can install some pictures here: this is an early version B-17 I designed and built around 2007 here's an SE-5a that a customer built and here's a Sopwith Snipe that another customaer built This is my 'other hobby'. A 1969 Jaguar E-Type, currently undergoing complete restoration So, I've been thinking of building a model ship. My brother, known here as Mr. Hollom, has been doing that for many years now, and I occasionally borrow books to read or just look at and enjoy the models shown there. Over the last few months I have become quite fond of the HMS Bellona, but I'm afrraid a scratch built 74 might be a bit too big for a first project. Then I was looking around for a suitable kit, and for a while thought of doing Calder Craft's HMS Diana, when I discovered this forum. The idea of building a frigate is attractive, as I think it can be handled by a first time ship builder. I've started in my own usual way: the pdf was converted into an image jpeg using my Acrobat Reader and this was then imported into my CAD programme and scaled up by 1.333 to reach 1:36th scale. Being an Architect by profession I use an architects CAD programme, which works well for what I need it for, but it's not really possible to build a 3d model of a sailing ship with it. What I can do is draw out parts 2d like on a drawing board back in the old days. I'm hoping that building in a larger scale might have its advantages over a smaller one when it gets to the details and maybe rigging later on. So eventually I started tracing the keel drawing in a new layer. I read in some of the other posts that showing images which contain parts of the copyrighted drawings should be avoided due to copyright restrictions, so I'll try to follow that. I really hope that copying this design into my CAD programme for my own private use does not infringe any copyright laws also. If so, please let me know. I do not intend to make any parts available later on and I will certainly not give away any file etc for kit production or similar. Redrawing the pdf is a somewhat low tech way of creating a digital version as I simply try to hit the existing lines right in the middle when redrawing them. Working with dwg or similar would be much more exacting but I don't even want to ask for them. The keel was then broken down into its individual parts and these were laid out as on a 100*30cm plank of wood. From my WW1 modelling days I still own a CNC milling machine which a I want to use here to cut out parts. I'm not even sure if it still works, as it has been stored in my basement for a few years now and it needs to be cleaned and the computer set up again. Also I don't know how it will work on thick hardwood sheets. It could easily work its way through 6mm birch ply which was frequently used on my flying scale planes, so I'm hoping it will be fine using a 1.5mm or larger milling bit. We'll see. After completing the CAD drawing of the individual parts this is then exported into another programme to create the milling files, but more on them later. The CAD work so far has been fun, but I really need to know more about how this model will be constructed before I want to start off the milling machine. I have seen modellers here shaving off large portions on the stem deadwood and I would like to avoid that kind of work, as I'm hoping for more of a KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) project here. So I'll pop over to the keel thread here to request access to the other files in order to study them to get the big picture of this model. I hope this CAD work I'm showing here will suffice as a project beginning. more later --Chris