Bob Cleek

So what were you drinking before you peed in the cup?  
 
The resident chemists can probably give a better suggestion, but I'd be interested to see if a similar result might not be achieved using a solution of water, amonia, and table salt. If so, that would avoid the chance that your living room or wherever you display the model won't acquire the aroma of a dirty gas station mens' room. You might also consider bringing a urine sample to your urologist. The reddish tinge to that in the cup pictured is concerning!  
 
Thanks for having the courage to share a very interesting technique. Great photos, too. 

Mahogany should work, but keep in mind that most of your frames will likely have to be built up of pieces with their grain orientation going the right way and not simply cut whole from a single piece of sheet stock. Since frames are curved, it's usually impossible to cut a frame from a single piece of wood without grain run-out at some point. This will create very fragile spots in single-thickness frames, the degree of weakness depending upon the grain structure of the wood species used. With the amount of grain run-out you usually get cutting from sheet stock, you'll find yourself busting frames right and left when you try to fair frame faces or even just handle the hull when working on it. Cutting frames from sheet stock can also produce an inordinate amount of waste off-cuts. It's best to make frames of at least doubled pieces so that one half of the doubled frame can bridge the butted ends of the other half so as to reinforce the butts necessary to keep the grain running where it needs to be.
 
I'm not sure that "it's more work to derive waterlines from plans." If you have the shapes of the frames on a "body plan," you've got the waterlines right there in front of you. At each frame you have the distance from the centerline to the inside or outside of the planking (depending upon how the lines were drawn) and you know the distance between the frames. Those points off the centerline and a batten will give you all the waterlines you want, wherever you want. A "bread and butter" hull is a lot easier and faster to make, particularly in larger sizes. Just sayin'.
 
Unless you expect to be spilling a lot of solvent fuel in the bilges, there's no reason to coat the inside of the hull with resin. In the case of a "bread and butter" built hull, there's no reason to sheath the exterior of the hull with glass fabric and resin, either. A good sealer and paint will do just fine to keep the water out. As a practical matter, unless you intend to build an overly thick resin and glass cloth (or mat) sheathing, you aren't going to realize much, if any increase in structural strength adding resin and fabric sheathing to your hull. Sheathing and fairing a good sized hull with resin and cloth is a substantial job with more than a few pitfalls possible along the way.
 
All and all, just my opinions in response to your questions. It's your boat, so do as you please. I'm sure with sufficient care, it will turn out fine however you proceed. Good luck with it!

Mahogany should work, but keep in mind that most of your frames will likely have to be built up of pieces with their grain orientation going the right way and not simply cut whole from a single piece of sheet stock. Since frames are curved, it's usually impossible to cut a frame from a single piece of wood without grain run-out at some point. This will create very fragile spots in single-thickness frames, the degree of weakness depending upon the grain structure of the wood species used. With the amount of grain run-out you usually get cutting from sheet stock, you'll find yourself busting frames right and left when you try to fair frame faces or even just handle the hull when working on it. Cutting frames from sheet stock can also produce an inordinate amount of waste off-cuts. It's best to make frames of at least doubled pieces so that one half of the doubled frame can bridge the butted ends of the other half so as to reinforce the butts necessary to keep the grain running where it needs to be.
 
I'm not sure that "it's more work to derive waterlines from plans." If you have the shapes of the frames on a "body plan," you've got the waterlines right there in front of you. At each frame you have the distance from the centerline to the inside or outside of the planking (depending upon how the lines were drawn) and you know the distance between the frames. Those points off the centerline and a batten will give you all the waterlines you want, wherever you want. A "bread and butter" hull is a lot easier and faster to make, particularly in larger sizes. Just sayin'.
 
Unless you expect to be spilling a lot of solvent fuel in the bilges, there's no reason to coat the inside of the hull with resin. In the case of a "bread and butter" built hull, there's no reason to sheath the exterior of the hull with glass fabric and resin, either. A good sealer and paint will do just fine to keep the water out. As a practical matter, unless you intend to build an overly thick resin and glass cloth (or mat) sheathing, you aren't going to realize much, if any increase in structural strength adding resin and fabric sheathing to your hull. Sheathing and fairing a good sized hull with resin and cloth is a substantial job with more than a few pitfalls possible along the way.
 
All and all, just my opinions in response to your questions. It's your boat, so do as you please. I'm sure with sufficient care, it will turn out fine however you proceed. Good luck with it!

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

So what were you drinking before you peed in the cup?  
 
The resident chemists can probably give a better suggestion, but I'd be interested to see if a similar result might not be achieved using a solution of water, amonia, and table salt. If so, that would avoid the chance that your living room or wherever you display the model won't acquire the aroma of a dirty gas station mens' room. You might also consider bringing a urine sample to your urologist. The reddish tinge to that in the cup pictured is concerning!  
 
Thanks for having the courage to share a very interesting technique. Great photos, too. 

I'll mention further that if you have a small clothes iron or electric plank bender, or even a hair drier, you can apply heat to the outside of the plank (taking care not to scorch it) while holding it in place. The heat will substantially accelerate the drying time of the PVA.

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

This new product may have come on the market since the inception of this post. It's really the best all-purpose holding system I've ever seen. Very strong and rigid holding ability. Heavy steel base. Arms attach with rare-earth magnets. Flexible arms stay put. Not like those "third hand" holding gizmos that have been around forever and never stay where you want them. High quality alligator clips, too. Reasonably priced. QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool
 

I'll mention further that if you have a small clothes iron or electric plank bender, or even a hair drier, you can apply heat to the outside of the plank (taking care not to scorch it) while holding it in place. The heat will substantially accelerate the drying time of the PVA.

Slower glue or faster fingers? 
 
Seriously, thouigh, a bit of either or both would probably lessen the problem. The only other thing to do is work one bulkhead at a time, rather than trying to put glue on them all at once.

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

I'll mention further that if you have a small clothes iron or electric plank bender, or even a hair drier, you can apply heat to the outside of the plank (taking care not to scorch it) while holding it in place. The heat will substantially accelerate the drying time of the PVA.

No. What I'm talking about is exactly the opposite: layers cut to the shape of each waterline shape, stacked on top of one another. i.e. each one a cross section through the horizontal plane. Conseqently, there's a whole lot fewer layers to loft and cut. (In your case, one "lift" for each deck. Not as many as indicated in the video below which is provided for illustrative purposes.)
 
The deck shapes are all  you need, together with the distance between each deck.
 
The "bread and butter" lift method is described in detail in this article: Building a Bread-and-Butter Solid Hull Ship Model – The Model Shipwright 
This method is favored for larger models for a variety of reasons and the interiors of hulls constructed in this fashion are easily hollowed out for R/C purposes by cutting away waste wood before assembly of the lifts. 
 
A picture is worth a thousand words department:
 
 

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

I have the Byrnes "trifecta" which I acquired used for a good price. If it were me, I'd buy the table saw first. Even if you don't anticipate scratch-building, the saw will be useful and permit you to get out your own plank stock at a great savings when you are ready to step up to improving a kit model with higher quality planking wood or get sick of trying to plank everything with just a handful of quarter-inch wide strip wood. Besides, if you have the table saw, it's an easy thing to just take a thin saw-blade-sized disk of plywood, plastic, or metal, attach a piece of sandpaper to it with some disk adhesive, and mount it on the saw arbor instead of a blade. Crank it all the way up and you've got a disk sander with a very accurate miter gauge and flat table! Not a replacement for the real thing from Byrnes, but it comes close. A vacuum attached to the saw will take the misery of dust out of the sanding operations, too.

So what were you drinking before you peed in the cup?  
 
The resident chemists can probably give a better suggestion, but I'd be interested to see if a similar result might not be achieved using a solution of water, amonia, and table salt. If so, that would avoid the chance that your living room or wherever you display the model won't acquire the aroma of a dirty gas station mens' room. You might also consider bringing a urine sample to your urologist. The reddish tinge to that in the cup pictured is concerning!  
 
Thanks for having the courage to share a very interesting technique. Great photos, too. 

So what were you drinking before you peed in the cup?  
 
The resident chemists can probably give a better suggestion, but I'd be interested to see if a similar result might not be achieved using a solution of water, amonia, and table salt. If so, that would avoid the chance that your living room or wherever you display the model won't acquire the aroma of a dirty gas station mens' room. You might also consider bringing a urine sample to your urologist. The reddish tinge to that in the cup pictured is concerning!  
 
Thanks for having the courage to share a very interesting technique. Great photos, too. 

Hi Bob
No smell afterwards at all. I think the key component of pee is uric acid and this is what reacts with copper. I wouldn't go near ammonia for this...that would be much more scary. No blood in my urine - just weird colours in the photo. I found the morning pee was better than the late afternoon's - much more concentrated in the am! 😁 That might be related to pm's beer. 🙃
 
A

This new product may have come on the market since the inception of this post. It's really the best all-purpose holding system I've ever seen. Very strong and rigid holding ability. Heavy steel base. Arms attach with rare-earth magnets. Flexible arms stay put. Not like those "third hand" holding gizmos that have been around forever and never stay where you want them. High quality alligator clips, too. Reasonably priced. QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool
 

To enforce the advice already offered,  both machines will pay back more than what they cost IF you scratch build.
For kits alone, either will be a machine in search of a job.  They will be expensive door stops.
 
For any machine:  do not anticipate!   Wait until you have a job to do that a machine will facilitate and buy a quality machine to do it - IF it is a job likely to come up repeatedly.  Hand tools will perform any duty that we need to do.  It just takes more time. 
 
Are you going to build scratch models for sale?  (To make this worth you investment in time and materials, you will need a gimmick - a shortcut.)
Do you have a major project in mind?
 
If you have an unlimited budget: go wild.

Interesting question. At almost 80 I am not going to be doing a lot of scratch building (or any for that matter). I have several kits going at the moment and will be lucky to finish all of them before the old hands and brain get to the point where it is time to quit making a mess of things and driving myself crazy. I have a dremel (not a lot of $$) with drilling stand (again not expensive) as well as a disc sander from Menards ($39.00) and use both of them on each build. Other than that there is no need to spend big bucks on more sophisticated machinery. Long winded way of getting to the point - where are you in the pursuit of this wonderful hobby? A long way to go? Then get the best you can afford to make the journey as good as it can be. Otherwise.......... 
 
Bob

This new product may have come on the market since the inception of this post. It's really the best all-purpose holding system I've ever seen. Very strong and rigid holding ability. Heavy steel base. Arms attach with rare-earth magnets. Flexible arms stay put. Not like those "third hand" holding gizmos that have been around forever and never stay where you want them. High quality alligator clips, too. Reasonably priced. QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool
 

Slower glue or faster fingers? 
 
Seriously, thouigh, a bit of either or both would probably lessen the problem. The only other thing to do is work one bulkhead at a time, rather than trying to put glue on them all at once.

This new product may have come on the market since the inception of this post. It's really the best all-purpose holding system I've ever seen. Very strong and rigid holding ability. Heavy steel base. Arms attach with rare-earth magnets. Flexible arms stay put. Not like those "third hand" holding gizmos that have been around forever and never stay where you want them. High quality alligator clips, too. Reasonably priced. QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool
 

This new product may have come on the market since the inception of this post. It's really the best all-purpose holding system I've ever seen. Very strong and rigid holding ability. Heavy steel base. Arms attach with rare-earth magnets. Flexible arms stay put. Not like those "third hand" holding gizmos that have been around forever and never stay where you want them. High quality alligator clips, too. Reasonably priced. QuadHands® - Helping Hands Tool