Bob Cleek

The modeling tool catalogs like MicroMark, while always fun to peruse, are just chock full of "impulse purchases" that you thought you really needed and then discovered you never used. It's a pitfall for those entering the hobby. (Tool kits promising "everything you'll ever need to build your model" are almost always full of bottom of the barrel junk you don't need.) In many instances, the tools you need will be found in other places at higher quality and lower prices. Far superior medical, dental, and jewelry-making tools can be found on eBay or from supply houses at a lot less expense than from places like Model Expo or MicroMark.  Remember the tool-buying maxim: "Never buy a tool until you need it and then only buy the best quality you can afford." 
 
I'd place this OcRe workshop in the category of "stuff you'll later wish you didn't waste your money on." You can get a whole lot more lower cost useful storage at places like Harbor Freight, "Bed, Bath, and Beyond," Walmart, and so on. Think "Tupperware." If you have to "go mobile" due to space considerations, get yourself a suitably sized sheet of plywood and put lip around three edges and a couple of handles on either end. When company comes, you can pick it up and slide it under the bed until you can get rid of them  and back to your modeling!  
 
 
 
Harbor Freight, twenty bucks, 40 Bin Organizer with Full Length Drawer (harborfreight.com):

 
 

You may consider using a 2 inch thick "brick" of rigid Styrofoam wall insulation.  PVC glue it to a plywood base and punch holes for your tools.  Having multiple bricks - each oriented to a general task -  they store on a shelf.  Sharp pointed or edged tools are held vertical and the material does not affect the edge.

I think I would have great difficulty working between the walls of the work area on anything bigger than a few inches long.  There is barely room for my two hands between the walls let alone a model of any size.  Think about the attitude of your hands when working on a model - I doubt they are at a right angle to your arm - not much room for a model.

A big question might be how much stuff do you expect to store in it? It doesn't look like it provides all that much storage space.

It certainly can be. It's just another way to "slice the bread" in a "bread and butter" construction. That said, I'd expect that "slicing the loaf" along the waterlines or buttock lines would involve a lot less tricky scroll saw work than cutting sections and working down the  slices with a chisel, plane, or spokeshave with the grain rather than across the grain would be easier as well. No?

I use a 9" bandsaw with a 1/4" blade and a Carter Stabilizer.  The blade swings on its back edge like  a screen door. 
What I am suggesting here allows for a more refined cut for the outside face.  There are no alignment pins outside the body of the frames, so the actual frame shape can be got at.  
 
For real POF the stack of frames between each station is thick.  For the station intervals other than the dead flat - the curve of the hull has almost no areas where a perpendicular thru the stack would be inside the body of the frame.  The alignment pins must be outside the frames.  The scroll cut is then sort of close enough not to be toooo fat - but not slice into the pin sites.  The timbers are mostly sort of rectangles. The cut goes quickly.  When a stack of frames is glued up, what you do with hand tools, I do using a belt sander or drum sander with 80 grit medium.  The identical pattern is on both faces of the stack so I can get fairly close and have an accurate bevel.  The fine work is 220 grit on the drum.   Now, at the two or three stations at the bow and stern, the bevel is impressive.  The amount of extra wood to remove takes time  and the volume of dust makes for a good desert sand storm.   I had M-95 masks on hand when SARS-2 hit.  The outside is never all that difficult to shape.  It is the inside that is challenging.  At the ends, especially the stern, where the slope gets acute,  getting at the area of the keelson requires hand tools.  It takes time and gets frustrating.  Because I am working with segments, I can take the work to the tools.  I can manipulate the work at a stationary tool.
 
 
For this project, the stern is not like that and the inside is mostly not needing much work.  It can be most anything - since it will be hidden.  Only if RC was the goal, would the inside need any attention.  The inside can be left fat enough for the alignment pins to be inside and be inside all the frames in a section.  I would even use bamboo skewers inside of steel quilters pins and glue them in.
 
One factor with the Station Sandwich Method is that it is power tool heavy.  Because the frame thicknesses must be precise and uniform,  because there are so many frames,  it requires a lot of wood.  It almost makes it necessary to be your own sawmill.  But I guess any sort of scratch POF requires that.

I sure can't see any flaws in that paint job. It looks great! Nice work!
 
If you have some very minor flaws, such as a dust speck or three, you can always rub them out with rottenstone and pumice. These are very fine abrasive powders that you apply to a soft, damp cloth and rub on the surface. The longer you rub the better the finish. They should be available in powder form at any paint store. Auto parts and paint stores carry it premixed in a creamy liquid form, as well. These hand rubbing abrasives permit you to "fine tune" your finish from a flat matte to a high gloss, depending upon how much elbow grease you want to apply. 
 
The whole point of hand-rubbing is that it permits you to address a small area of a larger paint job and repair a flaw without having to repaint the entire piece.
 
Hand rubbing is a technique that has a bit of a learning curve, but it's more about practice than information. Try it on a test piece before going at a finished workpiece. Once you get the hang of how to vary the level of gloss, you'll be able to easily match spots you want to deal with. Here's a video that covers the subject of getting a perfect hand-rubbed finish in a lot of detail, but is well worth taking the time to watch. 
 

I can't get anyone else to eat the mushrooms or drink the Kool-Aid, but the Station Sandwich Method can be a fairly rapid way to construct a hull.  In this instance the troublesome factors are not a part of it. 
That would be worrying about the spaces - there are none 
and
making the individual timbers match the lengths of the prototype vessel - all that is needed is for the grain to be as straight as practical in each segment
and
making the moulded dimension match the original and the inside be faired - fatter is better since the alignment can be here and rough does not matter.  It might need some attention if a motor and radio equipment would live there.
 
The method that I am suggesting does not need a building board or alignment jigs.  The pieces internally align themselves.
The size of bread and butter or buttock layers makes for more hand chisel and hand power sanding.
A body station section of layers is small enough to take the work to a belt or drum sander. 
 
I was guessing that the OP was interested in multiple copies or providing a data file that would direct a laser cutter for customers.  Both of the other solid/hollow hull methods use stock that is too large for a laser cutter.  If a laser can cut 1/8" Pine, then each frame would be - what?  16 feet in scale?   It would be about 50 layers for a 850 foot hull?  With straight timber segments,  fairly efficient use of a board could be laid out.  I suspect that the laser could "paint" the sand-to lines and alignment hole drill points directly on a board. 

If you don’t have a shop and can’t or don’t want to set one up try to find some sort of shared shop space where you live. Adult education comes to mind.  Go to your local lumberyard and buy a nice 1” straight grained pine board (actual thickness 13/16”).  With your CAD system lay out 13/16” longitudinal slices through the hull either vertical or longitudinal.  Print these and glue each to your pine board.  Bandsaw out each slice, and glue up a the stack.  Using hand tools and templates cut from the body plan, carve the hull.  This is exactly how professional model makers have built ship models for 100’s of years.
 
There are companies that machine carve custom gunstocks.  I don’t know of any specific ones.  You might try checking them out.  In the old days their machines duplicated a pattern.  Today ai would think that they use CNC.  Even these will require some final shaping.
 
Roger
OOPs. Bob Cleek said it better than I did. I didn’t read his post before writing mine.

I read somewhere that the original Model Shipways company purchased surplus gunstock duplicating milling machinery after WWII and put it to use milling solid hulls for their ship models. Obviously, this was not CNC technology. There are custom gunstock makers who do such work, but they all seem to primarily use mechanical duplicating machinery, not CNC. This machinery will work fine for duplicating hulls, such as for kit production, but to do this a master pattern is required. If you only want a single hull, it will have to be hand-carved. If you wanted someone to produce a one-off carved hull for you, your best bet would probably be a old-school foundry patternmaker. 
 
For a model the size you are contemplating, a hollow "bread and butter" lift hull is the easiest, and best, method. I can't imagine why anybody would want to do it any other way, given the challenges involved in building a plank on frame model of that size. (It's not like you will be building an exposed-frame Admiralty Board style wooden ship model.) 
 
This three-part YouTube video gives a pretty good explanation of the "bread and butter" hull construction method. He stacks his lifts with the seams vertical. It can also be done by stacking the lifts with the seams running horizontally. The horizontal method employs the waterlines as patterns for each lift. The vertical method employs the buttock lines as patterns for each lift. 
 
 

I sure can't see any flaws in that paint job. It looks great! Nice work!
 
If you have some very minor flaws, such as a dust speck or three, you can always rub them out with rottenstone and pumice. These are very fine abrasive powders that you apply to a soft, damp cloth and rub on the surface. The longer you rub the better the finish. They should be available in powder form at any paint store. Auto parts and paint stores carry it premixed in a creamy liquid form, as well. These hand rubbing abrasives permit you to "fine tune" your finish from a flat matte to a high gloss, depending upon how much elbow grease you want to apply. 
 
The whole point of hand-rubbing is that it permits you to address a small area of a larger paint job and repair a flaw without having to repaint the entire piece.
 
Hand rubbing is a technique that has a bit of a learning curve, but it's more about practice than information. Try it on a test piece before going at a finished workpiece. Once you get the hang of how to vary the level of gloss, you'll be able to easily match spots you want to deal with. Here's a video that covers the subject of getting a perfect hand-rubbed finish in a lot of detail, but is well worth taking the time to watch. 
 

Yes. the Gibbs and Cox model shop which built so many fine models in its time did that model of Missouri. I believe it was built to Naval Sea Systems Command's specifications for USN ship models which prohibit "plank on frame" models of metal ships:
 
Hulls shall be built up in lifts of clear, first-grade mahogany or basswood; doweled and glued together with water-resistant glue. The wood shall be completely free of knots, checks, and sap pockets and shall be thoroughly seasoned. Models over 12 inches beam must be hollowed for reduction of weight The hull shall be composed of the least number of parts necessary to achieve the proper shape. An excessive number of glue joints shall be avoided. On models less than 12 inches beam, hull lifts shall be cut to the full body shape: lifts shall not be cut in halves, thereby creating a glue seam along the vertical centerline of the model. The lifts shall conform accurately to lines of the vessel as shown by the plans. A stable, durable, flexible body putty may be used in moderation to fill gaps.   Nautical Research Guild - Article - Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels (thenrg.org)
 
As can be seen, metal hulls are made from carved solid blocks or "bread and butter" lifts with hollow centers. The USN specifications are worth studying and attempting to emulate. The Navy knows what it takes to build a ship model that will last. Their models travel frequently, relatively speaking, and they want them to "take a licking and keep on ticking." 

Sometimes it takes a lot to get a perfect finish.  

Not perfect but not willing to spend any more on paint 

Yes. the Gibbs and Cox model shop which built so many fine models in its time did that model of Missouri. I believe it was built to Naval Sea Systems Command's specifications for USN ship models which prohibit "plank on frame" models of metal ships:
 
Hulls shall be built up in lifts of clear, first-grade mahogany or basswood; doweled and glued together with water-resistant glue. The wood shall be completely free of knots, checks, and sap pockets and shall be thoroughly seasoned. Models over 12 inches beam must be hollowed for reduction of weight The hull shall be composed of the least number of parts necessary to achieve the proper shape. An excessive number of glue joints shall be avoided. On models less than 12 inches beam, hull lifts shall be cut to the full body shape: lifts shall not be cut in halves, thereby creating a glue seam along the vertical centerline of the model. The lifts shall conform accurately to lines of the vessel as shown by the plans. A stable, durable, flexible body putty may be used in moderation to fill gaps.   Nautical Research Guild - Article - Specifications for Construction of Exhibition Models of U.S. Naval Vessels (thenrg.org)
 
As can be seen, metal hulls are made from carved solid blocks or "bread and butter" lifts with hollow centers. The USN specifications are worth studying and attempting to emulate. The Navy knows what it takes to build a ship model that will last. Their models travel frequently, relatively speaking, and they want them to "take a licking and keep on ticking." 

It has arrived and its now installed. Thanks for all the advice. In time ill let you know how i feel about this purchase

Sometimes it takes a lot to get a perfect finish.  

The different plating thicknesses and plating seams that you see on whatever drawing that you are using shows how steel ships were actually built.  Different plating thicknesses reflect structural engineers using heavier thicknesses only where required by local hull stresses. This saved both weight and cost.  If you are building a battleship, armor plating was added only in certain areas.  The armor was so heavy that its extent was a major design factor.  In any case the moulded line is the actual shape of the frame.  The frame is not joggled ( shaped) to reflect different thicknesses of plating.  The hull of a real steel hulled ship is therefore not smooth.  There are steps in the hull reflecting different plate thicknesses.
 
Riveting of shell plating introduces more laps in the hull plating as the least expensive plating system was the “in and out method” where the joints in alternate plating strakes overlapped. Flush riveted construction requires heavy and expensive butt straps backing up all seams and except for some high end yachts was almost never used.  In riveted construction the frames were still formed to moulded lines and Where the “outer” strakes crossed a frame, a backing plate was sandwiched between the frame and inboard side of the strake and rivets were driven through all three thicknesses.  As late as the 1950’s even welded ships had some riveted joints.
 
The usual way to build a model with a plated hull is to build a smooth hull to moulded hull lines and to then plate the hull with material of your choice.  If you look on the scratch build logs (1901 and later) my Benjamin Noble Lake Freighter model features a plated hull.  For the plating, I used shellac saturated paper.
 
Roger

It might sound like a smart aleck response, but, seriously, the offset on the frames has to be the thickness of the planking or plating if the body section lines are drawn to the outside of the planking or plating. If the frames are drawn to the inside of the planking or plating, you just have to make sure your model's planking or plating isn't any thicker than the scale of the section lines. If your planking or plating has to be thicker than scale for "engineering" purposes, then that additional thickness has to be factored into the equation. It all depends first on the thickness of the planking or plating. On most models of iron and steel hulled ships, the model's planking will be much thicker than its true scale because that will be required for sufficient strength. On models of ships with wooden hulls, the deviation from scale may be less so, depending on the scale. 
 
When considering hull skin thickness, be it planking or plate, one must first consider whether the lines are drawn to the inside or the outside of the plank. This should be indicated on the plans, but plans for full scale construction may not indicate this by notation and the builder will have to determine that from comparing the construction and lines drawings. Details of the rabbet line may make it obvious. A section drawn to the inside of the frames should be obvious at the garboard seam where the deduction can be seen.  Plans drawn for modeling may differ from the full scale drawings of a given vessel as they are often simplified for modeling purposes. (This is frequently the case with solid carved block hulls and half-models which are usually drawn to the outside of the planking or plating.) 
 
In order to get the correct dimensions, a modeler has to 1) know whether the plans are drawn to the inside or outside of the planking or plating and 2) how thick (and likely out of scale) the planking or plating they will build is going to be. 
 
A modeler who has reached the level of accomplishment in their work to recognize the issue you have would find spending some time studying lofting practices a big help. There are many treatises on lofting. Alan Vaiteses' Lofting is one of the best.
 
Your question is addressed and explained at 5:25 in this video: 
 

It might sound like a smart aleck response, but, seriously, the offset on the frames has to be the thickness of the planking or plating if the body section lines are drawn to the outside of the planking or plating. If the frames are drawn to the inside of the planking or plating, you just have to make sure your model's planking or plating isn't any thicker than the scale of the section lines. If your planking or plating has to be thicker than scale for "engineering" purposes, then that additional thickness has to be factored into the equation. It all depends first on the thickness of the planking or plating. On most models of iron and steel hulled ships, the model's planking will be much thicker than its true scale because that will be required for sufficient strength. On models of ships with wooden hulls, the deviation from scale may be less so, depending on the scale. 
 
When considering hull skin thickness, be it planking or plate, one must first consider whether the lines are drawn to the inside or the outside of the plank. This should be indicated on the plans, but plans for full scale construction may not indicate this by notation and the builder will have to determine that from comparing the construction and lines drawings. Details of the rabbet line may make it obvious. A section drawn to the inside of the frames should be obvious at the garboard seam where the deduction can be seen.  Plans drawn for modeling may differ from the full scale drawings of a given vessel as they are often simplified for modeling purposes. (This is frequently the case with solid carved block hulls and half-models which are usually drawn to the outside of the planking or plating.) 
 
In order to get the correct dimensions, a modeler has to 1) know whether the plans are drawn to the inside or outside of the planking or plating and 2) how thick (and likely out of scale) the planking or plating they will build is going to be. 
 
A modeler who has reached the level of accomplishment in their work to recognize the issue you have would find spending some time studying lofting practices a big help. There are many treatises on lofting. Alan Vaiteses' Lofting is one of the best.
 
Your question is addressed and explained at 5:25 in this video: 
 

Yikes!

Your subject is steel navy?
The lines are the outside dimensions?
The hull would be steel plates, not wooden planks. A double layer of strakes of wood = not an authentic look.
If there are enough molds, one layer should be enough.  The plating can be 3x5 cards. A primer that soaks in and sets up hard = stiff enough to resemble steel?
In this case, the thickness may be adding so little that the outside lines can be used as is.
The actual ship plans should provide plate diameters. A riveted or welded seam would have a support behind it.
The thickness of the molds = how thick will your laser penetrate and not leave a wedge behind?
 
In the situation of a double layer of wooden planking and starting with outside lines, Once you decide on how thick you want each layer to be, the sum of the two is how much is subtracted.
If it is a kit that you manufacture, the species for each layer, the thickness that you can obtain, and be sure will be available for as long as the kit is being manufactured - the price -  your choice.
If it is just plans, and a builder must source materials,  the thickness is determined by what can be easily obtained.
 
A wooden sail vessel at 1:192,  This is miniature scale.  I would question POB being at all practical.

I don't expect you should have any problem if you coated with G-Flex. The absence of a glass cloth matrix can result in cracking of a rigid polyester resin coating when (and if) the wood expands. However, G-Flex is just that, flexible. This feature is intended to compensate for the expansion of the wood structure. Your use of CPES as a primer should provide an excellent base for the G-Flex. Do make sure your wood below the waterline is well coated. If so, I'd say "splash her when the paint's dry!"
 

This is true and it's a very common mistake made by inexperienced finishers. This particularly problematic when one is working with a clear coating that is particularly susceptible to ultraviolet damage, such as varnish or epoxy resin. Frequently, the newbie will apply a coat of varnish, even varnish with UV inhibitors) and then, obeying the instructions to "sand between coats," sand off the coat they've last applied. When all is said and done, they think they have applied the required "eight coats of varnish" and can't figure out why their varnish job, which looked great when they were finished, started going to pot in a couple of months. Instead of eight coats of UV inhibitors, they had the equivalent of one coat! This isn't of much import when painting models, though. They don't have to withstand the continual exposure to direct sunlight. (We hope!)
 
However, the CPES should have soaked into the wood sufficiently deep to provide a decent sealing, later sanding notwithstanding. As others have noted, your subsequent coats of barrier coat and various other things should be more than adequate to prevent water damage for the use intended. Remember, though, that epoxy is not "waterproof."  It's moisture permeable to some extent, depending upon the length of exposure, of course. There's a big difference between "moisture" and "water," though. As long as you have any sort of paint on it, there's little chance of the hull getting waterlogged.  
 
"Several coats of satin lacquer" will just add that much more protection to the wood, but it's probably not necessary. It's a matter of personal preference, I suppose, but I'm not much of a fan of "satin lacquer," or "satin" anything, for that matter, except in situations where a protective coating is required on finely detailed surfaces that can't be rubbed. "Canned satin" finishes are simply paint with "dirt" added to dull the finish. On a nice smooth hull, I opt for applying the finish coats without "satin" added, and, if they need flattening down, I hand-rub them with rottenstone and pumice the old-school way, yielding a much finer finish than "paint-on satin."

Yikes!