alross2

Unless you intend to do a lot of lasering, you'd be far better off having it done by a service provider.

Looking good, Paul. There are a lot of relatively small laser-cut pieces to the pilot house, so take your time. On the display model in the gallery, I left the roof off. I reduced a copy of that Raquel Welch poster from "One Million Years BC" and hung it over the bunk in the captain's cabin.

The manuals are only 8.5 x 11 and also spiral-bound. Here are two facing pages from the OLYMPIA manual, which I wrote about 15 years ago. The regular sheet size for WYOMING plans would be about 36" x 66"!

Now that I'm using a computer drawing program rather than ink on mylar, I've changed the format for BlueJacket kits, beginning with the MORGAN cross section. I'd like some observations on the concept, good or bad. Essentially, the general arrangement drawings and (probably) rigging plans will be printed full scale on large sheets as before. But all of the subassemblies (deck houses, stacks, guns, boats, fittings, etc.) will be on 11" x 17" sheets in a spiral-bound packet. All subassemblies will be full size or identified by scale (if different from original) Schematics will not be to scale (although they will normally be close). My rationale for this is that, because the kits now contain a large number of laser-cut and photo-etched parts, they are intended to be built in subassemblies. The sub-assembly drawings contain alphanumeric codes for each part, which can quickly absorb a lot of white space on the large sheets, making them hard to read. This also allows me to incorporate color images of the completed assembly, thus providing a visual of the color schemes of each item that might not be clear in the general arrangement drawings. Of course, the plans are accompanied by a construction manual with step-by-step instructions. The last couple manuals I wrote were about 60 pages each. I'm including a few samples of completed or mostly completed drawings for you to get a feeling for what is being done. In order: construction and assembled fore house on WYOMING, stack drawings for OREGON, general arrangement drawings for the tryworks on MORGAN.

The original mylar for MGB75 is in 1/32 scale on a 24" x 36" sheet. We have a scanner at work that will take 36" wide sheets, so I might scan it some day. This is sheet 2.

I went to a Catholic high school 61-65 and had the same problem. While we didn't have any shop courses and were tracked, the college group wasn't allowed to take typing (business track). I had to fight with them to allow me to take typing, arguing that college term papers had to be typed. Took awhile, but they relented.

The MGB in my original post was drawn with 3x0 and 4x0 Rapidograph pens. That particular print of the MTB drawing used .5 line weight, The "hairline" weight is much nicer, but is very light, making it hard to see in a book. The line weights are scalable and you can get an even finer line than "hairline" and mix line weights on the drawing. Using a different drawing (1/96 original), in order: hairline, color, and .5, all with black outline.

I drew with pens on mylar from the late 1970s up to a couple years ago. Never had any classes and I'm sure some of the things I did would horrify a true draftsperson, but I got by. Now, I use Corel Draw, which is the program used by our laser at BJ. Before, I would draw up the parts by hand, then Bill would have to draw them in Corel, which was not an efficient way to do things. I bit the bullet and learned Corel, which made my design work much more efficient and saved us a lot of time (and sometimes guesswork). Now, I use it exclusively. Perhaps the feature I appreciate most about a computer drawing program is it's repeatability. I'm working on a book which involves a lot of boat plans and the ability to draw a single detailed item which can be scaled and applied in multiples is great. From a kit design standpoint, the ability to layer objects greatly improves one's ability to ensure that parts are going to fit. On the downside, as many of you have mentioned, is the loss of identity of the draftsperson. Used to be you could identify the drafter by the line work and lettering. My late friend John Lambert's drawings were easily recognized by his style. With the computer images, one usually has to include a constant within the drawing. On my book drawings, I use color in the windows, even on a black and white image. I still have all of my pens, templates, ducks, curves, and an unused roll of mylar, though, ... just in case. The MGB drawing is ink on mylar from 1980. The MTB459 drawing is computer-generated and from 2020.

At the moment, I'm developing three new kits for BlueJacket: USS OREGON (BB3), NS SAVANNAH, and the schooner WYOMING. Each has its own Facebook Group: OREGON https://www.facebook.com/groups/2345449125727256 ; SAVANNAH https://www.facebook.com/groups/415003942865004 ; WYOMING WYOMING 6-MASTED SCHOONER | Facebook . Please visit and see how our kits are created from beginning to end. For those not on Facebook, I will be doing a development and build log here.

If you want to build an accurate model of PT 10, you might want to hold off on building the old MM kit - it isn't even close. This is what the 70' ELCO PTs actually looked like: http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i204/alross2/pt18_0001_zps4a976847.jpg Al Ross