Qwerty, you'll find that despite the large scale of the model (1:20) there's not going to be a lot of room inside. The depth of the hold is minimal with all that drag to the keel. Back aft there's almost no place to install steering gear. Because of that, in my 1:20 Pride of Baltimore I built the hull much the same way and left out the frames. Two were cut down and reinserted as a motor mount and bracing for the daggerboard trunk.
A deck clamp was glued in set down for the thickness of the plywood deck plus the sheet bass deck planking. This clamp was the same pine I planked the hull with. The deck beams were installed and additional pieces were glued in between the beams. In effect, the clamp is laminatedand the beams are morticed in.
The actual main hatch on Pride I wasn't large enough to be practical for an RC sailing model - the battery wouldn't even fit through the scale hatch, much less my hand. The model's hatch is about 8 x 15 inches - about the same as that on my 1:36 scale Constellation model.
below the deck clamp and beams in place on Pride. Part of the hull form is bracing the daggerboard trunk for the removable keel and external ballast; another part is the motormount at the bottom of the photo near the purple pencil sharpener
below the main access hatch is much larger than the scale main hatch so I can actually access something
The plywood deck is another matter. You have to bend it in two planes; sheer and camber, something plywood doesn't like to do. I cut groves about an inch apart and half the thickness of the plywood on the underside of the subdeck to allow it to take to the camber.
The subdeck has since been divided into sections because the "plumbing" for routing the control lines, sheets, steering tackle, etc, has to be installed as the deck goes on. This way I don't have to have it all in place at once but can do each section and make adjustments as I go. There's tubes for routing the main sheet, fores'l sheets, running main stays, heads'l sheets, tops'l braces, etc below to the servos and winches that will control the rig and rudder.
Qwerty, you'll find that despite the large scale of the model (1:20) there's not going to be a lot of room inside. The depth of the hold is minimal with all that drag to the keel. Back aft there's almost no place to install steering gear. Because of that, in my 1:20 Pride of Baltimore I built the hull much the same way and left out the frames. Two were cut down and reinserted as a motor mount and bracing for the daggerboard trunk. A deck clamp was glued in set down for the thickness of the plywood deck plus the sheet bass deck planking. This clamp was the same pine I planked the hull with. The deck beams were installed and additional pieces were glued in between the beams. In effect, the clamp is laminatedand the beams are morticed in. The actual main hatch on Pride I wasn't large enough to be practical for an RC sailing model - the battery wouldn't even fit through the scale hatch, much less my hand. The model's hatch is about 8 x 15 inches - about the same as that on my 1:36 scale Constellation model. below the deck clamp and beams in place on Pride. Part of the hull form is bracing the daggerboard trunk for the removable keel and external ballast; another part is the motormount at the bottom of the photo near the purple pencil sharpener below the main access hatch is much larger than the scale main hatch so I can actually access something The plywood deck is another matter. You have to bend it in two planes; sheer and camber, something plywood doesn't like to do. I cut groves about an inch apart and half the thickness of the plywood on the underside of the subdeck to allow it to take to the camber. The subdeck has since been divided into sections because the "plumbing" for routing the control lines, sheets, steering tackle, etc, has to be installed as the deck goes on. This way I don't have to have it all in place at once but can do each section and make adjustments as I go. There's tubes for routing the main sheet, fores'l sheets, running main stays, heads'l sheets, tops'l braces, etc below to the servos and winches that will control the rig and rudder.