HMS Camilla by wyzwyk - 20 gun post ship circa 1776 (1:48 scale)

[Landrotten Highlander]

Peter

     I'm not sure what you mean when you say you want to show both building methods and life on board on the same model.

 

Tom

I mean that I want to see (on the finished model) how a ship was built, as well as understand what living conditions were while at sea.  This means that one side will be showing the frames (with strategically placed openings to show the inside of the ship, while the other side will be fully planked.  I am sure it will become clearer once I start posting pictures when I get to this stage (still building the 'shell' - another 3-5 months should do, I think)

[wyz]

Peter

     Thanks for making it clearer.  I most surely will be following your build and look forward to your first pictures.

 

Tom

[wyz]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Building Board

 

     Because I'm doing a bread and butter construction where I use templates to shape the hull it's imperative that surface is as flat as you can get it. Even the smallest deviations from flat can cause an error using the templates.  I know this to be true because in an earlier attempt I glued a new 1/2" thick piece of plywood on top of an old construction board and had problems.  My intentions were good but the board had slight undulations on the surface.  The board I'm using now is made from a really fine piece of 3/4" thick furniture grade plywood reinforced with two very straight and stable pieces of hardwood running the length of the table on the underside.  I applied several coats of polyurethane on both sides to seal the wood from moisture.   I then painted the top surface with three coats of a flat, light gray latex paint.   Afterwards the board surface was checked and rechecked to insure flatness.   The next step was to draw on the board with an ultra-fine point Sharpie pen the center line and all station lines, including the fore and aft perpendiculars.  Also I drew the station line numbers and letters.   I then made five pairs of keel blocks from Castelo boxwood.  After drilling holes in the building board I attached the blocks to it using bolts and wing nuts.  When you have to make a subtle adjustment to a keel block having wing nuts makes it so much easier to do.  The next step was to make the 2 extension supports from 1/2" furniture grade plywood.  They were glued and screwed together tightly; and later received 4 coats of polyurethane.  No more was done to the building board until the hull was to be mounted to it.  Only then could the exact height of the extension supports be determined.  The pictures below are of the finished building board. 

 

 

     The last photo shows the hull supports to be used when the temporary keel and extension arms are removed and the actual keel, stem, sternpost and cutwater are added.

Edited November 7, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lift Templates

 

     To build the hull I need to glue several pieces of wood together.  They are called lifts.  Obviously each lift has a different shape; so the question is how do you determine what that shape is?  When one of the MSW scratch builders contacted me and asked for clarification on something I wrote in making the templates I realized how vague it was and that I assumed too much that viewers had knowledge of certain things.  I was wrong, so now I would like to rewrite and to provide some more illustration on this topic to help make it clearer. 

 

     The first step is to get the hull's body plan in the scale you're working to.  On it you will see the shape of the station lines (aka section lines), forward on the right side and aft station lines on the left. For this I use Alex Matvijet's plan for the HMS Sphinx, a sister ship of HMS Camilla.  Unfortunately for me the distance between waterlines (aka lift lines) on his plan are only a hair over 21/32".  On the actual ship this would be about 2' 8".  Since I'm using 1" thick lifts for the hull's construction (4' on actual ship) I need to redraw them on both the body plan and the half breadth plan.  To start I mark off every inch going up from the top of the keel on both sides of the body plan.  When this is done on each side I connect them with horizonal lines drawn with different colored pencils.  I have now established the new lift lines on the body plan, and they will be at 90 degrees to the centerline.  With this done you now have to measure from the centerline to everywhere it intersects a station line on all eight lift lines.  After doing this you will end up with pages of measurements, much of the information needed to draw the shape of the lifts.   I write all these measurements in a notebook.  Now you have to go to the half breadth plan and plot them. When all the station line points for a given lift are plotted you then simply have to connect them.   For this I use a set of ship's curves and I draw these lines with the same colored pencil I used on the body plan for each different lift.  This is helpful, especially if you use plans that already have lift lines marked on them.   Other model builders, so not to deal with so many lines, may want to make their own have breadth plan.  This is easily done by drawing a long horizonal , the centerline, and then marking off where each station line is from simple ruler measurements taken from the sheer plan.

 

      Now that this is done you have the shape of the lifts.  NOT ALWAYS!   What happens when you get to a lift above the wales?   Sometimes there is tumblehome!!!  When this happens the widest part of the lift is at its bottom, and you ALWAYS want to plot to the widest point for any lift.  That said, use the measurement from the previous lift at that particular station line.  If you don't take this into account your lift will be too narrow when you make the mylar templates.  This mistake undetected mean you will be buying more wood!  Look at the body plan and you can see what I'm saying.   Be very careful with this as it catches a lot of modelers.  Also, I usually add an extra 1/4" to these measurements to insure I have enough wood when I do the initial rough shaping of the glued up hull.  On the partial picture of the half breadth plan I show some of the extra allowance on the no.1 and no.2 lifts as dotted lines.   If you would not be too aggressive with the power tools, be very accurate in drawing the lift shape and your alignment is perfect when the lifts are glued together, then 3/16" or 1/8" allowance might be ok.  That's too close for me.  Once I've established the shape of the lifts with the added allowance I then plot them on 1/8" gridded mylar drawing film.  Remember to draw the midships line on them.  The last step is to cut them out.  

 

On the drawings below, both body plan and half breadth plan, I give an example to show how to do the plotting of four station line points on the first lift, numbers 13, 15, 17 and 19.  It's pretty much self explanatory.

        

 

 

 

 

     I have to apologize for the lousy quality of the photos of the plans.

 

 

     Note that when I cut the shape of the templates from the mylar I also cut some out from the middle.  Why?  Several reasons.  Most importantly, when the two half  lifts are glued together to form a whole one and it is about to be glued to other lifts you have a place to put nails into to keep the glued lifts from slipping out of place.  Secondly, it reduces weight.  Thirdly, when the time comes it makes it easier to shape the interior.  Lastly, it affects wood movement.  In an ideal world you want your wood to dry out, or at least to be hydroscopically stable in your workshop environment.  Sadly, not all model builders wait long enough before using the wood.  When that happens the wood will lose a greater amount of water over time and you will get more shrinkage.  If the wood is going to shrink you want that to happen before you start building, not after.  The general rule is that the wider the board used to make a lift the more shrinkage you will see.  Cutting wood out of a lift adds to its stability. Also, bear in mind that the sapwood of a species absorbs a greater amount of water than the heartwood.  As you would think this too affects the drying process and shrinkage.  There is an excellent book written by R. Bruce Hoadley on wood properties and characteristics entitled Understanding Wood, a craftsman's guide to wood technology.  It's a very informative book, albeit somewhat technical.

Edited August 24, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

Plywood Hull Shaping Templates

 

     To shape a bread and butter construction hull you need to make a set of rigid templates.  Years ago I used to make them from 3/32" 5 ply aircraft grade plywood but that wood has become expensive today.  With my last model I used some cheap 1/8" birch plywood and, sadly, regretted it.  The templates warped and twisted on me something awful.  What I did for this Camilla build was to go to a local cabinet maker and buy a 5'x5' sheet of furniture grade 1/8" Baltic plywood.  The templates made from this were then reinforced with a 1/4 " piece of furniture grade plywood glued to them.  I then gave each template 4 coats of polyurethane.  They turned out fantastic, straight as can be.  The polyurethane serves two purposes.   It acts as moisture barrier helping to prevent any movement,  and it allows me to clean the pencil graphite from the templates much easier.

 

Edited July 28, 2016 by wyzwyk

[paulsutcliffe]

Very jealous of your shop, looking forward to the build

[albert]

Great start.

[wyz]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starting the Build

 

     After all the preliminary stuff has been taken care of I can now start building the model.  Hallelujah!

 

 

     First things first, go out and get some lumber.  I went to a lumber yard and purchased 5 - 12' long x 1 1/2" thick x 6" wide planks of yellow poplar.  They milled the wood on all six sides and when I left the yard I took with me 20 - 33" long x 1" thick x 5" wide pieces of wood.  Eight inches of planer snipe from each end of the plank was cut off and thrown away.  I was very happy with the milling job the lumberman did so I crossed his palms with gold.  We both walked away smiling.  I got the wood home, took it down to the shop and stacked it to air dry for a few months.  For reason I didn't have any control of it end up being 7 months.  When I was ready to start the build the first thing I did was take a pad sander with 60 grit sandpaper to the wood.  On some boards the planer went against the grain and caused a furry surface that needed to be taken off.  Next I looked each piece over very carefully to decide what lift it would be part of.  I make each lift from two pieces of wood glued together.  To get timber 10-12" wide that doesn't have some cup is difficult.  It's just far easier to get a flat lift if it's done in two pieces.  I learned this lesson the hard way.  When I match the two pieces of wood I try to make sure there are no height differences between the boards, even very slight ones, because they would have to be sanded or planed out first. No thanks!  You also have to take knots into account when pairing wood with the templates.  Care at this most early stage of the game can save you major headaches down the road.  The photo above shows the mylar templates that will be used with each pair of yellow poplar boards.

Edited July 28, 2016 by wyzwyk

[TBlack]

Tom,

You and I have previously communicated at my log entitled "Sphynx". It seems like we've both had to start over, albeit, in my case, not due from an accident. Rather than my recounting the story in your log; I'll reactivate my log and post an explanation shortly. BTW, that's a fabulous looking shop you've created.

Tom

[wyz]

  

 

     The next step in the process is to place the straight edge of the template on the edge of the wood you've chosen,  and then put a mark on the wood where the midships will be.   From the edge you chose set your square on the mark and draw a line across the wood.  This line will be used later to align the lifts when you are gluing them together.  More on this later.  With the template where I want I tape it to the wood in a few places.  Then I draw the shape of the half lift by running a #2 pencil around the template's edge, inside and out.  Remember to flip the mylar template over to do the other half of the lift. When the outline of the half lift is on the wood I'm ready to cut it out on my bandsaw.  Before I do I mark on each piece its lift #, whether it's top or bottom, and whether it's the left of right side.  This helps to prevent stupid errors.  The photo shows all the half lifts, except # 8 cut to shape.  Number 8 lift is just two small piece of wood so they don't need a template.

Edited February 19, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

   

 

After the two halves of the lifts are cut out to shape I ready them to be glued together.  The first thing I do is take my square and continue the midship line around the the half lift.  I do this for all the half lifts.  Next I make an alignment jig from two large white pieces of paper taped together.  On that paper I draw a center line and then cross it at 90 degrees.  This represents amidships.  Then I take the left and right halves of the lifts and place them on the alignment jig with the midships marks lining up.  Now you can see what needs to filed or sanded to make the two halves perfectly symmetrical.  You might be asking why do this?  Is it really necessary?  Having everything symmetrical simply makes it easier to align pieces when gluing, be it the two halves of a lift or two lifts.  When glue obscures what you can see It's nice to be able to align the two halves of the lifts tactilely.

Edited November 7, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

   

 

     This picture shows the left and right sides of the lifts being glued together.  Notice that I put wax paper under the lifts to protect the alignment jig.  After glue is applied I clamp and place weight on it, as I want the glued places to remain flat.  The glue joint between the left and right lift halves is not as important as the ones between lifts.

Edited February 18, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

 

 

    After the glue dries I make sure the areas around the joined pieces are flat.  I scrape off any excess dried glue.  Even if you are very careful in gluing the halves together and weighting them down you can still have it dry a little uneven.  If this happens always sand or carefully plane it smooth.  When I say carefully I mean taking the finest shavings.  I'm now ready to glue the lifts together.  I place the two lifts on top of one another and align everything up. Then I take my #2 pencil and draw the outline of the lifts on each other.  This is to show the glue boundary.

Edited July 28, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

    

 

     Glue is then applied to each lift.  I am very liberal with the glue so I have to wait a little longer for it to get tacky.  Be careful doing this.  You don't want to wait too long because you want all the excess glue to easily squeeze out.

Edited November 8, 2016 by wyzwyk

[_SalD_]

Wow!! wonderful craftsmanship Tom, beautiful work, very impressive workshop too.

[wyz]

  

 

    My next step, and a very important one, is to put nails into the lifts to keep them from moving when clamping.  Without them there is no way I can keep the lifts from sliding out of place.  I use 2" finishing nails for the job.  As you can see in the above photo I don't actually drive the nail through one lift into the other.   What I do is to place the nails into certain V grooves or in the corner of L shapes in the the top lift and then drive the nail approximately 1/2" to 5/8" into the lower lift.  I use about 8 or 10 nails to immobilize a lift.  This step is made possible because yellow poplar takes nails so well.  The nails are easy to put in, the wood doesn't split, and when the clamping is done the nails are easily removed.  Be very careful the lifts don't slide out of place when nailing.  In this photo I completed the nailing and am about to clamp lift #4 to lifts #1, 2 and 3 that are already glued together.

Edited November 8, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

  

 

     Once the nails are in place there should be no movement in the clamping process.  The above photo shows the lifts I just nailed all clamped up.  As you can see I use a variety of clamping devices.  Note that 1/8" or 1/4" thick plywood squares are employed in this step to prevent the clamps from denting the lifts.  After all the clamps are in place I remove the excess glue that squeezes out.  There usually is a considerable amount that needs to be cleaned from the lifts.  I scrape the glue off with a cheap set of chisels.

Edited August 5, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

    

 

     Above are 5 photos, from various angles, of the glued up lifts with the extension arms attached.

Edited February 18, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

 

 

     The next step is to attach the temporary keel.  You might ask why temporary?  Well, the hull is to be shaped with a variety of hand and power tools.  In some of my first bread and butter builds, no matter how hard I tried, I would always end up putting a nick, slice or gouge in the keel.  Sadly, I did it more than once.   Now it's really a no-brainer to use a temporary one.  For this build I decided to switch from using a yellow poplar temporary keel secured with thin birch dowels to a hard maple one attached with 1" long #6 flat head screws.  The yellow poplar temporary keels were not very strong and I've had them break in the past where they are more loosely secured in the bow and stern.   First I draw the keel width on the hull with a #2 pencil.  They are drawn a hair wider on each side so that I can more easily see them when I screw on the keel.   I drill the holes in the keel first and then countersink them so the screws don't stick out.  Once one screw is in I align the keel to the hull, hold it in place, and then drill through the keel into the hull.  Then I put a screw in and move on down the hull repeating this step.  At the foremost and aftermost places where the keel and hull touch I put a tiny drop of wood glue, and I do mean tiny.

Edited August 5, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

    

 

      Above are three pictures of the hull finally mounted on the building board.  The first step was to locate and then drill holes in the building board where the extension supports would go.  Then I had to measure and cut their heights down to where they suspended the hull exactly 1/16" above the building board.  I did this step slowly and with great care so as to not go to far.  It turned out perfect!  The last of the 4 photos shows a closeup of the elevated keel.

Edited February 18, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

 

     With the hull mounted on the building board it could now be moved into the back shop where the hull shaping will take place.  The first thing I did was take out my chisels, gouges and mallet to round the hull some.  This is the roughest of the rough shaping.   I further shaped the hull with a block plane.  This was helpful in rounding out the rough shaped hull, but I could only do so much so fast with it.  To speed the process I broke out my 4" x 24" Porter Cable belt sander with a 36 grit belt and tore into the hull.  Sawdust went everywhere! With that sander and my Makita pad sander with 60 grit sandpaper I was able to finish up the pre-template shaping in short order.  The two photos show the hull at this stage.  Now the arduous job of shaping with the templates begins.  Because so much saw dust is produced I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you use a dust mask and a room filter.  In my condo I have to always remember to keep the three doors to the shops and basement closed. as the fine wood particulate has a magical way of getting into every room.  Without question this is one of the major drawbacks to this method of hull construction.

Edited July 28, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

 

 

 

Tom,

You and I have previously communicated at my log entitled "Sphynx". It seems like we've both had to start over, albeit, in my case, not due from an accident. Rather than my recounting the story in your log; I'll reactivate my log and post an explanation shortly. BTW, that's a fabulous looking shop you've created.

Tom

 

Tom, I'm looking forward to your log and hearing your story.  Sometimes in life your train gets sidetracked.  Sadly, mine usually goes off the side of a mountain.

Edited February 18, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

Wow!! wonderful craftsmanship Tom, beautiful work, very impressive workshop too.

Thanks Sal.  When I look at the hull now I can barely see its a ship

 

Tom

[wyz]

Very jealous of your shop, looking forward to the build

Paul,

     I only have a shop like this because I don't have a wife and kids who would commandeer those rooms. 

 

Tom

Edited February 19, 2016 by wyzwyk

[wyz]

     To all those who have commented on my build and the likes I thank you.  For the past 7 months I've been idle, enjoying your builds in MSW from my StratoLounger.  In that time I've eaten a lifetime's worth of buttered popcorn!  It's good to get off my butt and get back in the shop again.

 

Tom

[dvm27]

Really enjoying your build, Tom. Fascinating to see a different approach other than plank on frame or bulkhead on a vessel of this era.

[wyz]

Hi Greg,

 

     I'm glad you're enjoying the build.  Its true, a large scale bread and butter Georgian style construction is not all that common.   And for good reason, it's a labor intensive process that creates a mountain of wood dust.  If you don't have a special shop room to help contain the dust and a good air filtration system it's not really doable.  Most model builders would be looking at an ugly divorce if they tried it.  ;-)

 

Tom

Edited February 19, 2016 by wyzwyk

[EdT]

Nice work so far, Tom.  I too like to see some bread and butter work enter the fray.  I found the Microplane to be a very good tool for hull shaping, leaving little dust and able to shape a softwood quickly hull right up to the 120-grit hand sanding stage.  A little late for you at this stage, but maybe for later.

 

Ed

[wyz]

     Thanks Ed for the suggestion to use the Microplane.  Should I ever do another bread and butter construction I will certainly keep that in mind.  That may be long time coming however because after this project I want to try my hand at doing a plank-on-frame model.