19th Century 31-ton Revenue Cutter by CharlieZardoz - Scale 1/64 - building as USRC Active based off Doughty plans and BlueJacket Shipcrafters kit

[CharlieZardoz]

So then came the sanding process. You can see the tools I used starting from the bow and working my way back. The shaping templates helped me to refine the form and were invaluable. You can see the various bit I used to sand roughly then refine and the smaller ones for curves and detailing.

[CharlieZardoz]

The keel now fits where it should. Notice the beak overhangs a bit. This is correct and in the proper keel (made in cherry?) I will have the beak extend about a quarter of an inch onto the top deck. The lines on the hull will be redrawn a few times but they help me know where to sand. The xxxx's are where the templates brush into the wood incorrectly so those areas are where I sand next. EzPz!

[CharlieZardoz]

And so here we are. I've gotten one half sanded perfect to the templates. Now onto the second half. You can see in some of the pics the difference between sides especially at the stern. Also look at the design such a streamline shape so different to Sultana.

Edited October 14, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[dgbot]

Looking good Charlie.  At first I did not think you could pull off the modification with the supplied hull.  But you are doing it.  Kudos.  I hope you have been wearing a air mask to protect yourself from the sawdust.

David B

[CharlieZardoz]

Haha cheers! Well it was touch and go there for a bit I realized this was a tad more challenging than I expected. But I'm very pleased with the result and learned a lot and yes have been wearing a mask though initially I didn't realize how much dust this can create so I started doing the sanding by the window and that helped.

Edited October 15, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[mtaylor]

The hull is coming out very well, Charlie.  I'm impressed.    The fan blowing out the window is a great idea as long as the neighbors don't object.    And it's probably a lot quieter than shop vac.   Good on you for the face mask.  

[CharlieZardoz]

No worries Mark, all that's out that window is a courtyard, perhaps a few dusty pigeons

[Omega1234]

Hi Charlie

 

I'm enjoying watching your little beauty take shape. Those Revenue Cutters must've been the epitome of style in their day. You know, slick, fast and super cool to look at!

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Cheers

Patrick

[overdale]

Very nice work Charlie. You have the makings of a very elegant model there.

 

Dan.

[CharlieZardoz]

Thank you so much guys. Im really hoping to give these models my best and learn all the lessons I need in order to then build bigger and better ships and get to the level I seen from your logs. I can only dream of building frigate or larger for now.

[Mirabell61]

nice work Charlie,

 

the hull is coming in a great look....

 

Nils

[CharlieZardoz]

One quick image showing the symmetry done for the bow. Now moving slowly towards the stern the same method as the other side.

[CharlieZardoz]

Another quick point im using the flat edge to create the keelson edge. Then sanding away and down if that makes sense.

[Omega1234]

Looks good, Charlie

[CharlieZardoz]

Hey all! So here is an update on my progress. I put together the hull for the 30 ton revenue cutter by using a few sheets of wood and gluing them together (as per Dan's suggestion). The sections on the plans are about 15/16" to 1"  so the wood plank is about that length. I then drew the sections and cut them out with a band saw.

Edited November 20, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

There were about 9 pieces. The parts were glued together with paint and glue mixed so that way they would have natural lines built into the wood that would help with the shaping and lining up with the templates.  Red for the half lines and black for the main lines.

Edited November 20, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

Here she is lined up with the keel and all glued together. You can see the material that needs to be removed with the dremel the rest is ezpz!

[CharlieZardoz]

Check out my babies all lined up together now, making quite a fleet even if they all need planking lol.

[CharlieZardoz]

So I made shaping templates in the style found on modelshipwright, basically a half with the deck level added that way I can just wedge them in to see how much material needs to be removed from the sides, top and bottom.

[CharlieZardoz]

Shaping turned into an interesting and informative process, I used a rotary saw attachment to the dremel to cut the angle for the keel, sanding uncovered a few issues, mainly that the wood had a grain which sanded a tad unevenly also the glue sections did the same. My solution was to fill the uneven parts with the Durham water putty. It ultimately became a casing around the hull that I would comtinue shaping and sanding and while that lessoned the effect of the painted lined within, the effect worked out reasonable well.

[CharlieZardoz]

Here is some images of the 2 Doughty cutters lined up together. You can see the differences in the shape, the bow much more pointed and triangle-ish on the 30 ton, and the angel of the draught is more extreme. Look at the plans of all 3 you can see the flattening out of the shape, the 50 and 80 ton similar but 80 is longer. 

[CharlieZardoz]

Fine tuning the shape was done with acrylic templates made at the laser shop which don't bend like the cardstock. Also the deck camber was accomplished using an image from the plans of Lumberyard's Lively which was very generously emailed to me. Making a little curved wood piece I added the camber to the deck. The deck itself was a piece of 1/'8" and 1/16" basswood sheet glued onto the top of the wood sections. It worked out great!

[CharlieZardoz]

So the last part was perfecting the stern which you can see what the transom for each cutter looks like on the screen. Look how they get longer and also note the dotted line where the deck ends. I cut out all 3 and then fit them on and fine tuned the sanding.

[CharlieZardoz]

And here is the transom on the 50 ton ship.

[CharlieZardoz]

Here are the final images of the 30 ton hull as she is now about 9 and 1/8". In comparison to Sultana which took me a few months to shape, this one took me like 1-2 weeks, so definitely getting the hang of this. I still want to sand a little off the bow and the keelson area to make way for planks but overall it's good to go!

Edited November 20, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

So now for confession time. I saw a deal on ebay for the old Dallas kit for $50 so picked it up. The kit is 1/48 scale so the parts won't be used however she is modeled after the 80 ton cutter so decided to convert the kit to 1/64 in a similar manner to how I converted the 50 ton kit. This model will be done last but I started some of the process so you can see how it's assisting me in the other two. The use of this kit helps me in understanding the changes between each cutter how the shape changes/gets bigger yet planking seems to have stayed the same (width of planks), and other parts helping me understand camber, etc. for the other 2 models. I just needed to see all 3 in perspective as they are sort of connected and don't fully trust myself as a scratch kit builder just yet. It also means that each cutter is going to be built in 3 different ways, block of wood, bread and butter slices and plank on bulkhead! Learning a lot with these 3 and will apply that to Sultana when I get back to her.

Edited November 20, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

So here's how to convert a plank of bulkhead kit and if I can convert this one I can convert any kit (though remember this kit is discontinued). I scanned the skeleton pieces then worked the contrast to get rid of the color, then resized them using a formula and checked the size using scanned copies of the Doughty plan from the book. Converting from 1/48 (not 1/50 like the kit suggests), to 1/64 which converts the kit hull 17.375" to about 13" a difference of about 74.82% or the multiple .7482. So after scanning a part just times the pixels let's say 3000 by .7482 and you get 2245 the size of the part at 1/64 scale. You can see that a printed image lines up with the plans perfectly now.

Edited November 22, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

I did the same with the bulkheads. After converting the parts I then put them into the laser program and now they are ready to be brought to the laser cutter. Ezpz!

[CharlieZardoz]

It was important for me to check the accuracy of the AL kit's templates since some revenue cutter kits have rather significant innacuracies. This didn't seem to be the case for the old Dallas kit the bulkheads all lined up perfectly with the plans when I printed out the resized templates on pieces on paper.

Edited November 20, 2016 by CharlieZardoz

[CharlieZardoz]

A comparison of the deck plans for each revenue cutter nice to see them all lined up