solid hull vs. plank on bulkhead/frame

[rtropp]

I have noticed that many model makers do not think highly if solid hull models, many of which seem to be fairly detailed builds.

I have also seen that many POB/f makers will fill the space between bulkheads which seems to, in effect, make a solid hull.

As arthritis takes a stronger hold on my hands, I have become curious to hear the opinions of more knowledgeable builders.

thanks richard.

[allanyed]

POF - if fully framed it fills the spaces, but it is far more complex than POB.   I have done scratch POB on a couple schooners in the past and tripled the number of bulkheads that is usually found in kits so too much space between them was not an issue.   It would be fantastic if the kit makers at least doubled, if not tripled the number of bulkheads.  This would give in the neighborhood of 30-35 bulkheads, far short of the 100 or so frames of a fully framed ship, but it should make things much easier than making filling blocks and would be sufficiently strong to support single planking versus the need to double plank.  I realize there is a cost in every piece added, but if the first layer of planking is eliminated it would offset some of the cost of the bulkheads.   Just a thought.  

Allan

[Baker]

I fill the open spaces between the bulkheads with fillerblocks when I make a scratch model.
The reason is (was) that I did not have a correct frame drawing.
Due to the thickness of the filler blocks, there is a lot of margin for sanding errors here and there.
The first coarse sanding is then done with the vertical sanding disc (Goes quickly and without much effort).

I will not do this with a kit model with 2 layers of planking, only a few at the bow and stern.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Baker

[Chuck]

Solid hull projects are fantastic.   There are reasons why you dont see any new kits being developed this way.  First it is very expensive.   The machinery alone and tooling required for each new kit is problematic.   There are few people with that lost knowledge and expertise as well. In addition...the restriction on the size you can make a hull.   This is why those old kits were so tiny.   They were all so much smaller than folks like to build these days and the subjects were smaller vessels.   Any frigates and such were restricted to 1/8" scale.   You would need a huge machine and a whole lot of wood to make them larger.

 

In addition,  new builders just hate taking the time to properly shape the solid hulls.   Using templates and chisels etc.   They dont have the patience for it.   So they are not very popular.   In this world of instant gratification,  they want a kit to be as close to a lego set as possible.  Just assemble and do a mediocre job of fairing and got on with it.   Unfortunately this is the case.   Its a shame because there is a lot to be learned when you are presented with more "hand-work"  on a kit.   Like those old MS yellow box kits.   There was so much "scratch building"  required that by todays standards those kits would hardly be called kits.   They just dont sell.

 

It is much more cost effective to use plywood or MDF for a POB project.  Yes the typical MFG should at least double the amount of bulkheads.  But either way...as you said,  it is very easy to fill the spaces between the bulkheads.   That is if you are willing to take the time to fair the hull properly.   It will take a lot of effort and elbow grease.

 

Chuck

[Roger Pellett]

I personally enjoy building “solid” models by which I mean those carved from a block of wood vs planked on bulkheads.   The term block encompasses various laminations; by waterlines, buttocks, etc. with the inside removed to leave a thick shell.  For me, shaping the hull with chisels, spokeshaves, and rasps is an enjoyable part of the model building process.

 

Accurately shaping the old machine carved solid model kit hulls was complicated by the lack of a flat datum.  I, therefore, build my carved hulls as two half models.  This allows me to maintain a flat surface that the hull can be layed on when checking the carving process with templates.  
 

Roger

[Jaager]

In addition to the above, when a hull gets into the 2-4 foot in length size, a solid block of wood gets into a weight problem range as well as the block possibly splitting as it ages.

Bread and butter addresses those problems.  But bread and butter is not a kit friendly method.

 

@allanyedThe early Italian POB kits were really absurd in how few molds were used to support the first layer of planking.  It is feasible and within easy reach to ameliorate deficiencies,  it is wood after all,  but investing in the additional skills and knowledge, no matter how slight, seems to be a step too far for many.  @Chuck I think there are two distinctly different populations.

 

 

Quote

I have also seen that many POB/f makers

Comparing POB to POF is like comparing Paint By Numbers to an original Rembrandt.  To think that POB is a form of POF, no matter how good it makes someone doing POB feel, is self-deception. It is anything but that.

[Srodbro]

Nearly all my models have been solid hull.  I don’t have anything against POB, I just never got the hang of doing a good job with plank on bulkhead. I don’t think you sacrifice accuracy either way.
 

Several of my models (Niagara, Chas Morgan) started from kits that I used the drawings to create patterns for bread and butter hulls, which I then planked. Others ( Kate Cory, three versions of Dapper Tom, and Gjoa) I used the solid hull from the kit as a base to apply planking to. Unlike plank on bulkhead, I have an infinite number of locations to attach a plank. Also, I have better luck getting planks to conform to odd curves. Also, glitches in shaping a hull can to me be easily corrected by cutting out and inserting a new hunk of wood and reshaping ( and filling, and sanding, maybe ad nasium). Attachment points for cleats, eyebolts, channels and even mast holes seem to me much more secure, as well. 
 

I will admit the method presents a bunch of its own challenges. The half hull I did on Wyoming at 1/8”/ft was a pretty heavy log that required a custom mount to the workbench to facilitate using planes and rasps during shaping. And, repeatedly adding station lines and waterlines while shaping can become tedious after awhile. 
 

I really love those old yellow-box solid hull kits. I’ll miss ‘em. 

[Bob Cleek]

6 hours ago, Chuck said:

In addition,  new builders just hate taking the time to properly shape the solid hulls.   Using templates and chisels etc.   They don't have the patience for it.   So they are not very popular.   In this world of instant gratification, they want a kit to be as close to a lego set as possible.  Just assemble and do a mediocre job of fairing and got on with it.   Unfortunately, this is the case.   It's a shame because there is a lot to be learned when you are presented with more "hand-work" on a kit.   Like those old MS yellow box kits.   There was so much "scratch building" required that by today's standards those kits would hardly be called kits.   They just don't sell.

In my experience, at least, the irony is that shaping a solid hull (or stacking up a hollow "bread and butter" hull) takes a whole lot less time and work than building a POB or POF hull. Having cut my teeth on the old Model Shipways "yellow boxes," and Blue Jacket, and Marine Models solid hull kits, I couldn't agree more that they would almost be seen as 'scratch-builds" today! As the story goes, the manufacturers picked up some of the government surplus gunstock duplicating carving machines after the War and used those to shape their kit model hulls on a mass production basis. Those machines did a pretty accurate job. There wasn't a lot of need for checking shapes with a template if you had an eye for a fair shape. All many needed was just a surface sanding without the need for carved shaping, other than the stem, keel, and bulwarks which were left thick (to prevent damage in shipping, I suppose.)

 

I surely agree that there was little difference between the old pre-carved "kits" and scratch-building. All they provided that was not "scratch" were the cast metal fittings and the machine carved hull. Everything else, e.g. rigging thread, dowels, strip wood, that came in the old kits were just materials scratch-builders today buy piecemeal. What you were really paying for in the old kits were the plans and instructions and the perhaps exaggerated implied promise that anybody could build a model as good as the prototype in the photograph pasted on the end of the box.  Back in the day, it was assumed (although not disclosed in the advertising) that someone building a ship model knew a fair amount about their subject matter and in order to build a good model that knowledge was a prerequisite. The level of detail in the old plans and instructions presumed the modeler's knowledge of basic seamanship and nomenclature. Other than Underhill and Davis, available from specialty mail order houses, modeling tutorials were hard to source and the internet was decades in the future.

 

I think those of us who straddle the ship modeling kit generation gap will agree that the biggest difference modernly is that the level of general competence in the ordinary manual arts has dropped to the bottom of the barrel. Wood and metal "shop" and "mechanical drawing" aren't taught in high schools like they used to be. Relatively few younger people have woodworking skills beyond those required to assemble something out of an IKEA box. (Speaking of which, I expect today's kit manufacturers also appreciate the "knock-down" characteristics of POF and POB technology of POF which minimize shipping and warehousing costs.) Moreover, the power tool industry has convinced us all that their expensive machines are essential to produce high quality work all at the expense of the acquisition of skill in the use of hand tools which can usually do the same job at a much lower cost when employed by a skilled user. 

 

The spectacular open-framed "as built" and "Navy Board style" models certainly have their place, but for the modelers who have yet to attain the highly refined level of skill necessary to build them, solid hull models, or "laid up" "bread and butter" hulls should not be overlooked as an option in building a fine model. Kits have their place, if for no other reason than to serve as the "gateway drug" for the modeling hobby, but it's a quantuum leap from LEGO to building a fine traditional ship model, and it should be. Not everything should be "dumbed down" for consumption by the masses.

[Roger Pellett]

While the open frame admiralty construction POF model might be considered by some to be the ultimate example of the shipmodeler’s art it really only makes sense for those limiting themselves to the era before about 1850. This ignores a rich variety of subjects built from iron or steel where solid hull construction will produce an excellent model.  I am amused to see builders building  planked POB models of Titanic or Bismarck, where more correct construction would require POB to mean “Plating on Bulkhead.”

 

I used to have several A.J. Fisher catalogs from my Father’s ship modeling days in the 1930’s.  I seem to remember that back you could buy a full kit,  a fittings only kit, or just the plans.  If you bought the full hull kit, they furnished sawed out lifts to be laminated into the hull block.

 

Roger

[mtaylor]

11 hours ago, allanyed said:

  It would be fantastic if the kit makers at least doubled, if not tripled the number of bulkheads.  This would give in the neighborhood of 30-35 bulkheads, far short of the 100 or so frames of a fully framed ship, but it should make things much easier than making filling blocks and would be sufficiently strong to support single planking versus the need to double plank.  I realize there is a cost in every piece added, but if the first layer of planking is eliminated it would offset some of the cost of the bulkheads.   Just a thought.  

Allan

Have look at Chuck's (Syren Ship Models) Winchelsea.   I've never seen so many bulkheads.  They're spaced one inch apart and appear to duplicate POF up to a point.   Perhaps, other kit makers will follow that lead.  Yes, more cost but also a lot closer to POF as far as planking.

[Roger Pellett]

At the moment, someone building a POB kit model of Bismarck on the kit built build logs says that they have just completed the “first planking.”  Why add the second layer?  Plate it and add a realistic armor belt.

 

Roger

Edited March 30, 2023 by Roger Pellett

[rtropp]

Wow.  The knowledge that exists on this site is great.

So far, the takeaway for me is that if I want to build a classic sailing ship, especially if I want to show more detail, I should strongly consider a plank on frame, like the Naiad or Swan projects that have instructions that really take you through the detail. (Especially if I want 1:64 or similar size.) It would probably be without rigging and blocks.  The blocks are just getting too small for me to handle. 

 

If, on the other hand, I am looking at a 20th century warship or liner, I should consider the bread-and-butter style with an attempt at plating. 

Question: If I go with the bread-and-butter style, can the "slices" be hollowed out to reduce weight?

2nd question.  Where would I get plans and/or cast parts for a WW1 warship?

 

Thank you all for your time. A really great help to my planning.

Richard

[Jaager]

On 3/30/2023 at 8:47 AM, rtropp said:

Question: If I go with the bread-and-butter style, can the "slices" be hollowed out to reduce weight?

Look up Dana Weger in the back issue CD's of the NRJ.  I believe that hollowing out the layers is actually a requirement for acquisition by a USN museum.

I view it as rather than "can"  the situation during the planning stage is more "I need to have a really good reason not to hollow every layer but the bottom one."

@Bob Cleek Champions at version of bread and butter that I had missed: Do the left and right sides as two pieces that meet at the midline. 

If I did not have an incurable case of POF disease, I think that I would have to do it this way. 

The pattern would be for one side.   Bond the port side layer to (on top of) the stb side using something easily reversible - shellac,  rubber cement,  Duco, ....

This is a two for one scroll cut process.

Bandsaw the outer lines - outside and inside - then debond - add the mirror pattern to the port side  piece and do the rough bevel.

At the core plan to pattern stage I would add alignment sites for pins or Bamboo skewer dowels - so that port side pattern has something other than the outside shape to site it.

These dowels can also be used to match layer 1 to layer 2,  layer 2 to layer3, etc.  in an idiot proof way. 

It is also probably good to have lines at and perpendicular to the midline at glue site.  Using a jig for hole depth,  dowels can be used to position port to stb and enforce the glue bond.

 

2nd question.  Where would I get plans and/or cast parts for a WW1 warship?

For reasons of sanity,  I have limited myself to 1660-1860 wood and sail (obviously this is still too broad) so I can only speculate.

Besides what I think is a lively steel group that hangs somewhere else -  for USN I would look to the NA.  For the RN,  the NMM probably has more than you could ever want,

For other European navies and Japan - you probably can find locals who would know.

The AAMM has

LE CHARLEMAGNE - first class battleship (1894-1920)
Scale of drawing : 1/200th

Le Hoche
Battleship (1886 -1913)

 

Taubman plans list at Loylhanna Dockyard looks like a possible source.

 

A WWI warship's topsides are a lot busier and more interesting than the WWII generation,  but the pre- Dreadnought  / Great White Fleet steel vessels can be really interesting.

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Jaager

[Roger Pellett]

I am presently building a model of the Benjamin Noble, a steel hulled Great Lakes Freighter launched in 1909.  You can find a currently active build log on the Scratch Builds 1901 and Later section of the forum.  The hull for this model was carved from “solid” pine to make two half models as Bob describes.  The hull block was drilled for Brass locator pins before shaping to assure accurate alignment of the finished hull.  The hull was then plated to simulate the riveted hull of the actual ship and the hull halves were joined.

 

Look it up!

 

Roger

[East Ender]

Such an interesting topic on solid hull building. Bob Cleek hit the nail on the head with the lack of manual skills taught in todays schools. I asked my grandson about  his courses in high school and asked him if he has ever had a shop class or mechanical drawing class and he said "what is that"? It's disturbing to me to hear that.

 

As a new modeler, I chose my second build, Bluejackets Smuggler, which is a solid hull kit.  Every step of the way has been a challenge, from becoming reacquainted with blueprints,  to using old drafting skills with old tools learned 50 years ago in high school, to which tools work the best for shaping. Measuring and laying out stations, finding the centerline, becoming frustrated with mistakes but learning from those mistakes. Slowly figuring things out. This to me is the beauty of creating something. I may want to plank the deck on Smuggler, just to learn another skill. We'll see. I'm  learning something new every day from everyone here. At my pace, I should be done with Smuggler in about 5 years...

 

 

 

 

[Jaager]

@East Ender

 

With a solid hull at 1:48  there is the option to use a thin veneer to plank over the hull.  There are instructions here.

The veneer can be spilled from a sheet using a very sharp knife and a steel straight edge. 

Use a better quality #11 shaped blade than Xacto or similar is my suggestion.

See if you can get sawn rather than rotary cut veneer.  

Maybe rotary cut would play nice if you apply the PVA to the side that is toward the pith.  It will probably cup in the correct direction.

 

The bottom can be copper color dyed or Black Cherry can be used to begin with.

I do not know how much detail that EAR Jr.  included in the instruction booklet but Chapelle's  The American Fishing Schooners, 1825-1935 has a section at the back with lots of detail.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Jaager

[Bob Cleek]

13 hours ago, East Ender said:

I asked my grandson about  his courses in high school and asked him if he has ever had a shop class or mechanical drawing class and he said "what is that"? It's disturbing to me to hear that.

I've had the same experience exactly and my 12 year old grandson "doesn't feel comfortable" in my workshop building "because it's dusty and full of spider webs." (I think the kid needs  to do some time in "Grandpa's Boot Camp!") The schools now have what they call "Maker's Spaces," which are sort of shop classrooms where they are supposedly able to "make things," but I haven't seen anything being "made" nor any manual arts skills being taught. They also have "robotics shop," which is perhaps more technologically up with the times, but seems to only be about assembling prefabricated LEGO subassemblies and playing with radio-controlled cars in a different context.  What's more disturbing to me is that  kids my grandson's age don't seem to have any desire or interest to build anything. No "forts" or treehouses. No coasters. No working on their bicycles. Just no creative drive. Their interest is consumed by computer games (perhaps as our hobbies now compete with our own screen time... touche'.)

 

"Reality" doesn't have to be "virtual," but it seems for them, it is. If they want something, their instinct seems to be to find out on line where to buy it. But then again, I had a father-in-law who used to call the Yellow Pages his "tool box" because he was "manually illiterate" and always hired somebody to everything. 

 

Who's going to teach them "righty tighty, lefty loosey?" How will they ever learn to sharpen an edge? (I gave my grandson a small pocket knife and my daughter had a conniption fit and took it away from him because it was "dangerous." 

 

Don't ask me. I still haven't figured out how to gracefully mention to someone in a wooden ship modeling forum that they are pushing their chisel against the grain!

[Bob Cleek]

2 hours ago, Jaager said:

With a solid hull at 1:48  there is the option to use a thin veneer to plank over the hull.

Very thin veneer for non-structural planking is hard to source in my experience, at least and there's always the difficulty of working with the grain of wood that has been peeled from the log rather than sawn from it.. It's one thing if the plank is going to define and support the shape of the hull, but on a solid hull, that's not necessary and, consequently, the planking stock can be paper thin and cut with scissors, even, if one wishes. That will permit "planking" in scales well below 1:48 in size. 

 

The way it's done is to take a nice heavy plane, a #5 and better a #7 if you are lucky enough to have one, (or make do with what you've got.) Sharpen the iron well and set it properly to take a paper-thin shaving and then run it down the length of a nice clear plank edge (with the grain, not against it) and plane yourself a nice even curl of wood. Then take those curls, unroll them, and iron them flat with a clothes iron and cut your planks out from those flat ribbons of nice wood with the grain all running in the right direction with a scissors or a scalpel blade and a straight edge. Then glue those "planks" to your solid hull and nobody will ever be the wiser that you didn't spend a lot of time assembling frames and bulkheads and fairing plank edges and so on.  

 

I learned this trick reading the late Gerald Wingrove's book, The Techniques of Ship Modeling. He was working in quite small scale and he even devised a way to stack up razor blades separated by washers bolted together to create a cutter that could be run down the edge of a plank of wood so that a number of evenly spaced razor cuts would be made in the face of the edge of the plank. They he would plane the edge of the plank and the shavings would be simultaneously cut at the same time and all of the same width with one stroke of the plane. 

[navarcus]

The yellow box Fair American was the best hull I ever worked on. 

[East Ender]

Thank you Jaager and Bob. I now want to run out to the shop and grab one of my planes and try my hand at this. All those wasted "curlies" over my life. This is a very interesting concept!

 

I used to collect planes, and even have some of my Great Grandfathers tools as he was a Danish cabinet maker in Denmark and later in Quincey, Massachusetts. I have my grandfathers drawing tools as he was Art Director at Grumman Aerospace  in Bethpage NY for years. I worked there for years myself in  flight test  and the prototype/production departments where prints were out on the bench every day. I'm struggling with them after two brain strokes and multiple myeloma cancer, which is in remission. Memory is a funny thing, all you need is a spark, and memory returns. So it is now working on Smuggler, It's a good exercise for the brain matter. My grandfather left me all of his drawing and drafting tools, lots of templates, french curves, triangles ect and I am presently using them on his drafting table along with mine he bought me back in 1970. I keep telling my grandson that he needs to learn a trade, something that will be useful for him, if not now but perhaps in the future as something to fall back on. If only he'd put down the X Box and learn one. We did send him to sailing school while he was visiting one summer and he did well. I will introduce him to my Bluejacket prints and explain to him some basics. I'm a tool junkie and will quiz him on certain tools and hopefully he'll remember. 

 

Back to the subject and sorry for the ramble on. I do have some cherry  stock from our cabinet installation, along with lots of pine, 300 old re-claimed heart pine our floors are made of. Probably some oak and mahogany trim pieces out there in the garage as well. So I'm going to try the plane shaving method and practice on flat and curved surfaces and see how I do. I'll use PVA as they will be so thin, PVA will let me slide them around a bit if needed. 

 

The biggest challenge on this solid hull was finding  a good centerline, both keel and deck. I measured and measured, used my dividers, calipers ect  trying and get an average centerline on the deck then went around to the bottom stretching fishing 10 lb test monofiliment fishing line down and along the keel. I then centered the keel and went back and forth between the keel and deck until the met reasonably well .This took many attempts to get it as accurate as I could, but "I think" I got it right. My blank hull was thicker on one side than the other, the deck was off from side to side, the bulwarks were ..350 - 450 on the starboard side and .150-.200 on the port side. Cattiwampus? There's mention of cutting off the bulwarks and building them back up with wood strips. I'm going to try it the way the instructions say first,. Why? Because it's harder and a challenge. We shall see! Once I got the centerline, I  worked the templates and have the bulwarks where they need to be. Before I did all this, I did ensure what I think was a squared and flat keel using the template.  "Blueprints rule" so I made it work all around. I was concerned I was cutting too much. But, as mentioned, fixing a solid hull is easier than plank of frame. 

 

Solid hulls, I think I want to try another solid hull. Maybe 5 years from now. 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by East Ender

[Roger Pellett]

Accurately determining a centerline to use as a datum was a stumbling block when finish shaping one of the old machine carved kit model hulls so when I began carving my own hulls I carved two half models.  This automatically provides a flat centerline datum for each hull half.  Each hull half can then be laid on a flat surface to check with templates as carving proceeds.

 

Laying out the hull block to include accurately spaced location pins for joining the finished halves is part of the Engineering that takes place before carving.

 

The first photo below shows the design for a hull half for my current project.  This also gives an idea of shaping that can take place with my bandsaw prior to carving.  The second photo shows the carved hull halves prior to joining.

 

[mtaylor]

On 4/16/2023 at 6:13 AM, East Ender said:

I asked my grandson about  his courses in high school and asked him if he has ever had a shop class or mechanical drawing class and he said "what is that"? It's disturbing to me to hear that.

Very disturbing.   Back in grade school, we had to take Home Economics well as a shop class.  Learned to cook and sew and the apron was worn in both classes.  The girls had to take shop also.   We also had a "co-operative" high school.  Sophmore thorugh senior year.  Covered a lot trades and business courses and even nursing.  You picked the area and took the courses.  In your 3rd and 4th year, you worked 2 weeks and then school 2 weeks. That schedule alternated for the entire calendar year.  

[yankee clipper]

I as well cut my teeth on the Yellow Box kits and one of my favorites was the Forrester lumber schooner. I have learn to respect the kits so much that about ten years ago I started to collect as many as I could find in "mint' condition. Have even bought duplicates to insure they contained only 

the best parts. I think we owe John Shed and the boys a debt of gratitude. Quite obvious from this thread that a number of outstanding builders and contributors to the forum have a soft spot for the Good Old Days.

 

Yankee Clipper