Room and Space on ships' boats

[allanyed]

I may have missed it (or more likely forgotten) if there is a chart of the R&S for the frames on ships' boats.  I have scantlings of the futtocks and floors for various types and sizes of boats from W.E. May's book on boats but I cannot find any information on the room and space.   Lavery shows a drawing of a longboat of 1758 on page 214 of The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War that describes the vertical lines as representing "frame stations" rather than just stations.  These match the station lines on the body plan.   I am taking that to mean there is a frame at each station, but may be wrong to make this assumption,.  To now I have typically placed a frame at each station line and it works very well.  If this is not correct and there is a chart or similar of the R&S that anyone can share I would be grateful. 

Allan

[Jaager]

3 hours ago, allanyed said:

that describes the vertical lines as representing "frame stations" rather than just stations.

I would go with the view that this was the writer using his slang.   Were not boats built shell first?  The frames added later?  They have no part in defining the shape of the hull?  The station lines would not relate to a frame added to a shell complete hull in a shape defining function.

The roll of the boat frames is not all that integral and they are easily replaced, so it would not surprise me if every master boatwright had his own prejudice about frame placement.

I am of the "just wack the Gordian Knot and move on" school.  I would:

1. find a similar boat from the same time that shows the frame intervals and use that.

2. work up a formula for boat length vs frame interval and interpolate the interval for the boat being built.  It may require that the various types of boat be a separate category.  i.e.  a clinker cutter may have different requirements than those of a carvel-built launch or long boat - etc.

[iMustBeCrazy]

5 hours ago, Jaager said:

Were not boats built shell first?  The frames added later?

 

5 hours ago, Jaager said:

i.e.  a clinker cutter may have different requirements than those of a carvel-built launch or long boat - etc.

A clinker boat was built shell first* whereas a carvel boat was built frame first.

 

Do the station lines relate to frames in a boat? I think 'probably' would be the best answer for a carvel hull, at least it's the one I use, and there may have been intermediate frames as well.

For a clinker hull it's not so obvious, 'probably' for the mould/plug but for the 'ribs' no idea.

 

* a clinker hull is actually built mould/plug first, then planking, then 'ribs'. I think the only function of the 'ribs' is to stop the planking splitting along the rivet lines but as usual I could be wrong.

 

The carvel-build assimilates to that of ship-building, by first laying-off the form of the boat on the mould-loft floor, making moulds for, and taking the bevellings of the timbers, and forming them (the timbers) accordingly. The timbers are then erected, and secured in a temporary manner in their position, and the planking is afterwards brought upon them.

 

But in the clincher and diagonal build, the planking is brought on first to the stem, stern-port, and transom or keel, as the case may be; and to moulds placed between to give the form; and the timbers are afterwards brought upon the planking.
 

 

 

[druxey]

Allan: those 'frame stations' were generally the frame spacing. Usually this was at about 12" or so. At the bow and stern sometimes the last two or three frames were cant ones. If so, their spacing will be equal to the others at the gunwale and closer at the keel.

[Jaager]

Thread drift alert!

 

2 hours ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

whereas a carvel boat was built frame first

 

As is usual, I had it in mind how a scale model boat is built and then back projected to full size. 

 

I build either clinker or carvel shell first over a plug.  Using carvel frames as a guide for planking on a small hull is beyond my skills.  The fragility of frames that small as stand alone parts exceeds my frustration survival limit.   I did attempt to build a launch plug with slots for frames.  The outer shape of the spacers would be just minus the frame thickness.  The plug would be a guide for exact frame thickness  In theory,  the frames would be absolutely vertical and at exact intervals and of precise thickness.  The frames would strengthen the planking before freeing the hull from the plug.  It was a theory that I could not get to work for me.  The frames were a bowl of spaghetti and difficult to identify as individuals. They want to jump out of the slots.  It was too much like Wack-a-Mole. I used a horrible species as spacers for the frames to sit on.*

 

*Sycamore - Platanus occidentalis - an American species that developers like because it grows fast, tall, and provides early shade.  It is also continuously  dropping something that needs raking or pickup. It splits easily unless it is a big block.  It stinks when cut.  The fibers roll.    (I read Underhill's recommendation of Sycamore, not knowing that in England the name refers to Acer pseudoplatanus - a type of Maple.) 

It did work to duplicate the old Exacto 1 inch sanding blocks.  Otherwise it is a mistake that I hope I have stopped trying to find a use for.  The multiple blocks were a mistaken path because sanding wood with grit finer than 220 just interferes with PVA bonding and gives the wood an out of scale sheen,  so 300, 400, 600, 1000 grit sanding blocks are not needed.

 

Edited April 12 by Jaager

[allanyed]

FIRST THANK YOU ALL for your quick responses.   It seems I have been on the right track with the spacing as lacking other information until now, went with the station lines.    

6 hours ago, Jaager said:

I build either clinker or carvel shell first over a plug.

Dean,

This is how I have gone as well.  I first saw this in Frolich's The Art of Ship Modeling and a highly regarded MSW member showed me a plug he had made (I think before there was an MSW😀)  Originally I made the plug to the outside of the frames and cut grooves for the frames.   Due to the high risk of a frame getting stuck when removing the hull I change to carving the plug to the inside dimension of the frames and rest the frames on top of the plug.  The thickness of individual pieces of the plug are the same as the distance from station line to station line.

Couple pictures follow.  I think this is similar to what you describe.

 

Thanks again to all of you

 

Allan

[Jaager]

Allan,

 

Yes, that is essentially what I have done.  Except that mine is still the shape of the stations.  For my present path, I will have to see if the planks' edge glue bond between each  is as strong as it needs to be.

Saran Wrap over the plug.  My variations:  the plug is taller - with a stilt above the rail.  Each section between stations is a free agent.  In the silted part there are four dowel holes that are at identical locations in each section.

The dowels that are Bamboo skewers extend thru each section and hold them together.  After the hull planks are bonded, if the shell does not pop off, I can pull the dowels and remove each section separately.  I figure that a stuck area should be local.

I see that you used Pine.  I probably would too, but I bought some off cuts of Yellow Poplar from Yukon for my plugs.  It is probably as easy to shape as Pine.  It really is a joy to work.  It is a shame that color is so squirrely.  Otherwise, it would be an east coast answer to AYC.

[allanyed]

Hi Dean

For the plug it is catch as catch can for me.  If I have poplar laying around, or pine 2X4 or bass or other soft scrap, that is what I go with.   Fun times!

 

 

[wefalck]

I think the original question was, what the distance between the frames would be, correct. And I seem to infer that the question concerns 18th century ship's boats? Have you had a look at the images from the Danish archives? There are some very detailed drawings, if I remember correctly, that even show individual frames etc. and not just the stations.

 

For the 19th century, were are better informed, as there are various textbooks from different countries, that have plan views or longitudinal sections of naval boats with all the interior details. There are also few surviving boats that give an idea. At that time most bent frames were used.

[iMustBeCrazy]

13 hours ago, wefalck said:

Have you had a look at the images from the Danish archives? There are some very detailed drawings, if I remember correctly, that even show individual frames etc. and not just the stations.

Here's two, A1260f and A1260g. They both show a clear relationship between frames and station lines.

[allanyed]

Craig

These are without doubt the most detailed pinnace plans I have seen and I thank you very much for posting these.   For me one of the most important things is that they both include a top view which very clearly shows these two particular boats were single banked.  Too often we see models that are either missing oarlocks or have too many probably because the contemporary plans can be deceptive.     

 

Do you know the dates on these or where the dates might be found?

 

Thanks again,  these is greatly appreciated.

Allan

[allanyed]

15 hours ago, wefalck said:

Have you had a look at the images from the Danish archives?

This is a truly valuable resource but I have difficulty navigating it.   Eberhard and Craig (or other members😀) -- I went to their main site and in the search bar typed various words such as pinnace, longboat, and launch and I get zero hits.   Any tips on navigating their site?  Sorry to be such a novice on this, but would love to learn.

Thanks!

Allan

Edited April 14 by allanyed

[Scottish Guy]

2 minutes ago, allanyed said:

I went to their main site and in the search bar typed various words such as pinnace, longboat, and launch and I get zero hits.   Any tips on navigating their site?  Sorry to be such a novice on this, but would love to learn.

 

Don´t be sorry Allan, I have the same issues, I often use the search and get zero results and then someone posts a link here that also leads to nowhere just a main page and I can´t still find the thread they mention.

 

Micha

[wefalck]

Alllan, unfortunately, there is no easy way to navigate around the site, which is structured exactly as the physical archive is. However, in general terms the archive is structured by subjects, but this doesn't mean necessarily that particularly drawing do not pop up elswehere. Historically, there might have been a logic for this, but this is lost now.

 

A colleague and myself have actually gone through the pains some ten years ago to download the whole archive (I think they have added to it since, but I didn't have time to check ...). So, I have a fairly good overview over what is where. Below is a list under which numbers boats before ca. 1820 (this is an arbitrary date chosen according to my interests) can be found (sorry this is not 'clickable', I had to take screen-shots - and the description is German):

Unfortunately, in the navigationsystem for the archive there are no 'thumbnails', so one really has to go through each archive number.

 

I quickly clicked through the previews on my computer and have the impression that in many cases, give the large number of stations drawn, that these correspond to frames.

 

The date of the drawing, or rather of its approval, can be usually found under the legend to the right, but not all drawings are dated.

 

 

[iMustBeCrazy]

43 minutes ago, allanyed said:

Do you know the dates on these or where the dates might be found?

Sorry, no and no.

 

This is a great resource let down by poor design. Basically we have two databases, 1, is a set of card files indexed by vessel name and 2, the one I linked to, is a collection of drawings indexed by a reference number found on the card file for that vessel.

So if you have a vessel name you can search the card file to find the card for that vessel. Unfortunately although the index is sorted by name the names do not appear in the index, just groups of numbers sorted by the names.

If we want to find 'Lapwing' which I know is there we go to https://www.sa.dk/ao-soegesider/da/billedviser?epid=17172954#190662,31950663  and click on the + for the group Glom-Man and somewhere in those 166 records we will find 'Lapwing', remember they are sorted by name.

 

When you find 'Lapwing' (116) you can read the card file, it contains Vessel Name, Vessel Type, number of guns, length, breadth, 1 or more drawing reference numbers and some comments (in this case the date the drawing was copied).

 

Now we can use the drawing reference numbers to find the drawings in the other database.

 

Now, the big problems are that the boat drawings above don't have a name so we can't find the card file and even if we could it probably won't have the date you want.

 

[wefalck]

Actually, in the physical archive there are two resources, the books that list the ships by name and then the folders with the drawings in the vaults. These books are a great resource, because they list all the archive numbers that belong to one particular ship, which allows you to collect all the drawings pertaining to this ship.

I have physically worked though some of those books in the Rigsarkivet in Copenhagen some 25+ years ago. Then you wrote down the number for the staff and they would bring you the folder an hour later or so.

These books now have also been digitised.

 

In consequence, there are two ways of working with the material, you can either look up the drawings for a particular ship you are interested in, or you can go to the group of drawings that show particular details, e.g. anchors or ship's stoves etc.

 

Edited April 14 by wefalck

[allanyed]

Thanks Eberhard, I REALLY appreciate your help on this.

Allna