Bateau de Lanvéoc by JacquesCousteau - Scale 1:32 - From Ancre Plans

[Keith Black]

37 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

I'm curious to see how the mini saw blade works

 Jacques, please remember to wear eye protection when using the cutting wheels as they break apart pretty easy and at high speed their flight path seems to be directed straight at the user.  

Edited May 4 by Keith Black

[JacquesCousteau]

56 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Jacques, please remember to wear eye protection when using the cutting wheels as they break apart pretty easy and at high speed their flight path seems to be directed straight at the user.  

Excellent reminder, thanks!

[wefalck]

On this point: in case you don't have yet protective glasses, watch out for those that look like the ones used by cyclists, they are lightweight, have narrow frames and enclose the eyes because they are close-fitting - much more comfortable than the traditional, big ones. There are also variants that have loupe inserts at the inside lower corners.

 

I found that, as I am getting older, I am wearing more and more another pair that has +3 loupes as glasses. They are bit bigger than the ones above. However, the cyclist-type may now also be available as loupes these days. I bought mine at least ten years ago.

 

One of those pen-type cord-less drills was given to me by my wife as Christmas present a while ago. As they were originally intended for engraving glass, their speed is too high for my taste, thus being quite aggressive. I also find it inconvenient, that it starts with the highest speed and then cycles down. Likewise, I would prefer hands-free control - I run all my machines off foot-switches. Perhaps they should have integrated a voice control  

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, @wefalck, for the glasses suggestion. Light ones would certainly be nice, and I may look into them as an upgrade, for now I'm using the big bulky pair we already have.

 

It's been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, there's not much to report on this build. I would quite like to get back to it, but work has been very hectic and I've focused my limited modeling time on the Lancha Chilota, so I haven't been able to cut out any more frames. In any case, I need longer bolts to properly set up the building cradle, which has proven substantially more difficult than I anticipated. Somehow, none of the many hardware shops I've visited have bolts that are long enough, and they don't seem to be available here online, either. At this point, my best bet looks to be to buy a long length of threaded rod, have it cut to size, and use that plus extra nuts and washers in place of the bolt (which will also require drilling bigger holes in the building cradle, which in turn requires buying a bigger bit and bringing the cradle to the carpentry workshop so I can use their drill press). Hopefully the cutting process doesn't damage the threads at the end and make it impossible to add nuts. Alternately, I suppose I could try to make wooden supports to replace the bolts, although I worry about my ability to get them vertical enough. These sorts of tedious issues have been enough of a headache to block things the few times I've had the time and inclination to try to resume work on the Bateau.

 

All of which is to say, this build will pick back up again at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.

[wefalck]

Normally, one should get threaded rod from M3 (or imperial equivalents) upwards. Cutting such rods with a hacksaw is easy and one can use a file to bevel the ends of the rod so that the nuts fit over them. If you have one, you can also use a small triangular file to clean up the threads - they have the same 60° angle (or perhaps 55°, if imperial threads).

[Keith Black]

2 hours ago, wefalck said:

Cutting such rods with a hacksaw is easy and one can use a file to bevel the ends of the rod so that the nuts fit over them.

 And you can screw on a nut before cutting the rod allowing the nut to chase the threads once the cut is made. 

[JacquesCousteau]

I've had a very long break from this project, when I was focused on work, the Lancha Chilota build, and planning and organization for our long-delayed wedding celebration (which went wonderfully). But I've finally gotten back into this build. I was able to cut a long threaded rod into shorter lengths to use as bolts. With the jig finally able to be positioned (although I need a few more nuts, which seem to have gone missing along the line, to fully lock it in place), I've been able to start placing frames, and I've made progress on cutting and gluing more frames. As can be seen, the paper glued to the top part of the jig is lifting due to the slight curve of the sheer, but the notches have already been cut so it's fine if the paper comes off at this point.

 

None of the frames have been glued in place yet. I am going to do a further round of sanding to pre-fair them before gluing. The interior, especially, seems like it will be tricky to fair, so I want to at least knock down obvious bumps before attaching things. Once I figure out the bulk of the frames, I'll turn my attention to the cant frames, which need a lot of attention to get right.

Edited July 18 by JacquesCousteau

[Paul Le Wol]

Jacques, such great news! Congratulations on your wedding. Good to see you working on the Bateau again.

[JacquesCousteau]

Well, once again I said I was looking forward to getting back to work on this build, and then made very little progress. I made a few more frames, and, while working on autopilot, accidentally trimmed one futtock at the wrong point, as seen below, and had to remake the piece.

 

Despite that, yesterday I reached an important milestone: upon cutting out the frame pieces below, I have now finally finished sawing out all the frame parts! (Unless I have to remake more...)

 

It certainly took a while to reach this point, and indeed, pretty much every aspect of this build is going slowly. There are a few reasons for this. I can only access the fretsaw in the carpentry workshop. I've only been able to attend a few times over the past month, and have been focused there on making a tea box, so I haven't had much time for sawing. The plan sheet takes up pretty much all my workspace at home, making it a bit of a hassle to glue up the frames, and the sanding generates a ton of dust--even with a mask on, I prefer to do it on out balcony, but that means I can only sand during the day when it's not raining (and when we haven't hung laundry there to dry). Not to mention that slowly sanding the frames is pretty tedious work.

 

But this build is more of a marathon than a sprint. Two more frames were glued up last night:

 

At the moment, I have ten frames glued up and dry-fit, although they'll need a lot more shaping before they can be glued. I'll also need to figure out the cant frames soon.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Two more frames glued up and dry-fit in the jig!

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Two more frames--II and III--glued up and dry-fit. At this point, only the cant frames are left.

 

 

 

 

The shape of the hull is really starting to come together by now.

 

But, an issue. Looking at the side view in the plans, you can see that several frames are supposed to extend beyond the sheer.

 

But of the frames I've made so far (II-XV), only II extends beyond the sheer. XII, XIV, and XV all end at the sheer, following the frame sheet of the plans, when the side plans show them as extended. It's a little hard to tell because I've left all frames a little long, which I suppose means I can try to extend them a bit, but maybe not quite as much as given in the plans. I have to admit that this is very frustrating--part of the point of buying a plan set like this, instead of developing this all from scratch, is that you assume the plans will be consistent between sheets. Ah well, I guess that the extensions will just be a little stumpy compared with the plan sheet.

[JacquesCousteau]

Next up are the cant frames. I've never made these before, so I started with frame pair D near the stern as it seemed the simplest. That said, it was still a bit tricky. As can be seen, the frame drawings show this as reaching all the way to the keel:

 

While the side view shows it as merging into the deadwood a little higher than that. I should note that other drawings make it clear that the deadwood isn't supposed to be notched or anything.

 

Rather than try to fit it as on the side view, I think I'm just going to make it full length to the keel and, once it's glued to the deadwood, see how it turns out with fairing.

 

I began by trying to cut the inner angle. This took a lot of patient, minimal trimming and checking fit. Given the angle and all the jig pieces blocking the view, it's a bit tricky to hold the frame in place to check fit. You need to check alignment both in terms of landing on the deadwood correctly, not to high, low, or off fore-and-aft, and make sure the part that's hanging between the jig and the deadwood is properly lined up from the top down, as otherwise it will really throw off the hull shape. Meanwhile, without a notch or anything, the piece wants to slide all over the deadwood. All of which is to say, apologies for the poor photo quality of the test fit below!

 

Eventually I got the inner angles about right.

 

In contrast, beveling the bottom of the other side was much easier, I just had to pay attention to the changing grain direction around the curve.

[JacquesCousteau]

Cant frames E, the aftermost frames, were also fairly straightforward to make.

 

That said, I've realized that my plan to just extend them to the keel isn't going to work, as they really should end at the bearding line on the deadwood. Working out how to properly fit these is going to be very difficult, and I do wish the planset had drawn how they actually fit instead of showing them going full-length to the keel. Overall I'm finding the plan set to be very useful, but I have found a number of issues, and I'm confused by many of the choices made in drafting the cant frames especially--I haven't even gotten to cant frames A and B yet, where as I've mentioned before, the plans don't show the end of the frame pieces.

 

Another issue is frame 1, which is slightly canted forward. Unlike the other cant frames, but like the full frames, it has a floor piece--actually, two of them, which you have to properly angle. As can be seen, the frame plans show the futtocks as nevertheless extending all the way to the keel, doubling the floors:

 

While the side and top view show the futtocks as ending well before the keel, barely overlapping the floors, and leaving space so that cant frame C can butt up against the floors of frame 1 and the keel:

 

 

Definitely a bit odd. I was curious how others have handled this. The only actual build logs I've seen are on a french modeling forum where you need an account to view images. Another site, though, shows photos (without commentary) of a build. From what I can tell, they left the frame 1 futtocks full-length and butted frame C up against them. This certainly seems like a simpler solution, requiring just one cut across the bottom of frame C instead of two.

Source: https://www.alexshipmodels.com/2016/12/10/le-bateau-de-lanveoc/

 

At this point, I'm wondering if I should glue the full frames in place and run some battens to help determine how to place the cant frames, or if I should make another jig plate of a waterline to add below the existing one. Either option seems like it would be extremely helpful to work out the placement issues caused by the oddity of the plan set. In the meantime, while I ponder what to do, I'm pre-fairing the frames, which are currently extremely chunky compared with how they should be.

[Keith Black]

4 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

and run some battens to help determine how to place the cant frames

 To me that sounds the easiest and most accurate way to do it, Jacques. 

[Waldemar]

 

Hello,

In the hope of making your decision easier and perhaps giving you some confidence in how to proceed with the timbers at the bow, it can be said that these plans are structural reconstructions, so they can certainly be reinterpreted in various ways.

 

For example, in addition to the solutions you have already mentioned (or shown), others can be added: the first frame (I) can simply be made perpendicular to the keel, rather than canted (as the frame XV at the stern), or if you still prefer this frame to be canted, you can make the construction simpler and do this by slightly tilting the flat first floor piece (instead of making it V-shaped when viewed from above).

It is clear that these boats were individually built in different ways by different builders.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! Keith, I'll definitely use a batten to check fit, but I think it will have to wait until the other frames are a bit better secured. Waldemar, I greatly appreciate the reminder that the plans are merely a reconstruction, and not necessarily 100% accurate. There are many ways to skin a cat, and it's worth considering alternatives. Incidentally, this is making me realize that I was under the impression that French ships usually didn't use cant frames, although maybe that doesn't apply by 1830 or to small vessels like this one. As I've already cut the floor pieces as given in the plans, I'll try to make that work first, but may have to redo the floor and try something else.

 

Incidentally, I realized that I was forgetting another source: the model in the Musée National de Marine, photos of which are in the monograph itself! (This is what I get for building so slowly and for doing multiple builds at once). The photos are a bit blurry. In the first, the futtocks look like they cut off just before the keel. In the second, it looks like they go nearly to the keel if not quite to it. Interestingly, cant frame C, which by the plans is supposed to butt up against frame 1, isn't visible at all, and from the angle looks like it would go to the keel further forward. Of course, on this model, the frames aren't really structural: the hull is actually a hollowed shell with planking scribed on the exterior and frames added later.

 

 

The Musée National de Marine site has some nice photos of the model, although none of this detail under the foredeck.

Source: https://mnm.webmuseo.com:8443/ws/musee-national-marine/app/collection/record/9718

 

In the meantime, the exterior of the frames have been sanded a bit. Still a long way to go, though!

Edited 22 hours ago by JacquesCousteau