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

[JacquesCousteau]

Lots of ups and downs, but I've made some progress on the Bateau.

 

First, I advanced a bit on the building jig, although I still need to file the frame notches to the proper size (I forgot to bring the files that day) and add the bolt, nut, and washer assembly that will hold the jig up properly.

 

I also decided to try cutting out my first frame. 

 

The first futtock turned out great. For the second, though, I didn't leave enough space cutting outside the line, and somehow managed to cut at a bit of an angle, resulting in an unusable, thin piece. I resolved to do better with the floor. But, as I was nearing on tip, the wood suddenly snapped, cracking at a diagonal that rendered this piece, too, unusable.

 

The good piece is on the right, the unusable ones at center and left:

 

This was a frustrating experience, but I think I can draw two lessons from it. First: I should just start drawing a line about 1mm outside the frame line to follow, because I have a hard time cutting a consistent distance outside a line. Second, I should cut the frames purposely overlong and only trim the edges to the proper size afterward, so that there's more support around the ends of the frames and they're less likely to break while cutting.

 

Meanwhile, I worked out the rabbet shape. It was a bit tricky to get right, because the edge of the garboard is bevelled in a way that changes over the length of the hull. So rather than assuming a squared-off plank edge and setting the rabbet to the changing angle of the plank, I had to figure out how the plank bevel was changing and would interact with the rabbet. The result is a little messy and probably not quite right, but it should work and I can always make minor adjustments as necessary later.

 

At both the bow and the stern, the rabbet needed to transition from a simple beveled edge to a squared-off cut, which I did with a sharp blade and mini-files. I think I extended the squared portion a little too far forward at the stern, but checking with a piece of planking wood shows that everything should still fit well.

 

 

While the deadwood was pretty straightforward, just thinning the lower edges and corner a bit, the stem and sternpost were more complicated. At the top of the sternpost, the planks enter pretty much straight from the sides due to the pronounced curve of the hull, but that gradually shifts until, by the bottom, the planks will run flat into the sternpost.

 

The stem is similar, but a different shape.

 

To transfer the rabbet shape to the opposite side, I used a metal divider to scribe the line before cutting.

 

 

After a lot of careful cutting, I decided that it was finally time to start gluing. I began with the bow. Unfortunately I couldn't get a clamp onto the parts very well while holding them against the plans on a flat surface, and right after gluing, I realized that it was angled to the side--very slightly, but possibly enough to cause a problem. I applied alcohol and began to separate the parts, when a minor tragedy struck and the stem snapped at the joint:

 

After a bit of cursing and considering my options, I decided that I may as well see if I could glue it back together before making a new one. Between carving out a tight scarf joint and the rabbet, the stem had been the most complex part so far, and I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about remaking it. Fortunately, the parts fit very well and, after clean-up, the joint was practically invisible from the sides.

 

While waiting on that to dry, I glued the sternpost and deadwood to the keel:

 

And then the stem. After sawing off the excess bit of keel at the stern and sanding off the extra I left below the stem, I'm pleased with how the keel structure turned out!

 

 

There's a bit of touch-up here and there to do, but it's coming along well. The repair at the bow is invisible from the sides and barely visible from the bottom (which of course will be barely visible on the completed model).

 

 

Overall this has been an eye-opening experience. The complexity of making a POF build from scratch is an order of magnitude greater than any previous builds I've done, and I've made plenty of errors. (And tried to learn from them.) Even something as seemingly simple as the keel structure has taken a lot of work and plenty of frustrations. Challenging as it is, I'm learning a lot and (mostly) enjoying the experience.

[Keith Black]

 Jacques, I missed this build till just now. I look forward to following along. 

[wefalck]

Very nice ship's capentry job !  Although on a real boat it would be a lot more physical labour to cut the rabbets, laying out in 1:1 is a lot easier than at a small scale (how do I know this ...).

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Nice recovery Jacques and beautifully crafted!

[KLarsen]

Very nice work, it's coming along great!

However, when you lay out the frames to cut, try and use the curved part of the sheet to your advantage: some of the frames could have had the veins running all along them instead of across them. I always try to maximise the curved veins in a sheet when I'm lucky enough to get them 😁

[JacquesCousteau]

Thanks, all! @wefalck, yes, I think I'll be looking into getting some more tools for detail work--a riffler file, maybe some micro-chisels--in the future. I'm making some basic furniture in my carpentry class and there's a lot more room for error at full scale. (At least for my current skill level--no fancy dovetail joints for me!)

 

@KLarsen, you're right, I need to figure out how to make more effective use of the wood grain, especially when the futtock takes nearly a 90-degree curve. I think that laying out more frame pieces at a time will help me to set them up more efficiently on the sheet.

 

[Glen McGuire]

6 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Nice recovery Jacques and beautifully crafted!

Completely agree with Paul, JC!

[JacquesCousteau]

One step forward, and what may be many, many steps backward. 

 

Good news first: I've reached another milestone and finished the first frame.

 

As mentioned earlier, my first attempt at sawing out the parts met with failure due to 1) cutting too close to the line, and 2) not paying enough attention to the rings in the wood sheet. So, this time I drew a line a short distance outside the actual frames, extended the ends a bit, and minimized the presence of rings running across frames. Drawing the line really helped guide my sawing, and I was much more successful this time. While my first attempt had led to failure on two out of three frame parts, this time I only had one failure out of eight parts (and I think it was because I was rushing to try to finish sawing before the workshop closed--a good lesson there to take my time). Granted, this is just with rough-cutting, and I still might break parts during shaping, but it's a promising result.

 

Making the first frame (number 😎 did take a little while, though. The pieces required a ton of sanding, even with leaving a bit for fairing. In the future, I'm going to try to draw the saw lines slightly closer to the actual frame, while still leaving space for fairing. In any case, after a lot of sanding, I was ready to glue together the frame. I removed the paper from the areas that would be glued. I then secured the futtocks to a copy of the plans with a couple tiny dabs of a glue stick, so that they would stay in position but be easy to remove later.

 

I then glued the floor in place, making sure it was properly lined up. Given that it would be quite difficult to clamp like this, I simply held it with finger pressure for 10 minutes or so. I also used a damp brush to remove any excess glue.

 

Finally, I was able to remove it from the plan sheet. I gave it a light sanding to smooth things out, and removed any excess glue left over. With that, my first frame was complete!

 

In the future, I may want to leave slightly more meat on the frames to ensure proper fairing. I'm also wondering how I'm going to fair the interior, which seems quite complicated. But, I'm happy to have a frame complete!

 

Now the bad news.

 

Looking over the plans, I placed the frame over its proper location in the top-down hull view, and found that the top of the frame was a good bit wider than shown on the plans. It's not just because of having left the frames a bit thick for fairing, as the interior edge was too far out as well (even with the extra left on for fairing). I began measuring across the hull on the top-down view at frame locations and comparing them to the distance across frame tops on the frame drawing sheets, and found that the frames were over-wide.

 

I was worried that I had missed something weird with the scaling when I resized and printed the plans at 1:32 scale. So I went to the original plan sheet. There, too, the frames were overly wide compared with the top-down view. For example, on the original plans at 1:36 scale, Frame VIII measures 10.8cm across from the outer edges of the tips of the frame on the frame drawing sheet (Plan 3). Meanwhile, in the top-down hull plan drawing (Plan 2, the one showing the details of the hull interior), Frame VIII measures 10.55cm across (against from the edge of the frame, discounting the hull planking which is shown on the plans).

 

I'm very concerned by this. If the frame drawings are wrong, I don't really know if this build will be possible. It's one thing if everything is a couple mm wider and I just need to widen the jig a bit, as this is a model of a generic type rather than a specific vessel, but I don't know if the frames will still produce a fair hull. And unlike with a POB hull, where you can sand a lot to fair, that's not as possible with a POF build. It's also quite frustrating as the whole reason I bought a monograph was because, in theory, the drawings should be accurate. Not to mention that I had many of the wood sheets cut to custom thicknesses for this build, specifically.

 

The only thing I can think of is that I believe @KLarsen mentioned being surprised in his Santa Caterina build that the top-down view corresponded to a lower point along the hull and not the sheer line. I still need to check whether that may be the case here. I'm hoping my issue is a relatively easy fix like this, as otherwise I'll need to work how how to correctly adjust the scaling on the plans, reprint, and redo things.

 

Finally, I realized that while I checked the hull length and width to make sure there were no scaling errors when I first printed out the plans eight months ago or so, I forgot to do so when I printed a new batch more recently, so I need to double-check that as well (although it would of course not impact the broader problem which is in the original plans).

[JacquesCousteau]

I realized that images would probably be helpful to show the issue. Below, you can see how the tips of frame 8 are 10.8cm across on the plan sheet. (It looks like slightly less, but it's because the phone lens is centered and so there's a slight angle).

 

And here in the top-down view, frame 8 looks to be about 10.55cm wide (accounting for the same canera angle issue as above, and keeping in mind that we're measuring to not the outermost line, which is the hull planking, but the line just inboard from that).

[Tony Hunt]

I suspect the top-down view (plan view) may be drawn at the level of the deck (i.e. the top of the wale), not the level of the sheer strake. Hence the discrepancy.

[JacquesCousteau]

On 3/22/2025 at 11:05 PM, Tony Hunt said:

I suspect the top-down view (plan view) may be drawn at the level of the deck (i.e. the top of the wale), not the level of the sheer strake. Hence the discrepancy.

Thanks! You are correct, the widths match when checking at the level of the wale. Thank goodness, that would have been quite a problem otherwise.

 

Not any build progress at the moment, just laying out the frame templates--so far the floors and cant frames--on the wood sheet for cutting. After being a bit wasteful cutting the first frames, I'd like to be more efficient and save what wood I can for the inevitable do-overs.

Edited March 27 by JacquesCousteau

[wefalck]

This is a problem sometimes encountered with plans for modellers of vessels with tumble-home. On ‚real‘ plans two lines would be drawn that may cross each other near the bow and near the stern: one for the outside of the top of the frames (or the rails) and one for the edge of the deck or covering board. They would be marked accordingly.

 

[JacquesCousteau]

I've seen that on some plans, especially near the bow and stern of some coasters in Souvenirs de Marine, it definitely threw me for a moment before I figured it out. The Bateau doesn't have any tumblehome, though, they apparently just decided to draw the top-down view at wale level.

 

After arranging all the frame templates, I felt very relieved to see that I can get all the frames out of a single sheet, leaving an entire extra 5x24-inch sheet for any do-overs.

 

Sawing all these pieces by hand is a bit tedious, so I'll be doing it in portions at a time in the carpentry workshop in between working on a full-scale tv stand. What seems to be working for now is to first saw across the wood sheet cutting the tips of each frame (which I'm leaving long for now). Getting the frames out is then a simple matter of cutting to one edge and then the other. I've also realized that cutting from one side and then the other, meeting in the middle as in the photo below, seems to really reduce the chances of the wood snapping because the frame is only held in place at one of the tips. (Probably an obvious point, but one I hadn't had a chance to learn until this build.)

 

After a while, I had a pair of rough-cut frames (obviously not glued yet), and a few floors and other parts, all ready for final shaping. Given that it will be another week until I'm back in the carpentry workshop and can cut out probably a similar number of frame parts, it's pretty clear that this will be a very slow project.

[JacquesCousteau]

Progress has nearly ground to a halt, as I've been very busy with work and my hobby time has been focused on rigging the Lancha Chilota build (something that has proven much less tedious so far than I thought it would be) and, in my carpentry class, building a TV stand/bookshelf. I've put together one further frame, number VI, seen below with frame VIII. I've also filed out the frame slots in the building jig.

 

Each frame takes a lot of time, most of which is spent in slowly sanding the frames into shape, leaving a little extra for fairing. I don't have any power tools, so I'm just using sanding sticks.

 

This is extremely tedious, and I'm beginning to wonder if I should get some sort of power tool. Here in Mexico, I can pretty easily get Dremel rotary tools and various knock-off versions. Other manufacturers, like Proxxon, are substantially more expensive. Most disc sanders that I see available are much too large and attached to a belt sander, which I don't need, and in any case it doesn't seem like they would be useful for sanding the concave shapes on the interior of the frames.

 

So I wanted to ask if anyone has any recommendations on what to look for in a rotary tool. What rpm range would be appropriate? And how useful is the dremel workstation (the thing that looks like a small drill press)? I'm thinking that it could be useful to essentially turn the dremel into a spindle sander, but I don't know if it's too fragile for that. (I should note that I don't have any ability to machine metal to make my own.) Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Waldemar]

 

My experience with Dremel has not been good and my assessment is that the product is highly overrated. The main objections (but there are others) — huge vibration and deafening noise, especially at higher speeds. This is a result of the poor precision of the tool and mainly cheap plastic components. But perhaps the newer models of Dremel rotary tools are a little better, check with your dealer how it actually behaves if you can.

For comfortable and precise work, I don't think there's an alternative to Proxxon, at least in the popular sector. Its 'strategic' components are very precise and made of metal. Quiet and vibration-free, even at the highest speeds.

That said, the highest possible speeds are not really necessary, medium and low speeds are much more useful, provided the torque is sufficient. The lower the speed a rotating tool can achieve, the better, as it makes the tool truly more universal.

 

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Jacques, I really enjoy using my Ultimation hand operated disk sander and wondered why someone doesn’t make a similar spindle sander. There are lots of sites online about making your own treadle powered lathe. Something like that would be nice and quiet. 

[Keith Black]

 This is the least expensive oscillating spindle sander I could find, Jacques.

 

https://www.amazon.com/WEN-6510T-Oscillating-Spindle-Sander/dp/B07KKXNWWX/ref=asc_df_B07KKXNWWX?mcid=77d015617dc9336bb8c9eb9849cd55a2&hvocijid=13510325352385267804-B07KKXNWWX-&hvexpln=73&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=721245378154&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13510325352385267804&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1019476&hvtargid=pla-2281435175938&psc=1

[Glen McGuire]

I've had a Dremel for years and agree with Waldemar that it is loud and has a lot of vibration.  I also have the drill press is even worse.  It's poorly made and I've had to make some modifications to make it work.  However, despite the issues, I'm still able to use the press and drill precision holes in my SIB ships with the smallest of drill bits (76, 78, 80).  I don't use the Dremel outside the press.

 

Last year I bought this rechargeable rotary tool off Amazon.  It's cheap but works surprisingly well, at least for small sanding and shaping jobs like I primarily do.  It's got enough power for what I need and the charge lasts a long time.  If you're on a tight budget like me, it's not a bad option.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VHYX96W?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

 

[vossiewulf]

I have a Nakanishi Emax Evolution. Obviously it's a considerably larger investment at roughly 10x the cost of a Dremel rotary tool, but is also 10x better than a Dremel. I can't even tell it's on either through noise or vibration when it's running at 10k RPM, and you can barely hear it at 40k. There is zero runout on the handpieces, the basic handpiece is much higher torque than a Dremel, and you can buy special high-torque handpieces if the basic isn't enough for you. Unfortunately at such a high cost brushless micromotors are beyond most people's budgets, but if you want to know if there is a better option out there, yes there is.

[wefalck]

A good 40 years ago, when Dremel was not really available on the European market and PROXXON only just started to develop, I bought a cheap hand-held drill that basically consists of a 6V motor with ball-bearings to the axle of which a threaded brass sleeve is screwed. The brass sleeve serves as socket for spring collets. This simple tool has served me well through all those years. The key feature are the steel collets (similar to the one PROXXON offers), because they are much smaller than a drill-chuck, have less run-out and can bear side-pressure. The drill is run off a transformer with an electronic speed control.

 

Now the Chinese are flooding the market with similar designs for hand-held mini-drills, but the quality seems to be inferior - basically they use brass collets of varying quality. 

 

Virtually all drill-presses for those hand-held drills I have seen are too flimsy to do real work. The most solid one is the one by PROXXON, but it takes up more space also.

 

I don't have one, but would concour with Waldemar that the PROXXON hand-held drills have probably the best price/quality ratio , but may not be available in Mexico/USA.

 

[Waldemar]

 

2 hours ago, wefalck said:

run-out and can bear side-pressure.

 

Rightly so. Resistance to side loads and minimal runout are critical features of these rotary tools, as indeed with all devices of this type, so that drill bits would not make cones in the air, making it nearly impossible to start the hole in the right spot  (can be checked if buying personally in a local shop, best at highest speeds). Not to be overlooked are the numerous accessories that Proxxon offers for its rotary tools (e.g. drills presses of different types, router bases, etc., also of good quality straight away from the box or only after a small/easy adjustment).

 

However, there is a detail, probably usually unnoticed or underestimated, for which I additionally appreciate Proxxon's rotary tools, namely the metal (i.e. rigid) neck in the shape of a perfect cylinder with a diameter of 20 mm, which is standard on their entire range of miniature drills. This makes it very easy to make various holders for Proxxon rotary tools yourself, while keeping decent geometry of the whole setup (parallelism/perpendicularity). Below is one of my self-made holders, which in the attached photo is in turn mounted in a lathe toolholder, but can also be mounted in vices, adapted to various accessories (including by other manufacturers), etc.

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 10:31 AM by Waldemar

[JacquesCousteau]

Thank you, all, for the detailed suggestions! That's too bad to hear that the dremel drill press is so flimsy, and that the dremel tools themselves are poorly regarded. Given the price of a quality Proxxon tool, I may leave it for the future but keep my eyes out for any deals. In the meantime, I might get a cheap, small rotary tool. Hopefully it will work well enough for my very limited purposes, and if not I guess it might confirm that I need a better quality tool.

 

Anyway, a bit more progress on the Bateau. Using the hand fretsaw, I've continued cutting out frame pieces. The carpentry workshop has an electric scrollsaw, which seems worth learning how to use. So far, though, my practice runs on scrap mdf have mainly shown me that I need a lot more practice on the machine before I'm using it on my limited stock of alder. For now, I'm much more comfortable using the hand saw.

 

I also got the building jig put together (well, more or less, as will be seen). The base is made of relatively thick mdf, and I decided to strengthen it on the underside with some scrap wood strips. The fore-and-aft strips (seen being glued, below) are much thicker than the side-to-side strips at the front and back of the jig, in order to provide space under the jig for the bolts.

 

 

I then lined up the top and bottom templates and, using a drill press, drilled holes for the bolts.

 

I was then finally able to get the jig set up, and dry-fit the keel assembly and the couple frames I've completed. It was exciting to suddenly see the build in 3D!

 

 

That said, there were a few issues to correct. I still need to add some sort of brace pieces to hold the keel centered, and clearly need to get longer bolts--in the test fit photos, the top jig is just resting at the very top of the fore and aft bolt pairs, and is still slightly too low to bring the jig in line with the wales. 

 

Which brings me to the biggest problem. Earlier, I mentioned that the frame drawings were wider than the top-down hull view, and ultimately decided that the top-down view must have been aligned with the wales. Now, however, I see that that can't quite be right, as if that were the case, the stem and sternpost would be a bit closer together. In the photos above, you can see that there's quite a bit of space in the jig in front of the stem and behind the sternpost. The top-down plan drawing, then, shows the full length of the hull, rather than just the length at the waterline or wales. So, if I try to use the jig at the wale level--at which point the jig is the proper width for the frames amidsgips--it will be totally off at the bow and stern. As can be seen, if I tried to use the jig at the wale level to fit the foremost cant frame, for example, the cant frame would practically end up intersecting the stem outside the rabbet.

 

It's not an insurmountable difficulty. I think I'll just file the frame slots out wider (equally so on each side), get longer bolts, and mount the jig at the level of the top of the hull. It's just a bit if a mystery to me why the top-down drawing is narrower than it should be.

 

[Keith Black]

 The building jig looks great, Jacques. Nice job.

[Waldemar]

 

1 hour ago, JacquesCousteau said:

I think I'll just file the frame slots out wider (equally so on each side), get longer bolts, and mount the jig at the level of the top of the hull.

 

👍

 

 

1 hour ago, JacquesCousteau said:

It's just a bit if a mystery to me why the top-down drawing is narrower than it should be.

 

Apart from the occasional printing errors (usually unintentional rescaling of graphics, one or two dimensional) and subsequent possible distortion of the paper, inaccuracies and errors in the original drawings themselves are quite common, especially when drawn by hand, but can also occur in computer CAD drawings if the software operator is not disciplined enough. Unfortunately, this has to be taken into account even when dealing with first class plans, otherwise problems will arise later if not checked beforehand.