Pilar by CPDDET - 1:18 scale - Hemingway's Fishing Yacht

[CPDDET]

I'm building this from 1:12 RC plans created by Pat Matthews. His design called for plank on frame as he needed below deck space for things like motors and batteries. I have decided to build it plank on bulkhead. His plan also called for 1/8 inch frames but I decided to go to 1/4 inch bulkheads to aid in butting hull planks.  Using Baltic plywood I have about 95% of the bulkheads completed (just 6 more to go). My aim is to build the model as close to the 1934 version as possible (even while on the hard in Cuba some changes were made during refurbishing).

 

 

 

Edited July 9 by CPDDET
Spelling error

[Nirvana]

Interesting build which I will follow.

[CPDDET]

7 hours ago, Nirvana said:

Interesting build which I will follow.

It's going to be a slow slog as I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing. 🤔

[CPDDET]

All 19 bulkheads are now complete, next will be making a build board.

 

The process used by Pat M is a bit different than my previous builds in that the bulkheads are attached to the keel with the ship upside down. I'm used to having the keel laid first and the bulkheads set onto it. Pat's method is the reverse of that.

 

As you can see from the picture I posted previously, the bulkheads have legs which they are set on. Pat used small pieces of wood, notched to hold into which the bulkhead legs would fit and hold them upright and then the keel was placed onto the notches on the bulkheads. The hull is then planked, the model turned upright and the bulkhead legs cut off. 

 

I suppose I could do this the more traditional way by cutting the bulkheads legs off, lay the keel, attach the bulkheads and plank the hull but I'm worried that if I don't follow Pat's build log I might run into problems later in the build. 

 

Right now I'm tryin to decide how the make the bulkhead supports that hold the bulkheads upright. They will be 1/4 inch thick for sure. The question is should a cut a bunch of 3/4 inch  by 1 inch pieces and use the mill to cut a 1/4 inch center slot for the legs of the bulkheads to fit into or cult a bunch of 1/4 inch by 1 inch pieces and place one on each side of the bulkhead, making sure its a tight fit. 

 

I think I will run a test on a scrap piece of wood and mill out a 1/4 inch slot just to see how tight of a fit I get with the bulkheads inserted into it. If that works, I could make a jig to hold the 3/4 by 1 inch piece and lock that into the mill vice. I could then mill the slot, pop out the piece, drop in another, mill the slot, pop it out, load another and so on. I need 38 of these pieces. 

 

Three choice here:

1. Cut and mill the pieces

2. cut thinner pieces and sandwich the bulkheads between them

3. Lay the keel and set the bulkhead onto it as normally done.

 

Decisions, decisions..........

[CPDDET]

So I decided to cut the pieces and mill the 1/4 inch groove into each piece. Please excuse the color cast in the photos, incandescent light source and I forgot to use my flash.

 

I first set up my saw, clamping a piece of wood to the fence and using the miter gauge to guide the piece through the blade. This way I could quickly cut one piece after another without any further measuring or adjusting.

 

 

Instead of making some kind of jig I just used the vice on the mill to hold the piece of wood I cut on the saw. Once the vice was aligned properly with the mill bit and I put a stop to keep the length of the cut the same for each piece, it went fairly quickly.

 

 

While I needed 38 pieces, I decide to make a few extras. So 42 in all.

 

 

Here is a pic showing how the pieces will be used to hold the bulkheads.

 

 

It will be a few days before I can get back to this. Next will be the build board.

 

Dave