Fischkutter by Bryan Woods - Laser Creation World - 1:35

[Bryan Woods]

This I believe is a mid 1900 German fishing boat. Skills of their trade were passed down through generations. This kit is a part of a diorama that I don’t intend to build. Hopefully I can furnish it with proper equipment. I would like to try the weathered look.

 

 

 

The frames and spine are plywood. The planking seems to be .5 mm basswood, the was laser cut. It has 3d printed tires, drums, fuel containers and small crates. The captains wheel, rudder and light are also printed.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24 by Bryan Woods

[Knocklouder]

Good luck on your adventure with this build,     tagging along 😀 

Bob  M.

[SiriusVoyager]

I have seen some of their videos on YouTube.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this comes out.

[tmj]

15 hours ago, Bryan Woods said:

This I believe is a mid 1900 German fishing boat.

Yep, this would have been a coastal vessel used for shrimp, herring, cod, etc. in Bavaria. Nice subject!

[Bryan Woods]

1 hour ago, SiriusVoyager said:

I have seen some of their videos on YouTube

They have quite a few. You have to look around for them on their channel, they are mostly part of dioramas.

 

48 minutes ago, tmj said:

this would have been a coastal vessel used for shrimp, herring, cod, etc. in Bavaria.

 I have little knowledge of any boats. I love to build them but not great at research. I would like to find some type of rigging used. I’ve found some pictures but I can only make out the mast. I would think some had winches on them.

[yvesvidal]

What a cute kit !!

 

Yves

[tmj]

11 hours ago, Bryan Woods said:

I would like to find some type of rigging used. I’ve found some pictures but I can only make out the mast. I would think some had winches on them.

Maybe 'this' stuff will be helpful... 

 

1582619702_1495448238-bb474-cux-87-main-plan.pdf

[Bryan Woods]

43 minutes ago, tmj said:

Maybe 'this' stuff will be helpful... 

Wow! Thanks tmj that’s exactly what I was looking for:-)

[Bryan Woods]

The planking has begun. On my last build I glued the false keel on before I faired the hull. Resulting with sanded down areas of the keel. Which may it harder to fit a pedestal on it. This time I left it off. I built up the bow to give a little more gluing surface.

 

 

 

 

With just these four planks on it may look like I know what I’m doing. But now the guess work begins. I’m going to try to do a little math but that doesn’t mean I’ll listen to it.

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice start!

 

How big is the model? It looks like it's around 10 inches long? The large number of closely-spaced bulkheads is nice, too often you see so few widely-spaced ones that planking can be a challenge.

[Bryan Woods]

Thanks Jacques, It’s 8 1/2” long. And yeah the close bulkheads are nice. The planks are going on easy but because they are so thin there will be little room for error. I can already see through them before sandpaper even hits them.

[Bryan Woods]

Besides working on the planking I laid the planks on the deck. I decided to use a smaller width than what was provided with the kit. That’s some of it on the right.

 

I’m about halfway completed on the planking.

 

 

 

The way I chose to plank , it can’t be the best way. But it only uses second grade math. Of course, it’s not done yet. I just measure the longest bulkhead and divide it by 4, (my plank width ). Take that number, that I round to whole and divide it into the measurement of the first bulkhead at the bow. And that’s what I cut the taper at the bow end. I’ve ended the taper starting. #5 but the last few I went to #6. At the bottom, about the third plank, ( when it went past the first bulkhead and landed on the bow stem) I started tapering them also. It’s probably just this hull but it has stayed pretty consistent. There will be 4 or 5 planks with both ends pointy.

[tmj]

Looks really good Bryan! Keep an eye on how those port and starboard planks align with each other at the bow and the stern. Your math seems to be working well, however. You also sometimes have to ditch the math and go by eye alone! Math is perfect, but our human hand crafting methods... 'not so much'! If it were 'me', I'd put the next 'port' upper plank on first, then ditch the math for the starboard side. Make 'em look even on both sides and then proceed with the math again until things once again start to get out of alignment, then revert to the ol' eyeball once more. 

 

Keep up the good work! You're doing a great job! 

[Bryan Woods]

8 hours ago, tmj said:

I'd put the next 'port' upper plank on first, then ditch the math for the starboard side.

No arm bending needed here:-) That’s what I’m going to do. Thanks so much for the advice! 

[Bryan Woods]

Last week I had a major distraction and I when to the Fischkutter to try to keep my mind off of it. Well, days later I was looking it over and saw my mind wasn’t on Fischkutter. I cut two planks off at the stern where I had clamped the plank on the deadwood too far up. In the YouTube video they  don’t plank the deadwood so the last few bulkheads just right angles with the spine. I would have glued some wood on these if I noticed it earlier before I faired the hull.

 

This still left a sunken spot.

 

 

I just filled it the best I could with a splitter and called it unique:-)

 

 

I’m down to just 4 planks on either side. They aren’t being as cooperative as the first. I’ve been using PVA and after shaping them to fit the hull. I just been mainly using rubber bands while it sets up. The last two planks I could only glue 2-4 bulkheads at a time without raising an edge of the plank.

 

 

Above is the area of repair.

 

Here where I’m at.

 

 

 

 

[Bryan Woods]

As planking continued, I realized I should have been paying closer attention to the stern and not just the bow. I started tapering both ends and made a simple jig to edge bend the fragile planks.

 

 

Clamping wasn’t even an option. I glued about 4 bulkheads at a time while applying heat. 
 

 

It went as easy as using CA. 
 

 

I’m down to just one space to fill. It’s 3mm wide. I’m going to fit two small strips in so it doesn’t edge up on me so bad. 
 

 

 

 

Next I’ll sand it down a bit, put the false keel on. I’m thinking I’m going to put a toe board around the inside.

[Bryan Woods]

I got the hull sanded. The thin planks prevented me from sanding it all the way smooth. Since my original idea was to look weathered, I’m not going to use any wood filler. Hopefully no holes will appear. I worked on a toe board just to add some detail.

 

 

This build is turning out to be more of a scratch build than a kit build. I’ve used all the material except for the pilot’s cabin. I have to purchase some wood to cover the bow. 

 

No top rail even shown. I’m trying to bend a piece to fit, the results are unknown. Here’s my jig I’m bending with. 
 

 

Here’s some shots of the up to date hull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kit came with a 3D printed rudder but I’m not sure it fits this hull. Since I have no knowledge of these things. It makes the build much slower than if I had a plan to do as it says. Now another question. The rudder. I’m hoping one of these types exists on a boat like this. 
 

 

comments and advice are extremely welcome:-) thank you!

[Bryan Woods]

The bow is covered and the top rail is on. 
 

 

 

 

Next the wales, then the false keel.

[Knocklouder]

Great work,  I need a rudder for my Harriet Lane, if you happen to find one along the way let me know. Thanks 😊  Two ship out of control.  Lol

Bob  M.

[tmj]

You're making this little boat look 'really' sweet! Great work, great progress!

[Bryan Woods]

I got the wales and keel installed. I painted a thin coat of white on the hull, while I was thinking of how I needed to go about starting to weather this boat.

 

 

 

 

 

I thought I would just see how much AI could help……

 

 

Here’s what it said it should look like:-)

 

Here’s the deck.

 

 

AI is so smart! It can even figure the water line on your boat even when you float it vertically:-)

 

 

It’s really got my expectations high.

[Bryan Woods]

I’ve got the base coat on. After taking these photos I see I need to adjust the waterline on the starboard side a little. The wheel house hasn’t been glued on. I need to do quite a bit more work on it.   
 

 

 

 

 

Now the weathering needs to start. I’ve decided to shoot for a post war boat located in the North Sea. 

[Bryan Woods]

I’ve been trying to stay focused on the weathering. Since I have no knowledge I’ve been dependent on AI. It’s told me the colors and the recipes to mix them. Also the brush type and stroke. Most of them I also have ask what they are and how to do them. I hope it’s getting it’s info from a good source:-)  It always says to set back at arms length, and if you can’t tell you did anything then you’ve done good. I kinda like to see things happen:-) While I’m waiting for more motivation in that area I turned to the deck. AI gave me some good ideas on constructing a winch. 
 

Here’s a before and after the salt streaks and waterline grime. 
 

 

 

Here’s the winch that I’ve just started.

 

 

The last phone update makes my work light to bright for the camera.

 

Here’s a shot I took for AI to show me the rigging.

 

 

This is what it came up with.

 

 

When I had questions on the things I didn’t understand I tried another view

 

 

That just made me start wondering:-)

 

When I first got started, before I had the engine house on I asked about the rigging for a shrimp boat. 
 

 

Bottom line, it give me answers and maybe if they are wrong some of you will speak up and steer me right:-)

I need to add,  it’s an enjoyable build that I can’t see the end yet:-)

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice work! The AI-generated rigging is interesting, it seems determined to stick a boom off the aft end of the pilot house. I think you'd have better luck looking for photos of fishing boats and checking if there are any build logs of similar vessels.

[Ferrus Manus]

Bryan, what I have personally found is that AI is completely untrustworthy for even the most basic details of ship rigging. AI has no idea what a real ship looks like, and probably never will. I think you would be much better off looking at real examples of these boats built by real people, and photographed by real people. It might be harder to accomplish, but at least you'll get it right. 

[Bryan Woods]

Thanks for responding guys, Yeah I knew it was too good to be true:-). Even me with little knowledge could see something was up:-)

[Kenchington]

As others have said, forget the AI, Bryan.

 

How your cutter should be rigged depends on date, place and the type of fishing you intend to represent. Small fishing boats work in restricted areas (often very restricted) and can be adapted to suit local conditions (unlike ocean-going freighters, for example). Indeed, scraping a living from the sea usually means that every detail has to be optimized for efficiency under local conditions.

 

Amidst other errors, AI wants to show your cutter working beam trawls from booms. That would likely be right in the 2020s but less so if you aim to show a boat in the 1960s, when otter trawls dominated. A Gulf of Mexico shrimper of that era would have worked a double- or triple-rig (two or three trawl nets, towed side by side) but I suspect that German cutters still worked single nets then. You need too decide on all that before worrying over which line led where!

 

Trevor

[Bryan Woods]

Thanks Trevor, I thought it should be scaled down quite a bit. Pictures and information on a small boat in the late 1940’s are pretty hard to find, especially when I don’t know enough to know what to look for:-) 

[Kenchington]

I'm not fully sure what to look for either.

 

von Brandt's "Fish Catching Methods of the World" would be a good starting point, though only as a broad-brush overview. But little of it is available on-line and my copy is in storage, where I can't get to it until next week.

 

The UN's FAO put out volumes on fishing gears in the 1950s and '60s. I can access those but only when I get into the Bedford Institute library and that would be next week at the earliest.

 

How's your German? If you can handle it, there is the "Handbuch der Seefischerei Nordeuropas", published in multiple parts from the 1920s to the 1950s. The only part that I have dipped into had some nice illustrations of German fishing boats and their gears. You could do worse than starting with the Wikipedia page:

 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handbuch_der_Seefischerei_Nordeuropas 

 

Trevor

[Bryan Woods]

Thanks Trevor, I not the best at research. Scratch building probably isn’t going to be my thing unless someone is telling me what to do:-) If I can just do something simple using one boom on the starboard side to utilize my winch I built. Of course I’ll probably be inventing it with a mind of this century and with very little knowledge of what I’m trying to to accomplish:-) I’ve got to scale the mast, I think it to tall. I’m hoping this arrangement.is going to be workable.