IgorSky

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My new completed projects...












 

I've made some progress, but I'm afraid in the wrong direction!
I've tried three times now to get the hull block carved properly.  Each time, I've wound up with an asymmetrical hull.


I made three hull templates (midships, about midway between midships and the bow and about midway between midships and the stern).  The problem I had -- as I've diagnosed it -- is not being able to clearly see where centerline was.  Because everything's made of basswood, it all pretty much looked the same when I started sanding on it.
On my third attempt, I dipped the "keel" piece in some wood stain.  The stain didn't penetrate too far, so you can't see it on the bottom of the hull blank, but it does show up on the sides of the keel piece, which means I can see where it is.
 


So, now that I've gotten to this point again -- and it's amazing how quickly I can make a hull blank now, after doing it three times -- I'm looking for some advice about the best way to go about this and wind up with a symmetrical hull.  What tools ought I be using?  I'd like to use my bandsaw to cut away the bottom of the hull block.  That's fast and easy.  From there, should I just sand it away?  Use a chisel?  Any tips on using the templates more effectively?  I was thinking of making, instead of these kinds of templates...
 

... some that would be "full hull" that I can fit from the bottom up and have both sides of the model on one template?
What do you think of that idea?
Any other suggestions?
 
 
Dan
 
 

Greetings Dan,
I know the feeling, I have often carved hulls that were close, but not symmetrical enough. I put it down to my being right handed, it's almost always the port side that is slightly out of shape with me. The only advice I can give you is to use more templates, good idea to glue paper ones to something a bit thicker and stiffer, you got that one right. That keeps them from bending out of shape when holding against the hull. Mark the points on the keel where each template bottom should be located, and attempt best you can to hold the template perfectly vertical when checking shape. I start in the middle, then work every other template space fore and aft. Cut just a little at a time, I use an X-acto knife and #11 blade myself, At the stern it gets trickier where it undercuts. Be patient, and work slowly, when the hull seems close to the right shape, i then use sandpaper starting with heavier grits and then work down to finer stuff. I often make 3 hull block sandwiches to start with, so don't have to repeat the process again later "when" I screw one of them up.
Hope that helps!
Anchor's A Weigh!
John Fox III

Quick update tonight.  I've done the rough cutting of the block down to the hull lines.
Next step is the most difficult -- I think -- final shaping of the hull.  I'm not sure what the right tool is to do that.  This model is so small that a rotary tool is probably too aggressive.  And I'm thinking about making the kinds of hull templates you use when you're making a larger solid hull model.  Without those I don't see how I can keep the hull symmetrical.

 
Dan

I've crossed the Rubicon.
I scaled up the drawings to fit the hull blank I have.  (I used the plans redrawn by Howard Chapelle in 1933.)  That made the model too wide to fit through the neck of the bottle I have, so I will definitely need a bigger bottle.  I marked the outline of the hull, the waterline, the locations of the masts and the locations of the aligning pins on the drawings and then lined all that up on the hull blank.

I mounted the drawings on 1/16" basswood, creating templates.


Next step:  trace the hull lines from the template to the hull blank and then use my razor saw to cut down from the top of the block to the top of the cap rail to form the sheer of the hull.
 
Dan

Yesterday, I cut the hull block down to the lines on the plan view.  it was a simple enough operation, but I took it slowly to make sure I didn't go too far.  Now the hull is about 15/16" wide and 3-15/16" long.

 

 
Today I'll transfer the side view of the boat to the block and cut the top of the block down to the top of the caprail.
 
 
Dan
 
 

Greetings Dan,
You will find it better in future to cut the hull block sandwich to the side/profile view first, then the plan view.  When you place the profile view to an already cut plan view you will find that the profile view is too short. Basically, the curved side is longer than a straight side would be. Just a hint for future reference.
Anchor's A Weigh!
John Fox III

Thanks, John!
I'd thought I would do that initially, but then cut from the top view.  Live and learn.
It looks like it's going to work out alright.  I traced the waterline on the back of the template so I could position it properly on the other side of the hull block.  Then I clamped the template to the hull block.

And traced it out...

Here you can see the outline and the waterline drawn on the other side of the template.

Now it's time to cut down to the cap rail and form the sheer of the hull.
 
 
Dan
 
 

Hi.
Keep the proportions and scale, that's how I understand these constructions... so either you find a bigger bottle or it's dry docked to wait for its bottle and then make one smaller than the dimensions and proportions between hull and sail is the authentic.
That's my way of thinking.
Greetings, it looks nice.

I've made some progress on my America.
Using John Fox's article from 1988 in Model Ship Builder, I made the hull blank.

I sandwiched a thin piece of basswood between two others, establishing a keel line for the hull below the waterline.  I used 0.010" styrene to establish a waterline.  And then I cut another piece of basswood for the upperworks.  I turned a couple of toothpicks down to 1/16" to pin them all together.

I've made two templates, mounting them on basswood.
Here's the side view.

So now my question.  I decided on the size of the ship based on the internal dimensions of the bottle.  Is that the right way to think about this?  I made the blank per the article:  3/4" thick, 1-1/8" wide, about 4" long.  That'll make a model the same size as John's Bluenose.  Bluenose's hull lines are similar to America's, but the yacht carried a lot more sail area. so the model would be taller than the inside the bottle if I built it to the same dimensions as Bluenose.  
So, do I build it a little bigger and find a bottle that will fit later?  Or build it small and fit it into the bottle I have?
 
 
Dan

Good afternoon, let's go with some progress...
...and setbacks, that there are, we leave them for later.
 

 
 

 
 
I carefully examine the curvatures, heights, dimensions, proportions, which would be in addition to having fun for a while because I like what I see, performing optimal quality control... I remind you that I work without plans... which for me is always a difficulty .
 

 
I am going to be very insistent on this subject, but as long as it can be recycled, reused and reduced... in this case this sheet metal, less than a millimeter thick, comes from the back of a painted plywood picture, which is it separated due to the effect of humidity... I washed it well, let it dry and now I have it for different uses.
 

 
Forgive the photographer who is a mall, put your finger down.
With this round strip of six millimeters in diameter I hope to be able to make the railings of the railing... for this it has been immersed in very hot water one night when I get up I change the water again no matter how hot it burns and after a After a while I put it in its holder, it is one of the two hulls I made in beech, identical to the ship's pine.
It is left to dry on days when there are more tasks to do
 

 
I add some wooden circles on the tips of the masts and bowsprit as I have seen in a photo on the internet, although they are actually metal and a cylinder that surrounds the tip of these.
I also varnished the part of the wood that doesn't turn white.
 

 
Aft seat and helmsman's seat.
Well, nothing that keeps your eyes working.
 

 

 
We work the mast, it is varnished, it is drilled to pass that piece that I don't know what nautical name it has, it is a crossbar that some lines cross from the hull to the tip of the mast.
Information is appreciated
 

 

 
We have already put the railings, there are no photos, sorry, but come on, the process is easy, it was left to dry for several days, then it was verified that the curve was perfect, it was cut to the correct length and the only more laborious thing was with a knife cut the strip in two parts to obtain two half circles that make a believable railing, it is glued with pva and without further ado.
We have also made the base of the bowsprit and drilled through the hull at the point through it.
Greetings.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
..
 
 
 

Good afternoon:
Let's see if today it is possible that not a word in spanish gets through, I will be watching more than yesterday... but I still don't understand what can happen, it exceeds my logical and analytical capacity.
Today the idea is to show you how I made the sea for this model.
Yesterday I told you diorama and this heat is making me delirious, this boat does not have a landscape, it goes in principle for the bottle that you will see.
My strategy for today is few words and many photos... you're lucky you won't have to have an aspirin omelette for dinner because of my excessive verbiage.

The white paper is a template that we have verified reproduces the oval of the tinted silicone that we have put in the bottle to simulate the depth.
There are no photos of the process but you will see them. 
If everything is fine, I usually measure six times and cut one, the boat will be one millimeter on each side with respect to the interior glass and the mast will enter the neck of the bottle half.

Everything we're going to need is here...
Focus your attention on a template made with plastic sanded from the paper one, you can see the exact position of the helmet in another template below.
The plastic template is surrounded by a twine thread two or three millimeters thick glued, it is the one that limits the height and expansion of the silicone.
Determines the working zone of our sea.

My method is always to glue wood against wood, that's why I make a small square, sometimes a strip, with two glued wooden sticks that fit into the holes in the hull.

In this image you can see that the hull has been wrapped in kitchen plastic, which you cannot see and it is very IMPORTANT that you remember to remove the board from the bottom of the hull, wrap it and finally nail the board back in place by drilling the plastic .
One thing that I have done for the first time, I always use tinted silicone, but this time to test how it works against an already tinted background, I have tried to glue the outline of the helmet with transparent silicone to see if I get a deeper effect of the helmet.
I have also taken the opportunity to put the transparent silicone that will make the breaking wave of the bow in the plastic.

Silicone like two index fingers and three drops of color, to match the one already inserted... the idea is a deep Atlantic sea.
Stir to equalize and without beating so as not to introduce air.
We fill from the inside out, remember that we just glued the hull with silicone without dye... the entire oval flush with the twine that gives us the height.
They are simulated a little bit by distributing the unevenness that the sea creates and we place the bow plastic in the arched shape that we want the bow wave.
The next day.



 

 

 

 

 
The board where the helmet goes in its place...
Not even hunger moves her from there.
There are no photos of how to put and paste the sea inside.
Only the twine is removed from the sea.
It is left glued on the sanded plastic.T
The sea is rolled up with the plastic part facing out and enters alone.
It is supported on the side of the bottle and with a wire, or a drinking straw, drops of silicone are placed on the sea inside and a cord where the board goes.
The sea is dropped on it and it is leveled flush.

I promised little words and a lot of photo, at least the second I have fulfilled.

 

Ufff...bad.

Ufff...bad.

Well?

Yes, her well.

Ufff...bad.

Ufff...bad.

Ufff...bad.

Ufff...very bad.
the only thing perfect is that the bowsprit is a millimeter from the glass.
I knew that the bottle would deform but not in this brutal way.
I don't know if it's worth it
put it in it... but at the moment I don't have another, we'll see.
Greetings.
 
 
 
 

A hoy,
It's been a couple of years but finally back into it! My wife's first pregnancy gave us twins, which would you believe left me little spare time... but finally this project is down off the shelf!
So I made a figure head, using a copper wire frame and layers of PVA glue to give volume, then painted white. She's meant to be an angel giving flight to a dove.
 
I re-did the main bulwarks and added capping the to top of the rear section to match. This gave me light coloured bamboo on the tops of all handrails/bulwarks. I also added some stripping along the hull to break up the otherwise bland hull. I made these out of thinned bamboo skewers and bristles out of a brush. They also conceal the join lines of the three separate hull sections pretty well too. I shaped the keel, added a rudder and made some mounts. I am in no ways ready to sculpt an angry sea, so I've gone for traditional mounts, stained to give contrast.
 
I made a capstan using a similar method as the helm wheel. Installed just behind the main mast. Installed the cannons on deck, and the helm wheel. Some door frames to the rear cabins A skylight for the rear cabins. This I made out of brush bristles, thin square cut wood, and yellow card stock to imitate stained glass. 3 gusset braces added to the very rear section. The curved stairs to the rear section I made out of many layers of thinned bamboo skewers glued together to give the tread. I love how they've turned out. I also added some simple grating to the front section, as I thought the deck looked a little bare.
 
I've added all the rigging to the sails and masts and drilled the holes in the deck for the lines to pass through. I'm intending for some of the lines to come out underneath where the longboat will mount. Thus covering the cut off line ends. Some other lines will come and and be glued and cut off behind the stairs. Hence, the stairs and the long boat will need to be installed as a last step, after all the rigging is done.
 
Ready to bottle! Any suggestions on the best way to glue the hull to the glass? Is epoxy the strongest and easiest to work with?
I'll post again soon showing the full sail/rigging set up. 
Kind regards, Caleb.

Ahoy,
So I'm struggling to figure out a way to make the sails collapsable. The top few yards are narrow enough to fit through the neck without the need to rotate them, but the bottom yards need to be rotated. I've trialled this by securing the bottom corners of the top sails to their respective yards underneath. But it still seems to not easily allow the yards to rotate? Perhaps my sails are too rigid to allow free movement. Perhaps I should just be trying to secure the bottom corners of the sails to the yards once in the bottle? Any advice on this would be welcome.
Also, I'm unsure of how I will run the diagonal rigging (like the top gallant stay) between the masts and then be able to assembly inside the bottle. I'm thinking I will be able to secure them all outside the bottle and set the spacing so when inside they will all be parallel. I've still got to drill into the side of the deck to allow the control lines to pass through from the main sails and backstays. Upon previous advice, I will now be attaching the yards as one in the bottle, not threading them through like I wrongly thought possible. For the yards I drilled out some thin wood, and then sanded the strips down even thinner and narrower post drilling. I then passed the yard lines through, glued and trimmed them. I will glue these little strips to the side once in the bottle. The backstays will pass through the side of the hull and come out the front. These should secure side to side and provide rear tension. The (royal?) top stays will provide tension forward.



 
As for making the sails, I cut some cloth to size and ran some PVA glue along the edge and glued the thread. I knotted the top corners around a needle, glued with CA and trimmed the tail, in the same fashion as making thread blocks. These little loops allowed me to slip the sails onto the yards and secure with CA.

 
I also added some detail to the prow. I cut thin strips of wood and soaked them in boiling water for a few minutes. This made them pliable and I was able to gradually curve them into shape and hold them there until they dried, keeping their curve.

 
In all this handling, nearly all my handrails got bumped off. Not to worry I can re-attach/make more at the end now I know how to do it.
Regards, Caleb.

A hoy!
I finally cracked the rear cabins and am happy with the result. The windows and stained glass are printed paper printed with a yellow grid pattern. To get the arched window frames raised, I bent a brush bristle in a tight radius to form a U. I then trimmed each side to length and glued their ends together. These got glued over the top of the printed paper, which got glued on top of a thin strip of wood. I capped the top of the windows with another piece of wood with a rounded edge for the roof. This rounded piece is slightly thicker than the first strip of wood. This allows it to hang over slightly which I like the look of. I beveled the corners of the side cabins roof with the rear cabins roof, again, just for looks.

 
After a few attempts I made a helm I am happy with. I first made the spokes by lining up 8 bristles, I did an initial squaring off cut and then a final cut. This got all their lengths the same. Then I curled another bristle around a tight radius to make a coil. I then cut across the coil in the direction of its axis. This created a neat little circular ring. I drilled a hole in some scrap covered in double sided tape, and put the over length helm axle in the peg hole. This allowed me to line up all the spokes up against the axle. i removed the axle and the spokes stayed in position thanks to the double sided tape. I placed glue on the axle, placed the ring on the spokes and inserted the axle back in. After drying I could pry away the double sided tape, trim the axle length and I had a helm wheel!
    I also made the longboat using the plug and watered down PVA method. I found waxing the plug before layering it with PVA soaked tissue made it a lot easier to remove the dried mould. I added some seats out of some thin timber I cut down. I also made a grid pattern of bristles for the grating.       I also added some stairs into the deck. I later coloured the walls black to add a bit of depth perception.   I added some more handrails.     I'll post again soon with details of sails and some more questions of course.

Sometimes when details get this small I print them out on paper and glue the paper to the model.  Maybe not the best photo but it gives the idea.  I printed the transom glued it on and touched it up with paint.  In your case I'd print the cabin windows, cut out the windows and glue the shaped pieces in then paint over them.