Bulkheads

[Marty Olsen]

I've built 26 models, and my current build is the Sakonnet Daysailer by Model Shipways, but my question applies to all plank on bulkhead models. When installing the bulkheads on the keel, how do you hold the bulkheads in place while the glue dries and confirm that the tops on the port and starboard bulkheads on the outboard side are aligned with each other? I use a small square to confirm that bulkheads are perpendicular to the keel, so that's not a problem. I've struggled with this on every model I've built.

 

[Rob444]

A lot of people (including myself) now use lego blocks clamped along both sides of the bulkheads when they are being glued to prevent them from shifting, You can also try using binder clamps.

Rob

 

[Roger Pellett]

That’s a problem with most kits, POB and Solid hull. When reproducing a complex shape like a boat or ship hull, to do precision work it’s necessary to have a rigid flat datum to measure to. The idea that you can assemble a precisely shaped hull by assembling bulkheads along a flexible spine aka False Keel is a myth. Even the famous Keel Clamps or expensive MDF Building Slips do not take the place of a rigid build board.

Solid hull kits suffer from the same problem. Trying to accurately fair a machine carved hull while accurately maintaining hull lines is difficult. If I were given a solid hull kit to build I would first bandsaw it down the middle and carve a pair of half models. I would then have access to a flat datum for aligning templates.

Roger

 

[DAWarden-(Jaager)]

The original Italian kit developers called them bulkheads when they did their translation to English, and for steel vessels or sea going Chinese junks bulkhead is a part of the interior. Western wooden sailing vessels did not have bulkheads. That part of a POB model is actually a mold.

Here is a thought: the central spine at the place where are the molds - for most of the area has nothing going on. A perfectly square 1/4" x 1/4" strip of wood can be cut into short segments.
They can be PVA bonded at all four corners of every mold (where the legos are in post #2). They can be enforced by using Bamboo skewers as dowels. The slot for each mold is then a lot thicker - not much chance for any wagging. If another segment of the 1/4" stick is rotated 90 degrees it can fill the gap between the sticks of two sequential slots. If the fit is tight and it is glued to the central spine P&S - The spine will have a difficult time taking on a bend.
It is not the same as Roger's reference building board plane - but it is a ton more secure than current practice.

 

[AllanKP69]

Western wooden sailing vessels did not have bulkheads.

Hi Dean, But what about the "walls" that were taken down when going into action and others all over the ship?

 

[DAWarden-(Jaager)]

what about the "walls" that were taken down when going into action

I would not call temporary partitions "bulkheads".
It would make for an interesting exercise to operate guns on a deck that had solid waterproof walls at 10-20 foot intervals that formed chambers could only be entered by going up to the top deck.

My reading showed that a lot the the partitions were hinged at the top and were swung up to the underside of the deck beams - where there was room without blocking an access to above.