A 1/3 scale wall sculpture of the a Maltese Firilla

[rshousha]

Hello All!

Here is the next project to come out of my workshop. Perhaps some of you remember that I designed a kit for a 1/6 scale replica of a Maltese firilla a while back. This was designed with the careful analysis of a Master's Thesis on the subject and the oversight of the curator at the Maritime Museum in Valetta.

Well, the American fellow who commissioned the model has now bought a house in Malta and is planning on spending as much time as he can there. He asked me to design a large, half-hull model of the frames of the model so he could hang it on his wall at his new house.

We figured on a 1/3 scale in order to make the sculpture about five feet wide. Here are a couple of pictures of the original model, completed, and a couple of pictures of the design process of the half-hull.

Note that the original model is a working R/C model.

Enjoy!

Rick

 

[rshousha]

Hurray, the parts have arrived in Malta and the project is coming together.

 

[rshousha]

I am excited to see my drawing in the background being put to good use. I am working on a couple of extra pages of that this morning, describing the idea for the project, the history of this particular subject, and including a couple of construction tips.

 

[rshousha]

And, for anyone who might be interested in getting the kit, here is the drawing that you will get with it. Of course, there is a ton of other information that you would get, including the original academic paper that I used as a starting point for the research on the project.

 

[Bryian]

That’s a cool project.

 

[rshousha]

Another picture of the progress of the assembly. This is looking like a really fun project.

 

[rshousha]

Dry fit:

 

[rshousha]

The big and the small. Here is the wall-mounted half-hull behind my original R/C model design. 1/6 scale versus 1/3 scale.

 

[rshousha]

First test. The ribs are still attached to the armature. Eventually, the ribs should just float.

 

[rshousha]

For those of you who are still following, here the builder has removed the mid-plane armature. Note the little hooks I had created to keep frames from sagging. I think it's important that the half-hull really looks like half the boat.

 

[TexBilly]

This is off the charts cool!

 

[rshousha]

Thank you! I would love to design another kit like this. I don't think I know of any half-hulls that show the framing of a boat. I would especially love to do a double-ender, like a Monterrey fishing boat, showing the canted frames at the bow and the stern. That would be some real miniature boat-building.