LE ROCHEFORT -1787 by jwallKC (Ancre plans)

Best build log on the forum ROTF...
Well-ll, doan be discounting your own log of that Swedish ship, I pored over that one last evening. The ship is not in my sphere of interest but your work is worthy of study and as a technical document the log itself stands out.
 
So I haven't decided yet on whether I will build 1/36 or 1/24 - have the 1/24 plans on order from Ancre so I can compare. I tend to like the larger sizes. While waiting on the shipment I have been studying the plans at 1/36.... in looking at the frame layouts I am finding it hard to see the details (I really wish he hadn't drawn the frames overlapping). So I headed down to my local copy shop and made a few enlargements at different percentages to better study the details. The large and small format copiers at Kinkos are not set for the level of accuracy we need unfortunately. I have made copies before, and the large format printer tends to elongate the scans incrementally. Over about 3ft (1 meter) the stretch accumulates significantly, enough to throw off measurements. I learned this the semi-hard way. When starting on L'Ambiteux I made copies of the plans to preserve the originals. I took measurements off the copies, set up my building board, laid out the station lines and started working on the keel. Fortunately, I caught the errors before I got too far and was able to fix the keel, but I did have to re-do the building board. If I hadn't caught it... well who knows how far I would have gotten before the growing errors would have been unfixable. Seemingly minor copier errors add up. So now I only make copies for study and reference (coloring, shading, and notes, I am ok beating them up a little) but when it comes to cutting time, I take my measurements from the originals only. Also because of errors in the small format copiers also I only use copies for basic layout and assembly of the frames, but I trace the frame pieces onto vellum from the original plans and not the copies.... saves a boat load of money too.

So look at these pix (taken from the plans for L'Ambiteux by Ancre and not Le Rochefort) which illustrate the problem... I have laid out the copy over the original plans against a lightboard:

in the first picture you can see I have lined up the copy and the original along the keel at the sternpost...

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in the 2nd picture, about 10 inches along the keel we are already off by ~1mm. At Station M (at midship) we are off by ~2.5 mm (not pictured)

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by the time we get to the hawse timbers (more or less) at station VII av, 3 feet (1 meter) from the sternpost we are off by ~4.5 mm

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the copier is not scanning/pulling plan at a consistent rate which throws off the horizontal measurements, but if you look up the hull you can see also how both the vertical and horizontal placement of the gun ports is off, significantly in the next picture...

gunports.jpg

this is because there are no straight lines on a ship... and those little errors add up. So, my advice is to be very careful when you copy, check the scale of the copies... on a lightboard or up against a window, don't just trust the machine.


Jeff out...
 
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I'm a little late, but just wanted to wish you the best of luck with your new Group Build. My experience in the SoS Bluenose Group Build is that you get a lot of support from your fellow builders and no question remains unanswered. With is nice to pull up together.
Regards, Peter
 
Very true. A half mm here and there adds up to a big error down the line. I copied my frames one by one here on the copier we have. I’m going to check the measurements against the plan and see how close I am.
depending on the scale you are using and individual piece you may not notice a big enough difference to matter... it really adds up in the larger scales and across the long dimensions and whole sheet scans. My guess is that if you did each frame individually as you say then you are probably pretty good. Better than if you had done the whole sheet.

Jeff
 
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So... the 1/24 scale plans arrived on Friday, considering that they just got posted on the 6th, that's pretty good - I did pay extra (a lot) for the fancy shipping though. Even though the plans are at 1/24, the fully rigged one is still at 1/36.... So I headed down to Kinkos and enlarged 150% to get a better idea of size if fully rigged at 1/24.... As it turns out, pretty big... Roughly 45 x35 inches.

I have two large easels, and several pieces of hardboard, and a white board that I use to study plans on... Makes it so much easier to really look closely at the details...

Michael's and Hobby Lobby here in the States have these large easels on sale pretty frequently for ~$80-100. The easel on the left I bought from an online retailer and was designed to hold two canvasses so I can actually have 2 plans up on it if necessary for comparison, it can also be rotated back to lay flat like a table. That one cost ~$300 (shhhh.... Don't tell my wife) but it's pretty handy for studying plans.

Jeff

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In 1/24 it is going to be big and impressive no doubt. I have to rig a way to have the plans at the ready here too. I have easels I can use too but I don't want to have to move it constantly to walk from bench to bench. Ill figure something out. Good luck on your project. !
 
Verissimo. Mezzo mm qua e là si aggiunge a un grosso errore lungo la linea. Ho copiato i miei fotogrammi uno per uno qui sulla fotocopiatrice che abbiamo. Controllerò le misure rispetto al piano e vedrò quanto sono vicino.
Ciao Tony, come hai fotocopiato, secondo me, c'è poco margine di errore con la giusta percentuale.
 
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Back to copies again.... I just wanted to test the large format copier/printer at my local shop again just to see if anything had changed. I did a 100% copy of the 1/24 scale plans... it's even worse than the last time I checked about a year ago... off by a whole centimeter over the length of the scan... wow... pretty bad. I am not sure if the error is in the pull rate when scanning or when printing or both but jeez... not good. I should probably check but the print was $7 and a scan to pdf also would have added another $11 (!!!!!! for a scan not even a print!!!!!)... It is most obvious when you look at the keel in the frames in the attached image at the far end of the print... So once again, be wary of the large scale copiers at your local shop...

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in case you are wondering what I am using for these comparo pix, it is an LED lightpad that I picked up on Amazon last year for about $60 USD.... you can dim or dial up the light... and it is crazy how bright this thing gets. The lightpad is A2 sized, and the effective light area (not counting borders is 41.5 x 59.5 cm or roughly 24 x 18 inches. it comes with a few weak magnets that are pretty useless but a small stack of rare earth magnets will keep everything down well enough. If you plan on doing any tracing (and I usually trace out my pieces instead of using photocopies, this thing is a must. They come in all kinds of sizes if you dont need one this big. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0829ZCWT2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The pix below are at 0, 50, and 100% brightness... hard to tell the diff in the pix because the camera self-adjusts for light, but you can kinda tell by looking at the measuremnet numbers on left side, but trust me, at full on this thing is blinding.

light at 0%

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light at 50%...

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light at 100%

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in case you are wondering what I am using for these comparo pix, it is an LED lightpad that I picked up on Amazon last year for about $60 USD.... you can dim or dial up the light... and it is crazy how bright this thing gets. the lightpad is A2 sized, and the effective light area (not counting borders is 41.4 x 59.5 cm or roughlye 24 x 18 inches. it comes with a few weak magnets that are pretty useless but a small stack of rare earth magnets will keep everything down well enough. if you plan on doing any tracing (and I usually trace out my pieces instead of using photcopies, this thing is a must. They come in all kinds of sizes if you dont need one this big. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0829ZCWT2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

the pix below are at 0, 50, and 100% brightness... hard to tell the diff in the pix because the camera self adjust (but you can kind atell by looking athe measuremnet numbers on left side, buy trust me, at full this thing is blinding.

light at 0%

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light at 50%...

View attachment 345128

light at 100%

View attachment 345129
you could also use the scanner of the printer to test
 
Yes, but as I said before the scan only option is even more expensive than a print - it makes no sense whatsoever to me but a print on paper is $7, a scan to to pdf is $11... WTF?
sorry I was not clear, the light of the scanner (of your printer) to trace the image
 
If you purchased the 1/24 scale plans please be aware that there is fairly significant typo on plans 2 and 14, both of these say they are at 1/36 when they are in fact reproduced at 1/24 (as they should be). Plan 16 is at 1/36 and is meant to be at 1/36 - no error (too big to print at 1/24). so if you have both sets of plans, be careful that you dont get them mixed up. In the two pix below, the real 1/36 scale plans are to the left, 1/24 are to the right but both have "echelle 1/36" printed in the title. There is a significnt difference in size as you can see, but if you aren't paying attention....

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