Privateer Viper 1/24th Scale

[JosephH]

Hey guys I had started this project but found a lot of errors so I will be starting fresh. I have the drawings all cadded so it is just a matter of drawing it in solidworks and correcting any mistakes.

I will post some pics of my drawings as soon as I get my act together. I also deleted all my other partial threads as I am comfortable enough with drawing now I think I can do this start to finish. it wont be speedy as i am still trying to catch up here at home and with my real job however it wont take me too long to get a good goings on.

this will be a 32 gunner rigged ketch style for coastal privateering

 

[JosephH]

Ok guys So I dont remember where the original drawings came from or which ship, however that doesn't matter as I am calling it the Viper. and will be making it my own so this is all just a base to go by. my cad version is at full scale as will be my Solidworks files as it is easier to scale to any scale then.

Here are images of my sheets as I have them traced out and also I will be starting fresh as though I never touched them before and lining everything up to make sure lengths etc are all matching.

 

[JosephH]

 

[JosephH]

 

[JosephH]

 

[Ekis]

In fact, from what we see of the hull on these plans, this is a classic 26-gun frigate from the second half of the 18th century. It was built a few dozen in France at that time.

 

[JosephH]

well okey dokey then lol but this wont be so classic when finished hehehe

anyways I got the layout files set up to beging lofting the hull. Man am i rusty on my cad took me a few to remember my way around the prog i guess abt 4 months away from it will do that

 

[epicdoom]

Amazing work I will have to learn how to do this form of cad I use cad for my 3D printer designs but this looks much more difficult.

 

[Peglegreg]

G'day Joseph
I would love to get into CAD drawings for ships.
Could you please do a thread for me and others on how and what process do you have to do.
It will be a great help.
Happy3dmodelling
Greg

 

[JosephH]

Ok So I will back up a bit and make this a cad thread as well. I wont go into uber details as each software is different, however the same setup i use will be required of any 3D program.

but before that here is the aft section of my hull and it turned out perfect. seems I did a half way decent job of faring things up the first time

I will explain here though why the profile and loft dont match though.

When lofting it is way easier to do it in as long a loft as you can as this will show any errors and let you alleviate them easier. if you do it in short stints like wherever a deck goes up or down then you have to do several short lofts and errors come into play.

What I do is to get the upper lip curve correct to give the proper hull shape and then do an arc from the highest point for my frames. this allows for a long smooth flow when I loft then I can cut the timbers shorter to match. like the old saying goes it is easier to shorten wood than lengthen it and the same is true here.

 

[epicdoom]

Is that the link to your Business Brother in your Signature? if so maybe I will Give you all the Info I have for the Constellation Build I want to do and just have you draw up a complete set of plans for POF build. I have settled on 1/48 Scale for it. I figure it will take me months to learn how to draw up plans then months to actually draw them. you could probably draw it all up in a fraction of that time.

 

[JosephH]

yes its my site I havent updated it in a while as havent been doing any big projects lately. I want to convert it over to a hobby site for my ships but I am crappy at web design

 

[Peglegreg]

Thank you Joseph for doing my request
Greg

 

[JosephH]

So the first thing you want to do when cad drawing a ship is to import you image files of the ship and trace over them. dont worry about cleaning them up or making them perfect you can do that later. trying to fix things can get you confused fast on lines if you have lines that are way off then straighten them then try drawing another line and seeing the one where the tracing isnt on top of it.

 

[JosephH]

NP Greg


So after everything is traced you want to create a new file to put your cad drawings on.

There are many things you will discover makes your life easier but what works for me may not for others due to always done it cant teach old dog new habits thing.

Most decent cad programs when you create a new sketch will have a global origin point. Not all but most the higher end ones will.

If you dont have one create a sketch on a layer that you can point to or connect to for lining things up.


You can see the origin point inside the circle on this view

 

[JosephH]

Next solidworks lets you create many sketches and can turn them on and off. in corel draw and autocad and I believe turbocad they are called Layers.

Either way you will use gobs of layers or sketches as you want to be able to turn things on and off to give a cleaner work area.

Using the origin point as a guide you want to place your basic 3 views. I use the where top of the keel and the front point of the gundeck intersect as my origin point location. this will make measuring things like stations etc really easy as most measurements come from that point which in ship terms we call F.P. or forward Point.

and since the top of the keel is also on that origin point it makes measuring vertical distances like waterlines decks etc easier

 

[JosephH]

Now I put each of the 3 views on a separate sketch so if I want I can turn off the waterline layout or the body plan etc to make things easier

also each on a seperate sketch or layer you can adjust each one without affecting the other.

 

[JosephH]

Ok in the bottom Photo it is showing my file tree in solidworks. as i said it uses sketches rather than layers though it has a layer feature too this is just easier in this program.

As you can see in the first photo though it is really cluttered with crap we do not need right now as we want to create a hull loft to get all our frames which i am meaning those not shown on the body plan. Also by lofting the hull in 3D you are actually faring the 3 views, but doing it in 3d where you can visually see mistakes in the faring easier thus saving wood later on.

So moving on to my file tree you can see I took all that messy drawing and broke all the elements down to other sketches. the ones that are green looking are turned on and the grey ones turned off. the result is the photo above this post in post #16 if you look at that one and the one below you will see how much easier it is to work with

 

[JosephH]

so that is your basic setup to start work. it can take several days as after you bring in your cad files to create the above you will then start making straight lines where they may angle up or down and fix wiggly curves. you guys know what i am talking about so wont go into detail on that other than to say I do everything on new sketches or layers so that I preserve the original until I am ready to delete the original and use the new ones.

 

[JosephH]

Now we get to where I just finished,

on the body plan you have all your frames and usually they are labelled. The ones I can easily read and trace are the ones I use as the rest can be taken off the lofted hull.

Creating a new Layer (will use this as it will be used more for other programs so not to confuse) on this new layer I will draw a line from the origin point vertically as my base. I will then trace all the station lines I will be using that match the body plan.

Once that is done you will use your measuring tool to make measurements.

As you can see below how I did it for the aft stations