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School for Shipmodel Building School for model ship building

This is why you pin each wale section to the hull, the mate to the scarf is exact so once you cut it you cannot move the pieces of the wale. The second part of the hook scarf is set up basically the same as the first by using a piece of electrical tape. the two pieces are clamped together and the shape is traced on the second piece. from the photo you can see the second part of a scarf is an exact mirror image of the first.

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Like before the first step is to rough cut the scarf. Once that is done i will skip cut the horizontals so they are at a 90 degree to the base. The base i refer to is the bottom of the vice pointed to by the red arrow.

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When i skip cut that is cutting the high spots off a surface or lining up a surface as in this case i am lining up the horizontal to a 90 degree.
The black tape edge is the final surface so i moved the piece out to the blue line to even out the surface and square it up, i will also do this to the other two horizontal surfaces. with a very sharp blade i will take fine cuts until i hit the vice surface.

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Once the horizontals are true square i start to fit the original half on to the second piece. As you can see by the slim amount of wood at the tape ends i am still a little tight with the fit. I will put the piece back in the vice and take another thin slice. At this point you can use a file or sanding block to remove the extra wood. One possible issue with filing the ends freehand is you might tend to rock the file and take more off the edges than the middle, or file it out of square. On the other hand the work is so close to finishing it only takes a few passed with a file.

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So far so good the ends are tight so now i will continue to shave down the lower surfaces and creep downward until the top vertical meets the blue line, and that's it done

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What could possibility go wrong and why?
As you are cutting down the horizontals, which is not really horizontal but more like angles, you notice the gap is not even. The vertical edges lock the two pieces together so all you can do is go straight down. This happens when the piece is not tightly clamped in the vice and the pressure from cutting moves the piece ever so slightly, you slightly missed when cutting the tape line, or you left one very thin slice on one end when shaving down the surface. Remember in the photos everything looks BIG. Actually with micro photography we are looking so close the crooked gap may be only .009 thousandths of an inch out of whack. Not to panic take a file and file down the bottom surface at the inside of the scarf next to the hook or clamp it back in the vice and adjust the angle.
In this photo the problem is simply not shaving down the surface and leaving a bump. Again don't panic this is so close a quick swipe with a small file will fix it.

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The time to panic is when you realize these final adjustments are taking wood away and if you look at the ends of the scarf the timbers no longer line up. The more you try to adjust the scarf the more out of line the top and bottom become. This problem is caused by the material you start with. Lets say your timber measurement is .250 x .375 and it is cut to a finish of say .005 oversize. This teeny tiny margin is all the margin of error you have to build your entire model. So cutting, fitting, fabrication of parts and finishing all have to fall within the .005 or you might end up small. To avoid this never ever cut and mill the material you plan on using to a finish the trick is to "dimension" it or as the old timers would say cut it proud. Finish comes after fabrication not before.
If all you have is the final size of the wale material you are going to have to be very accurate in the joinery.

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Back in the day when i was judging model shows and i saw joinery even an attempt at joinery that was points for the builder because joinery is not easy.
 
by the way it is in no way "cheating" if the scribe in the joinery rather than cutting the joinery. It comes down to the final presentation all you have to do is show joinery should be there.

Wales are difficult because they take a sweep along the hull and trying to get that nice sweep piece by piece is harder to do than one continuous piece. If you do not have material on hand long enough or loner material was not provided, then go to home Depot or wherever you can get a piece of wood and cut your own. A wood like Poplar would be easier to cut joinery in than a harder wood. a black magic marker works fine to make the wales black.
 
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good morning class
Today’s class will not be in the shop building something it is a lecture. The build so far has reached a point the hull is framed in, and the frames are stable being held in place by the wales and deck clamps. At this point pre planning the next move in important.
What is next is building the deck, and the bulwarks. A question is do you build the deck first then the bulwarks or the other way around or does it matter? There is another major timber to be installed and that is the waterways. The waterways depend on how the bulwarks are built and because the waterways sit on the deck beams obviously the deck has to be in place. So if the waterways depend on how the bulwarks are constructed then it is necessary to figure out the bulwarks first.

For me I like to build the hull free from being clamped or held in place on the work table, I like to handle the model as I build it. The top timbers sticking up above the wales are prone to get broken so for me the bulwarks come first.

On the original drawings all it gives is the size and shape of the ship, there are no construction details. The simplest way is to look at the model built by Harold Hahn and just go with it. He did not plank the inside of the bulwarks. No need to over think it just do it that way. But what if you do want to over think it, maybe Hahn is right or maybe he is wrong. The truth there is no right or wrong because there isn’t any data to prove how the bulwarks of the Sir Edward Hawke were built.

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Do you wander off the reservation and blaze you own trail? Do you climb out of the box of how it was done or will I follow the leader and do the same?
Here is an example of follow the leader or not.

The picture is the General Hunter built in 1809 on the Great Lakes. The ship was built as a transport for supplies and troops to and from Fort Malden. The model is in the museum at Fort Malden.

Notice the bulwarks are open and guns are on deck. This is a combination of two different intended uses of the ship, as a transport and as an armed war ship.

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Let's just say you want to build a model or create a kit of the General Hunter as she was during the battle of Lake Erie 1812. Do you design the model from the model in the museum with guns on deck and open bulwarks and despite conflicting data you stick to your model or kit as historically correct? After all it is based on a museum model. Should a kit designer, someone creating a built log, writing a book or in some way presenting the work to the ship modeling community take some responsibility for what they are putting forward? Don’t answer that it is a rhetorical question, if you want to discuss it or express your thoughts go to Greg’s classroom.
 
The General Hunter started as a transport but when the war broke out the General Hunter was modified into a war ship and renamed the Hunter. Logically open bulwarks may not be such a good idea for a man-of-war because of cannon balls being fired at it. This is likely to happen even with the protection of closed bulwarks imaging open bulwarks.

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Beefing up the bulwarks might be better. Then you have John Stevens research paper on the Hunter suggesting just maybe the bulwarks were closed in. clip from an article by John Stevens past curator of the Museum of the Atlantic.

So if your model or kit design shows the Hunter as in the museum you just might be wrong or not.

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Lets go ahead and over think the bulwarks using various examples. First, we have the Niagara docked at Erie PA and the bulwarks are planked outside and inside, can we trust the designers? After all the museum of the Hunter shows it built as a transport and as a war ship all rolled into one model.

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Jumping in Peabody's way back machine we can look at the original hull being salvaged. Sure enough the bulwarks are planked inside tinted yellow. As a side note notice the deck clamp i tinted red and blue the scarf joining the pieces and the notches in the upper edge for the deck beams. So the "new" Niagara at Erie PA the bulwarks are authentic and true to the original ship.

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i am not done yet

The Eagle and Jefferson both war ship build on the Great Lakes had the bulwarks planked inside and out. Plue the fact the bulwarks were filled in with timber between the top timbers creating a solid wall of timber. Same time period of the Hawke or close enough.
An unverified fun fact. The ship builders knew adding extra weight above the wales made the ship unstable so adding timber to the bulwarks might be a problem. to solve the weight issue Cedar was used as the filler timber. Cedar is light weight and strong and kind of like a sponge it gives a little absorbing the shock of a cannon ball and did not splinter like a hardwood.

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Getting back to the Sir Edward Hawke. The ship was built as an armed war ship and construction closely supervised by the Admiralty. It was stated the ship was well built to serve its purpose. It looks to me like armed ships were built with sturdy bulwarks perhaps as a solid wall of timber planked in and out. My personal decision is to stray from Hahn’s model and plank my bulwarks both on the outside and on the inside.
I cannot say for sure if Hahn's model is correct or me making changes is right all i can do is present my reasons on why i did it my way and not to just blindly follow the work of someone else.

so ends the lecture on looking beyond and taking a bold step in another direction.

next class will be in the shop and how to mill the planking and building the bulwarks.
 
Dave,

Giving this some consideration: at first thought - open or closed would probably not make a difference to a cannon ball or an AP load. With closed there would be the addition of wood splinters. Unlike hot iron shards, the wood has living micro-organisms. This adds an additional delayed death factor. I read an account of there being a strong sailor protest on a vessel when wood was used to cover the sides of the hammock railing - additional splinters with no positive protective value. BUT, a second thought - it was not just cannon. There were muskets and swivels and native archers. Planked bulwarks would be vitally valuable here. Two layers would possibly stop small arms projectiles. The hide from view factor - probably very important.

On a personal bias - I frame everything above the bottom of the main wale as a solid wall. This makes the hull from the upper deck to the rail VERY strong. Planking inside for strength against build shock is not necessary. Doing the waterway first makes it easier to get a tight fit - one dimension instead of two for the last member installed. Planking the inside does save me from having to deal with the appearance of top timbers. So I have a definite bias there.

The futtocks mostly ended at the level of the upper deck on most actual ships. This presented at lot of open ended straws at a level where there was both salt and fresh water. A major - perhaps THE major function of the waterway was to cover the open grain ends from water and fungal destruction.
 
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i did consider these smaller war ship did not face off with frigates and larger war ships mounting 18 to 32 pound cannons which would blow a small vessel like the Hawke to pieces. These were more like patrol boats along shorelines and shallow waters more for costal defense. I agree There were muskets and swivels and native archers. Planked bulwarks would be vitally valuable here. Two layers would possibly stop small arms projectiles. The hide from view factor - probably very important.

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Prior to the American Revolution, smuggling was a problem for the British Authorities. I believe that these small schooners were bought to address this problem. While not withstanding large bore artillery planked bulwarks would protect crews from small arms fire.

Roger
 
An interesting part of scratch and semi scratch building is discission making and discovery of information, pretty much discission making on the building of a kit model has been done by the designer, however you do have the option to make changes if you do not agree with the kit design. On this project i did explore options on building the bulwarks and now that i decided what i want to do i can proceed. First i need to know the measurement from the top of the wales to the bottom of the cap rail. Having the measurement i divide the number by the number of planks in this case i am using 3 planks each measuring .120 or slightly under 1/8 inch.

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Off to the shop to cut the planking i use a bandsaw for all my cutting so starting with a 4/4 pieces of Cherry sapwood i rip off strips about .180 which will be finished to the target measurement of .120

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Then i take those 1 inch wide strips, stack them and cut the pile into .180 x .180 strip which i will run through a thickness sander.

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Taking a look at the outside profile of the hull the sheer is very pronounced. Sheer of a ship's hull refers to the longitudinal curvature and gives it an aesthetic appeal and also in the performance of the vessel which is a discussion not relevant to the build.

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