School for model ship building

[Peter Gutterman]

As a restorer (way over on the side of conservation, while not being a " conservator" per se) I had to get inside the head of the original maker from 150-300 years before. All the information was there, built, carved and polished into the piece itself, like a craftsman's fingerprints if you will. It was a bit like getting kits with no written instructions. Practices, techniques, hand tools marks finishing and philosophy were all in evidence inherent in the piece.

That and the study and practice of archaic finishes, tools and woodworking, plus the history were all requirements.
I have found that a kit, while supplying materials as well as some (not always useful) instructions, might give you a leg up and a place to start, yet requires no less art, craftsmanship, and diligence as scratch building. I have scratch built my way around the dilemmas inherent in kits in the same way I had to tease out the solutions required to faithfully restore an antique. There were a number of volunteer model shipwrights at the USNA Museum model shop who built magnificent museum models from kits, plastic and otherwise, all of which required the same level of expertise, practice and experience as any scratch builders with whom they worked side by side. We all were instructed by and learned from each other.

Fabulous and instructive dioramas, by the way!

Pete

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

At the end of the day, it is solely about what brings most pleasure to YOU, and whatever you feel is the right way to get there.

that is indeed the bottom line you can totally ignore this entire topic because you feel it does not apply to you or what you want to get out of the hobby. In this school it is about the basic principles of the art and how "some" builders accomplished what they did.
if you find yourself wanting to try a semi-scratch build then follow along. There will be a limited edition of a semi-kit of the Sir Edward Hawke available for anyone wanting to give it a go. Every detail needed to accomplish the build will be right here. It is not a glue part A to part B type of build it will require a little more than that.
Should you take on the challenge of the build and actually build the Sir Edward Hawke you will not get a diploma claiming you a master model shipwright i do not even consider myself a master model shipwright. But now you are on your way to bigger and better builds. Plus you have a model of the Sir Edawrd Hawke
which was a real ship
close to historically built ( i say close because we do not have the bones to examine) but methods used are true to the time and place the original was built
and the satisfaction of saying "i built that"
based on the work of a master shipwright Harold Hahn who built the original model.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

lets get in the jigging now if your building a structure and parts of it are NOT part of the structure but used to hold parts in place is it a "jig" of some sort?

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

Harold took the jig idea from Bob reinvented it to be used to aid a hobby builder to accomplish a plank on frame model. Then i took Harolds idea and redesigned it, in my head improve the idea but hey that is in my head, oh my! is that showing a little arrogance? Two master model shipwrights and now bob 1.0 Harold 2.0 now me 3.0 on the jig idea.

coming up next
let's take an analytical dive into the jig

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

the jig is laser cut for precision purposes; you can cut one out by hand if your careful. I will get to the square hole at the stern when it is time to place the remaining 1/2 frames. for now it is just about frames 1 to 18.



there are square holes in the jig to locate the stem and sternpost



In this picture Harold is squaring up the first and last frame and locating the keel to the jig.. By adding the square holes for the stem and sternpost in the Hawke jig the keel will fall into place. it is critical the keel notches line up perfectly with the notches in the jig. If they don't line up there will be a slant forward or back to all the frames.


You can not glue the keel assembly to the jig because if you do that there is no way to drop the frames through the jig. and on to the keel. The frames are wider than the jig.



What Harold did was to line up all the frame



With all the frame standing in place he glued the keel, stem and sternpost to the top of the frames, or actually to the bottom of the frames because the hull is upside down

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

A big problem with this method is you have to be exact when building each frame as well as standing them up in the jig.

This is the frame jig used to make sure each and every frame is the exact distance from the keel notch to the base of the jig, at the top tinted blue is the jig base the blue tinted block is the keel notch.



if you are ever so slightly sloppy with your frame building you end up with this problem the frames are high and low and will not sit proper in the keel notches. You are looking very close and the distance the frames are off is small when looked at with a naked eye. So you really can not see an error you have to check and recheck every frame.
This needs a better idea to insure all your frames will sit on the keel.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

there is another way to build the hull in a jig and that is to flip the hull upside down from Harold's method and rather than having the jig above the hull you can lower it down. This way the jig is used as a cradle where the hull sits down into the jig.
see example here in post #191

Corsair H.M.S. Enterprize Build Log

Also, "based on" does not mean exact copy. And some builders wish their build to replicate as perfectly as possible the real ship. :) Yes,and that is already scratch building,the Enterprize does not have drawings with all the details at NMM ,it was used the sister ships drawings too plus other...

shipsofscale.com

the cradle jig system is perfectly fine but the frames need to be finished or very close to their finished shape in order to drop into the jig. In the case of the Hawke build the frames are more like a blank and will have to be given a final shaping. The frames will be sanded once the hull is built and a cradle jig gets in the way. you have to complete the hull and remove it from the jig, then sand it to the final shape.

You can build a framed hull with no jig at all but i would use the analogy that is like walking the high wire without a safety net. A lot can go wrong besides a jig will tie the structure together so the hull can be sanded.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

It is best to use a jig system i highly recommend it. Now to tackle the lining up all the frame perfectly and then add the keel assembly. Harold did it over and over around 20 times so ya! he was good at it. He also worked to extreme tolerance which i do not expect a first-time builder to do. Here is what i am trying and i will give you results next Saturday class.

first i cleaned the char off the inside of the frames and standing them up just like Harold did. The difference here is the frame thickness does not fit into the jig notch and i did that on purpose. Just a light sanding of the top part of the frames to get a tight fit into the notches. I do not want to glue the frame to the jig.



You can see all the frames are NOT in line at the top but at this point in the build i don't care. That will be fixed later.



Notice i numbered all the notches and there is a little dot on one edge of the notches



that dot is important it lines up the frame timber at the deck level, if you turn the frame around the gun posts will be off as well as the top timbers



you can see on the drawing where the lower timber stops at the deck level and the top timbers extend to the cap rail and form the sides of the gun ports

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

ok model shipwrights class is over this Saturday. For me it is back to work and seeing how and hopefully the framing in the jig works out like i planned. But hey maybe i might of missed something. But that is part of the joy solving problems as you go along.

see you in class next Saturday

but if you have comments or questions for sure post them i log in everyday.

by the way don't take my word for anything there are so many styles of building and so, so many methods to achieve the same results.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

Dave, thanks for the great work done and explanation of the why and how jigs work.

Have a good week.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

There are two parts to a scratch or semi-scratch project the first is the mill work which can be done by the builder or purchased scale lumber. The second part is the building of the model. Harold as well as other builders will show you in build logs how a hull is built in a jig either right side up in a cradle or upside down in a jig above the hull. What they do not tell you is the little details of such a method.

Harold shows a hull with every frame perfect and in line, well! it is much harder than you might think.



The first thing i did was to line up all the frames from 1 to 18 in the jig





Then i wanted to check how accurate it was to just put each frame into its notch so looking down on the hull the frame notches are close but not in line. Note the camera distorted the image and makes the hull look like a fisheye



so lets look down the hull, i tinted the notches so you can see they are not in a perfect straight line but just popping the frames into the jig the notches are sort of close in line.



it becomes obvious it takes some thinking and planning as to how to line up a hull

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

I tried and no way can you insert a frame if the keel is in place, you cannot drop a frame through the top of the jig because the frame shape is wider than the jig. Also, it is not possible to fit a frame from the bottom up. This will take some thinking and trial and error to figure out how to build the hull.



It becomes apparent all the frames have to be in the jig all at the same time so here is what i did. The tops of the frames are slightly bigger than the notches so i sanded each frame end to fit tight in the notch. Where i sanded a little to much i just used a piece of masking tape to get a tight fit.



So now all the frames are standing in the jig, i turned the hull up side down and any frames that fell out i added tape.



this is just a rough fitting of the frames

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

The problem to solve is how to line up all the notches front to back and all exactly to the right height? To do this the keel has to be in place. HUM? what does the instructions say? OH! ya there are no instructions you have to figure these things out for yourself. Which for me personally i like a good challenge.



i could place each frame in the jig, set the keel on the frames to check the notch location, remove the keel and add the next frame, doing this for every frame. This could have been how Harold did it. But i saw to many thing that could go wrong and if something could go wrong it usually does. Flipping the hull over notice the frame ends are extending past the jig.



I place the keel assembly in the holes for the stem and sternpost. This locates the keel at dead center of the hull and exactly where it should be front to back. Also because the jig notches and the keel notches were drafted in CAD they will line up to one another.



With the keel in place and the frames are sitting lower in the jig i now have a gap between the frame floors and the keel.



A clue from watching Harold what he did was line up the first and last frame to the keel. This makes sure the top of the frame sits in the jig and the notches in the keel and frame floor line up. But now to fit all the frames between the two end frames you have to remove the keel add a frame then check and recheck the frame location with every frame.



Taking Harold's idea i did the same thing but i did it my way. i located the keel to the jig so i did not have to rely on the first and last frame to locate the keel to the jig. The stem and sternpost holes located the keel. Next i brought up frames 1,10 and 18 the red arrows in the picture.
Gluing these 3 frames to the jig and into the keel notches give me a solid framework. Next is the readjust the lower frames into their notches.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

it is a good idea to check and recheck your work as you go along, a small error early on in the build may end up as a big problem.

so i checked the height of the keel from the base just to make sure it is the correct height, and it is running parallel to the base. I used a clamp on the sternpost extension to hold it in place.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

one of the problems with plank on bulkhead kits is they are designed to fail when it comes to shaping the hull. There is a lot of lost information between wide spacing of bulkheads. To remedy this the hulls are double planked giving the builder a base to add filler and shape the hull. A problem is when a plank is bent from bulkhead to bulkhead the plank tends to lay flat or budge outward. The space between bulkheads at the bow has a run which is a concave section which is almost impossible to get if bulkhead a spaced to far apart. A poorly shaped hull makes it difficult to plank.




if the Sir Edward Hawke were plank on bulkhead with wide spacing you can clearly see the lack of information between bulkheads.



i have read and perhaps someone can elaborate on planking a hull. It is said some hulls that were incorrectly shaped made them impossible to plank or at least difficult to plank. Keep in mind the planking on a hull has a lot of surface to conform to. In other words, the planking does not create the shape of the hull it is the hull that gives shape to the planking. The hull planking is nothing more than a thin "skin" over the shape of the framing.

With enough frame shapes you can control the final hull. Look at the picture and notice the green frame it is showing on the left side and barely on the right side. This frame has to be adjusted. The white, pink and blue frames are close to where they belong.



As you fit the frame notches to the keel you have to watch the hull taking shape and making adjustment to the frames. Like the green one right before the yellow frame it needs to be adjusted.



looking down the hull you have a lot or reference points to adjust the framing from frame to frame.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

At this stage of the build all the frames fit tight in the jig and are not glued in place except frames 1, 10 and 18. Each from has to be adjusted to the jig. You can see here the 3 center frames fit in the notches as intended.



these frames have to be set in the notches



the notches in the jig and lining up the top of the frame to the jig when they were being built gives me the reference point. I will start by using the notch to place a frame and if it looks OK and in line i will glue it. But if after setting the frame in the notch and it looks a little out of line i can shift the frame in the notch.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

and that it for this Saturday
i will be spending the next week setting up the framing and hopefully i will have a workable shape for the hull.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

class is on Friday because my Saturday is totally booked

It does not matter if you're building a plank on bulkhead hull or a plank on frame it all comes down to lining up the frames or bulkheads. I know what has to be done the trick is how to do it so i started by using rubber bands to hold the keel in place. I placed frame 1 in the jig notches and it stayed in place from the pressure of the keel being held down with a rubber band.



the notches are cut all the way through the jig which is no problem as long as you keep the jig on a flat surface. But i like to handle the hull so i needed something to prevent the frames from falling to far into the notch. The top of the frame and the bottom of the jig are reference points so they have to match up.



problem solved by using a scrap piece of wool held by the rubber band



i did the same with frame 18 now the keel and frames 1 and 18 are glued to the jig and keel.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

flipping the hull over the plan was to push each frame down until they sat in the keel notch.



Oh my God! a problem most of the notches in the frames did not set into the keel notches. The problem is i did not check the notches before i put the frames in the jig and here is what i found. It is a tiny error but enough to create a big problem. a laser cuts on a slight angle so the frame were not sitting at a 90 degree to the keel. and i did not line up all the pieces exactly.




It was getting late so i just set the hull aside, figure i would check it out in the morning. Sometimes it is best to walk away or sleep on it. My thoughts were i might have to break away frames 1 and 18 and the keel to start over.

If you're building from scratch with no instructions, you really have to plan ahead, but sometimes you just do not think of everything. Same with building from a kit the people who designed a kit cannot possibly think of every possible thing that could go wrong or every building scenario, it is up to you the builder to figure thing out. I have heard it over and over kits have poor instructions but really it is a lack of experience of the builder. The kit maker provides the pieces and parts and expects the builder to have a basic knowledge of how to build the model.

First thing that came to mind was can i remove the frames without undoing what i did so far. Wow to my surprise if you wiggle and fiddle with the frames you can remove them and put them back. now all i had to do was file each frame notch and get them to fit into the keel notch

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

one by one i wiggled and fiddled with each frame and got them out of the jig so i can file the notches to fit proper. Looking down the hull all the frames make a straight line along the keel.