Where to purchase full-scale drawings of the bygone era of the tall ships?

[GaryA]

You are likely right Bob regarding the Bounty, but what are the modern drawings in the AOTS book based on if not contemporary drawings like those at RMG? She was built in 1784 and sold to the RN in 1787. The plans at RMG are dated 25 June 1787 and 19 November 1787 the latter being after she was reconfigured to carry plants so might be accurate. This includes the IB profile and deck drawings. The below is from November 1787.
Allan
View attachment 543459

I have the same drawing of the Bounty and ask the question, "Were the real drawings from that period for the Bounty?" The answer was "Yes, absolutely".
So this drawing is what the models of the Bounty was based on, and includes all the information they have of the Bounty in the Museum, but the question arises, why are there variations of the hull from the makers of the kits, and also from designer to designer? The reference I am making is to the No. of frames, as they can vary a lot? In my case, I will use the drawings from Harold Hahns that Lumberyard supplies, and have only 42 frames as the real one here has, I think, 89 ( won't count again), but around that figure. I am happy with that number from the Lumber yard and Harold Hahns, but A. L. has very few again, as they have a cutaway view but not close to accurate to the number the ship is supposed to have. I am dribbling sorry. LOL, you get what I mean.

 

[Bob Cleek]

I have the same drawing of the Bounty and ask the question, "Were the real drawings from that period for the Bounty?" The answer was "Yes, absolutely".
So this drawing is what the models of the Bounty was based on, and includes all the information they have of the Bounty in the Museum, but the question arises, why are there variations of the hull from the makers of the kits, and also from designer to designer? The reference I am making is to the No. of frames, as they can vary a lot? In my case, I will use the drawings from Harold Hahns that Lumberyard supplies, and have only 42 frames as the real one here has, I think, 89 ( won't count again), but around that figure. I am happy with that number from the Lumber yard and Harold Hahns, but A. L. has very few again, as they have a cutaway view but not close to accurate to the number the ship is supposed to have. I am dribbling sorry. LOL, you get what I mean.

The reason the number of frames in the present-day selection of Bounty model plans drawings vary widely probably is attributable in large measure to the fact that nobody knows for sure what her construction details looked like, or if they did, didn't care. Dave Stevens can surely provide the complete story regarding Harold Hahn's framing schedule, but as I recall from Hahn's books, he was quite clear that his trademark "Navy Board style" framing was intentionally abbreviated and intended only to accurately show the shape of the hull, but not its exact original framing schedule.

The RMG drafts are indeed contemporary, but as the lines were taken off after the vessel was bought into the service, I expect they were drawn to the outside of the planking and did not include complete structural details. There would have been no reason for them to do so. The Admiralty recorded the lines (hull shape) of most every vessel of any size that entered the Admiralty inventory because in those days of scientific naval architecture's infancy, the most they had to go on were comparisons between the performances of the various vessels and that was primarily a function of their hull shapes. If something worked, they repeated it. If something didn't work, they didn't repeat that feature in future builds. It would follow that the Admiralty would have had little interest in the hull construction of a merchant collier and would not have drawn anything more than the interior arrangements necessary for her refitting, as the RMG drafts demonstrate, but not the construction details.

However, by Hahn's intention and express admission, his open framing drawings had nothing to do with the real framing of Bounty. If a model is built to Hahn's plans, it will be a replica of Hahn's model, but not an accurate model of the original Bounty herself, which in the case of a model such as Bounty, really doesn't make much difference beyond a matter of style because the inaccuracy of Hahn's framing would be instantly recognizable to a trained eye and understood to be Hahn's signature presentation style. There has been much controversy about Hahn's framing style. I consider it to be "artistic license" which does not distract from his models. I see it as analogous to the difference between a waterline and a full hull model presentation, or, in Hahn's case, an alternate impressionistic representation of the subject vessel's below the waterline shape. If a modeler prefers, Bounty's hull can be much more easily modeled as a solid hull using a "bread and butter" method stack up of her waterline shapes which were taken off and are included in the contemporary Admiralty drafts in the RMG. (In the Hahn plans of other vessels I've seen, he provides the lofted drawings of each "Hahn style" frame for the modeler's convenience.)