Scratch-Building Ships-Any Scale

OOH !

You were watching me were'nt you ? I did a wood yacht version of an 88 foot  Coast Guard Bouy Tender . 27 Months from keel laying to launch .The yard was very happy to get their space back !

   The biggest cost believe it or not was the wood .Teak from Indonesia .Mahogany from the Phillipines and Bakka wood from Africa ! The engines ? GM -6-71s  in the crate ! Had them for about five years .( result of an auction ) Nice ride though . Especially to Hawaii with the Missus !   T.B.         P.S. I always liked the smell of fresh worked or steamed wood !

Yeah , Winter ;

   They don't like it when you try to extensively modify a pier , plus you go and bend your boat ! !  T.B.

For the ultimate boat building experience try a 12"=12" wooden boat building experience. Take a look at newfound woodworks or adirondack guideboat co. kits for cedar rowing boats. One will keep you busy for a whole winter and then give you hours of pleasure for the whole family in the summer.

Interesting about the Ocala. The Montour was a Bayfield-class attack transport, a 1942 conversion from a 1938 US Maritime Commission passenger-freighter design. After being struck by the Navy in '46, Bethlehem Steel bought it as a freighter. After changing hands a couple of times, she was finally scrapped in 1977, a long service life for an ad-hoc design. If I remember right, the end came when she tried to dock in the middle of a pier, rather than alongside.

Yeah , Winter ;

    Tha Ocala Victory , which I mentioned in a different thread, didn't even do that . Built , launched and christened and then Mothballs .Then, years later a freighter for a shipping line out of Seattle ( that's when I served on her ).

   Neat ship though, and when they re-sailed , The good ones ,many looked nothing like they did when launched !    T.B.         P.S. The brand of " Clear Spray " you mentioned , is the one I use LOL.LOL.

Tanker - Builder

....    The best " Box " ship in paper was and is the " CONTI BELGICA " by " Wilhemshaven " Detail is incredible in paper sooo,I haven't finished it yet but the detail is stiill awesome. The plastic was actually easier , being this is a waterline model . Detail parts can come from anywhere and look so cool . T.B.        Forgot to mention .If you apply spray clear to the paper , You can in many places treat it like plastic too !  

 

Clear spray - that would be neat. The Krylon stuff especially is pretty interesting high-tech chemistry.

Might have to ruminate on your idea -- I've thought now and then about modeling my father's ship, USS Montour, APA-101 (he was admiral's communication officer aboard, but the Montour never saw action, despite wandering all over the Pacific for 2 years.)

 

Dave;

    This idea is mostly for vessels after that era .You can do it though .The trick is making the strips of plastic curve enough to do the job .The only thing you would use the paper model for is patterns . Definitely .010 and .020 strips .You can run them over a knife or scissor edge ( Like ribbon material ) to get those curves .

     I have some , of ships that do not exist anymore in the more modern civil type . This is what started me down the path to converting them to plastic .Take the " Lisselot Essberger " W.W.-2 - vintage tanker .Recreated it in plastic to represent those that had been maximized after the war .That is where they added sections forward of the center deckhouse and aft deckhouse .Thereby " Maximizing " them. This also works great for creating updated versions of cruise types and Box ships .

    The best " Box " ship in paper was and is the " CONTI BELGICA " by " Wilhemshaven " Detail is incredible in paper sooo,I haven't finished it yet but the detail is stiill awesome. The plastic was actually easier , being this is a waterline model . Detail parts can come from anywhere and look so cool . T.B.        Forgot to mention .If you apply spray clear to the paper , You can in many places treat it like plastic too !  

Intriguing idea - do you have (or can your point me to) any plans for this kind of construction? I'm not sure whether you're advocating the use of paper or of plastic sheet (or maybe both)?

The stopper for me: I don't think that I could manually loft the flat pattern for something with intricate 3D curves (think Viking longboat, for example). 

Thanks for the idea, anyway. As you say, the possibilities seem endless.

Dave