Building a brig / corvette wood model ship from scratch

Thanks GMorrison

If you are interested, I could recommend a couple of publications that I have found helpful. I've never taken on anything as complicated as you are doing, so consider these a reflection of my own level of modeling.

https://www.micromark.com/Instructions/88052-model-shipways-syren-instructions.pdf

https://modelexpo-online.com/The-Neophyte-Shipmodelers-Jackstay

I have not built the Syren, however anything from Chuck Passaro is worth reading. I have the Phantom Pilot Boat instructions.

Oh, unless you have a lot of spare hours for a serious time-suck, do not look up "Acorn to Arabella" on youtube.  Rather a lot of 1:1 ship & boat wright work shown, but, at about 30-something episoded, not a speedy trip trhough a build (which is only to keel, stempost and sternpost so far.  Cool story, fascinating dedication, but not brief.

The traditional wood in the construction of admiralty models, such as seen at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England, is boxwood, a small tree or bush, (Buxus sempervirens ), a native of Western and Southern Europe. It is hard, heavy and fine grained without blemishes, or knots. Box wood carves well, holds a sharp edge and bends without splintering. Other varities of boxwood are native to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, but the European variety has been the all time favorite for serious ship modelers. The one drawback of true boxwood, is that it is very expensive to purchase, unless one has deep pockets to afford this type of wood.

Happy modeling    Crackers     

I have a cousin in practice up in Oregon, and all their framing lumber is typically specified as Doug Fir, much as, down here in Texas our lumber is specified using Southern Yellow Pine.

In point of fact, they are using a goodly amount of Hemlock, much as we are seeing rather a lot of Loblolly and Sugar Pine--as long as the material tests out on the SYP (or DF for my cousin) tables, it scant matters (other than to the poor souls on the saws).

It often amazes me to read modeling articles from the early 60s which speak of carving things from clear white pine.  But, that's becasue the "white pine" I'm used to has about 5 grain lines in a 6/4 (40mm) thick slice.

The best modeling woods have a very fine, even, knot-free grain, and, hopefully not so rare as hen's teeth.  In my 1:1 boat building, I have come into balks of Apple, which is really neat stuff--not long, but very fine grained.  Excellent for carving.  I really should have saved some for modeling.  Grape was also nice, just ridiculous hard to find.  Ipé would be a decent modeling wood, other than for the reason it's called Brazillian Ironwood (hard as steel, doubly so at scale).  Ditto for Goncalvo alves and Cocobolo; both gorgeous furniture woods that require all-carbide tooling to work.

The only "hobby shop" wood I really dislike is the "flying" spruce plywood.  Probably good for flying RC models, but the 3 or 5 ply stuff is awful for ship work.

I also very familiar working with it as I used it on my last model

Jamie Dominie

When I bought it I was told it was bass wood but it could be balsa of so I'll have to head into town to buy new planks which shouldn't hurt consideing I got the bundle for around 10$

 

I concur on the recommendation to use basswood.  It bends more reliably- balsa sometimes has weak spots that break.  But the real reason to use basswood is its tight grain that fills and finishes easily.  Getting a good finish on balsa is a real challenge.

it's been a few busy days but I've finally come around to doing a bit of design work on the ship hopefully I'll have wood to start Tommorow but all that depends on the day anyways so I decided to come up with a basic deck plan drawn from above

Alot is going to change with this but it gives me a basic idea of the deck layout

I also did some design to the front though it's not set in stone

So hopefully i'll get wood Tomorrow and get my frames at least cut but I might with some luck get them assembled to. Asides from this I'm buying some parts I need tonight to and hopefully they will be here soon aswell.

Plywood of a quality and size (small, lots of laminations) for what you are doing, is expensive. I'm a firm believer in repurposing things you'll find about. So is Anthony.

Judging from that wonderful band saw, you are up to good woodworking. There's a material, used to make boxes, easy to find in the fruit market. Or shingles. 

I recall, Cap'n, that hardwood is a tree that blooms flowers, and softwood is a tree that polinates with cones. Angiosperms versus gymnosperms, or some such. Decidous versus evergreen.

That said, out west here the dominant softwood lumber tree is a devil known as "Douglas Fir". Hard as a rock, prone to curl, makes screws squeal, dulls saw blades.

Our best hardwood is all of the oaks, they being a Mediterranian species. Lovely wood, but not suitable for building models.

No pine is available at all, which is not a problem. A weed of a wood.

Where I live we have a rare Cypress. It will throw pitch from its lumber for decades.

I have a nice little table saw that can make fine wood strips. It's a rum thing though, getting 256 strips each 1/16" square ( 1.5 mm to you Jamie) from a 25mm x 25 mm block takes 4000 cuts plus more for loss. A cut, set-up, takes 2 minutes. Do the math but it is a slow process.

I suggest you draw the hull only until you get her right. No use in thinking about the rig in the sense of any detail.

Jamie, if possible get yourself a 1/50 ruler and a pair of dividers to accurately make the correct proportions on you model.Happy modeling   Crackers 

Thanks crackers for the support as always. Line wood sounds like a good choice for some of the parts I will need to build. if I use plywood it will only be for the bulkheads only which will be mostly hidden.

If you are going to have human figures with your model, this chart might be of some help, even if it is not for metrics. As far as the kind of wood, use lime wood. This wood is soft and best of all, has no knots. It is clear with out any blemishes. I do not know if there is a Michaels, hobby store near where you live. They always have a supply of lime wood for wood carvers.    Your post is very interesting as a scratch builder ship modeler myself. I will follow each thread of yours.

Happy modeling    Crackers   

So today I decided to do some much redesign to my ship as the wood I used for the bulkheads turned out to be very weak and I've decided to switch to plywood for the bulkheads which I should've used from the start but scratch building is trial and error and that's one of the best parts. So here's the new look for the ship

I've decided to do a victory style flat bow at the bow deck rather than one like the constitution which curves with the bow. I've also curved the bulkheads more to create a more smooth transition between the three main decks as well as adding some carvings and finally figured out how my mast should look. I'll be in a design faze until Friday when I'm hoping to get some plywood and put the bulkheads together.

I've actually had a few problems with wood as I've had to change all of my wood so far but I believe I'm set now

Bals has a long (logn, long) tradition for modeling the bodies of ships.

Botanically, it is a hard wood, but physically (materials science-wise), quite soft.

It is, as our esteemed GMorrison points out, a wretched mess to sand or finish.

Back in the ancient old days, hobby shops used to stock "flying" balso, which was heartwood and a bit stiffer than "ordinary" (sapwood) balso.  Some flying balsa was hard to tell from basswood.  My old test was pretty simple, take a single edge razor blade (or a #11 xacto, in a pinch) hold it about 45º and drag the edge (reverse direction to cutting) along a test bit of the material.  Basswood should show a bit of a sheen, with no surface compression.  Balso will show far less sheen, but will compress a great deal.

Basswood has much to recommend it.  Not least of which being able to get it already cut in a number of thicknesses.  So that, had a person, say, bulked out a hull shape in balso, one could plank in wales ata scale thibkness in basswood, and then use a hull thickness bass wood for the "show" planking.

One need not get quite to C. Nepan Longridge's zeal for planking to find it an enjoyable business.

Started cutting out the bulkheads today managed to get 6 cut out today broke a few others while cutting them

Hopefully ill get some new wood soon and I can finish making my bulkheads

Thanks for the photos crackers

CapnMac82

Scale matters, and is no limitation on artistic freedom.

Jamie, just happen to see on Facebook how a scratch build modeler, Andrea Ollio, made his J class ENDEAVOR sail boat. Here is the a sequence of his build in real time.

I hope these photos can give you some inspiration on your scratch build project. This endeavor takes practice with plenty of trial and error. It is a matter of being persistant until successful completion. Good luck.

Happy modeling   Crackers  

T.B

Thanks for the info im using the bulkheads to create a curved shape on the ship as well as the curves in the bulkheads taper upwards from the middle 

GMorrison

Thanks for the help. I am using my bulkheads to create sheer in the ship and the wood was balsa and hopefully I should be able to find some bass today if not Ive already found planks online to buy the curves in the hull actually curve upwards as well and that should be visible in my next update as I plan to glue the bulkheads together today.

That's a very good place to start from. Doing the math will be easy.

There's a lot of stuff available in 1/48 scale, and frankly a 5% variation is well within the range of what is sold at 1/48 anyways.

As to your question before- the sheer of the deck can be produced by varying the height of the bulkheads as you go; high on the ends and lower in the middle. Sounds like you are doing that. It's a pretty essential feature, otherwise the hull will look "hogged", or barge-like.

Building in camber, the arch from side to side, is also not difficult just by shaping the top edges of your bulkheads in a gentle curve. 

None of this makes the planking any more difficult, it's still just an exercise in side-by-side, end-to-end.

Telling balsa from basswood (linden), or any other hardwood is a matter of hardness. If you can dent it with the fingernail, it's probably too soft.

Balsa also is fuzzy, and that just gets worse when it's sanded.

 Hi Jamie .

I hope you don't mind .The Sheer is the curve of the deck from the bow to the stern . The Camber is the curve of deck from side to side .This all helps to shed water in a sea . T.B.

Jamie ;

 Gees ! I thought I was a glutton for Punishment/Pleasure . I showed your post to a friend of mine  . He has never been able to understand why it takes so long to Scratch - Build ANY kind or ship .

 The fact is he will take a couple of months Scratch - Building an H.O.Scale passenger car even with the toilets and sleeper berths . And Yet he Cuts at us . Hmm , I think he's in need of a wake up call . Right !  T.B.

CapnMac82

Thanks for the information on scale. I believe I've found a scale as Ive be basing size off of my completed model as I want to reuse some of the left over parts from that model which is in 1/50 scale so I believe my build is in a 1/50 scale. 

Many scales derive from lovely old English units.

1/48 is 1/4" = 1'-0" (1" = 4'-0", or 1"=48")
1/64 is 3/16" = 1'-0"
1/72 is 1/6" = 1'-0" (1" = 6'-0") and really not an "architectural" scale)
1/96 is 1/8" = 1'-0" (1" = 8'-0")

and so on.

"Metric" scales of 1/50; 1/60; 1/75, and 1/100 will produce reasonably similar models in size, and allows some "cheating" in using similarly scaled items.

I will, though, strongly suggest selecting a scale and sticking to it.  Because proportions are important for perception.  You would not want to show a ladder with to-scale 60cm steps (actual steps are going to be 20-30cm apart).  Decks are between 1.75m and 2m apart vertically.  Making them a different dimension just "looks" off.

Also, the dimensions of wooden ships are almost always ratios.  Lavery et al have tabulated these values, which is very handy.  Overall length will tell you the rule-of-thumb mast diameters, which then inform yard dimensions.

All of this actually makes your life a little easier.  Knowing, by table, the size of a bower anchor prevents putting a 3m 2 tonne 1st rate anchor on a 25-30m corvette (bower will be 1.8-2m and around 875kg, so, you'd want, at 1:60, about a 25-30mm anchor).

The anchor cable, among other cordage, is also tabulated, so, you'd know you'd want about a 1m circumference line, so that's ±318mm diameter, about 5mm at 1/60. 

If, though, this is at 1/70, that 1m anchor line is only 4.5mm.

Scale matters, and is no limitation on artistic freedom.

Thanks for the help guys I have parts from an older model that i built and am basing most of the scale of the parts off of the parts here as I am familiar with them I'll see if I cannot find the scale on that model and maybe you guys can get an idea from that the hull is around 2 ft and 2 inches long if that helps

Jamie, down south of you, we do not do metrics. About 30 years ago, it was imposed on us, but rejected by the public in favor of the old English system of measurement. Only in scientific circles does metrics exist.

Here is some of the usual modeling scales. 1/48=6.35 mm, 1/64=4.76 mm, 1/96=3.17mm, 1/150-2.03mm. Heller plastic modeling kits are usually in 1/150 scale.

In 1/48 scale, the figure of an adult man would be 38mm. Hope this helps.

Happy modeling  

It is essential to have some degree of scale. Buying cannons, blocks and deck furniture from model ship suppliers, it is necessary to have a scale to fit the proper size of the ship. The scale of 1/48 is rather large if space is not a consideration. Usually this is for small ships. For larger vessels, 1/64 is justified.

Happy modeling    Crackers