Scribing line for hull to drop in?

They make doohickies called 'contour gauges' for copying shape lines like that, but a good-sized ship's hull is pretty large for that affordability-wise.

A good stiff-but-bendable piece of something like bell wire should accomplish much the same task, and could be then traced onto a board and 'flipped' for the opposite side.

Hi!

       There is one way that might work. Take some cardboard. Now take a contour gauge.(These can be had for as little as Ten Bucks. Mark along the hull in one inch increments. These are called stations. Mark them 1 to whatever, after you mark each station then using the Guage, retract the pins 1/4" below the waterline out of the way. Now Press it into the ship. Take this and transfer the line to the board in a mark where the guage meets that station. 

       Do this on a large piece of cardboard, A large box will be fine. After you have one half done then measure to a centerline, Now extend the line to the other side to the first dimension. Now from fore to aft connect the lines. There's your shape. Cut it out with scissors and don't worry if it's too small. You can always trim more off. then by then the ship should start fitting into the hole snugly. Keep trimming till she fits snug but not tight.

        Now you have your cardboard pattern. Put it on the wood and draw the line all the way around the line you have created by the pattern. Cut carefully ON THE LINE, Not outside it or inside it but on it! A little sanding and the hull should fit in just right!

You might be overthinking it. 

Start by best guessing, maybe little more tyhat a parallelogram with diagonals being length and beam. The test fit, test fit, test fit. If you over size in a place, tape cardboard to fill gap.

Once you get it right, lay on your water base board and spraypaint the pattern.

Bill

Some good ideas. Thank you all!

Set the hull on something that holds the waterline level.

Set up a smooth surface even with the waterline (yu only need do this on one sde of the hull, typically.

Take some card stock, even individual index cards, and tape therm together roughly touching the hull.

Take a compass set to a width that will stay on the cards.  Now, trace the waterline with the point, the pencil ought draw the profile near perfectly (wobble in holdign the point, how sharp the pencil point is, how "bumpy" the cars are, etc.)

The cards can then be cut out along the line to give a template, which can be recreated in something stable and uniform, like cardboard or foamcore or the like.  The fit can then be tested against the actual hull and refined to need.

This method can be really effective if the hull is meant to be displayed with roll and/or pitch.

You could tale a cell phone photo from directly above.  You could scale it using the image lenth and a measurement of the kit hull length.  Scale it up to kit size and that will provide a fair plan view.  Keep the camera at least a couple of feet above hull.

I'm curious as to what kind of base you're contemplating that would require all that effort.

mfsob

I'm curious as to what kind of base you're contemplating that would require all that effort.

Well, for starters, foam board. Then, let your imagination run wild!