1:50th scale POB hull build tutorial

Thanks for your interest folks! So by now we have all bulkhead-templates glued to cardboard and cut out. The next step will be to mark the position of the upper decks. I don't want to get too carried away with adding interior detail that won't be visible once the hull is done, so all I need to do here is to transfer the upper deck-edge and also the deck curvature to the card template. The deck curvature can be found in the waterlines and frames plan:

It is the same process used when marking the hull's top-edge to the templates. Each bulkhead is placed onto its station line in the side elevation on the frames and waterlines plan, and lined up using the waterlines a guides: 

As we have such a mass of black lines and curves, I marked the deck levels in blue which makes it easier to find them when I need them.

This here is the card-template which I use to transfer the deck curvature to the bulkhead or frame-templates. The top edge is used as a ruler.

Here the bulkhead and deck-templates are held against a straight-edge and the deck drawn onto the bulkhead in blue.

Here close-up:

This needs to be carried out on all frames: Marking the position using the side elevation and then drawing the deck edge with the curve-template.

I decided to use three mm pear-wood for the hull planking so this needs to be cut-off from the templates. To do this I use this little gadget:

Two layers of thin sheet-styrene are glued to each other forming a three mm step at one end. Then using the little gadget as a guide three millmeters are drawn onto the outer edges of all bulkhead templates.

This needs to be done for the decks as well - but not yet.

So then the three mm strip is cut off from each bulkhead.

The next step was to draw all waterlines and frame stations to the side elevation.

This is to transfer the wales to the card templates and eventually to the wooden bulkheads of the model. It is important to do this now with care, as it is very difficult to determine the wales' correct position once the basic hull  has been built.

Then, like before by placing each template at its station line on the side elevation the position of the wales are marked

And finally transferred to the outer edge of the template where we need them:

As I said before these tempales are to be flipped at the centreline when transferring them to wood, so these marked wales need to be visible on the opposite side as well. To achieve this each wale is notched with a sharp knife:

Which makes the position of the wales perfectly visible on the other side:

Stay tuned! There's plenty more to come!

Peter

Thanks Martyn.

So at this stage we have all card templates in the required size with the decks and wales marked in blue. The next step is to cut out the decks. For this I made a second "Little Gadget" however, with an eight mm step. The size of the step is really irrelevant, as this part of the Frame will be removed from the hull at a later stage.





I will plank the decks using three mm pearwood so this needs to be removed from the templaters too:



So now the templates are ready to transfer the bulkhead-shapes to wood. I'm using 6mm birch-ply for the bulkheads and eight mm for the keel-plate:



The first step is to draw the centerline of each bulkhead onto the plywood and then the waterline in blue. I also marked the loaded waterline on the card templates in blue. Then the bulkhead outline is drawn onto the plwood.



When the first half is done, the template is flipped over at the centerline an the other half drawn. To make out the waterline on the blank side, it was also notched with a knife on the printed side which then enabled me to position the flipped template accurately. The marks for the wales also need to be transferred to the plywood.

Thus we have a complete bulkhead drawn on wood. Still some final details need to be added.

I then drew all waterlines onto the bulkheads and also marked the wales further into them

The final step is add the slot for the keel-plate. First 8mm are marked to the centerline, 4mm on each side:

And then the slot completed.

This gives us the first bulkead ready to be sawn out.

Thanks for checking in - more soon.

Peter