building a wood/ scratch boat, looking to cover the hull with 1/8 or 1/32 balsa and the glassing it will this work in the impenetrable areas or should i use a different wood?
It depends on how much 'glass you use. For ships with really tricky curves, I use 1/64" ply and put 3 layers of auto repair glass on it(like 8 to 10 oz fabric)
Yeah, from there, click on "Finland Birch". Advice from one who has tried many things (some successfully, some not so much): Don't expect to go 48" of coverage with one long 48" sheet On the 1/144 ships, you can get away with 4-5 frames at a time in the broad part of the hull, but towards the bow and stern, one or two frames per piece (cut from the bigger one, obviously) is it.
I found that often you need to go rib to rib on the bow and stern, to get good hull form. Run the grain of the ply along the length of the ship, not accros it. Before you glass the outside, paint it with resin, and sand. If you do this several times you will get a smoother hull form. A varible speed disk sander works nice for this. Sig also sells 1/64" ply. I think they call it "wing covering material" or something.
I agree, and I also use a drum sander on my drill press for the inside of tight curves, and hand sand for smoothness.
Lone Star also carrys the 1/64 3 ply that works great! I do the same thing go from rib to rib and then hand sand for a smooth feel. Now I use 1 oz cloth first and go over the whole ship , double or triple over stern and bow, let dry , sand and apply another coat. Now the last layer I use the 4 oz cloth ansd finsh with resin mixed with baby powder to help fill in any low areas and has a nice smell!
Wrapping the bottom of the boat in thin plywood and fiberglass is easy, but I find that it doesn't always get the hull contours quite right. I also am not a big fan of fiberglass, and if I can build a ship entirely without fiberglass then I do. What I would recommend is to plank the boat with some good 1/8" thick wood. Good solid strong wood, none of that squishy stuff like balsa or basswood. What you get is a quality boat bottom that is easy to put mounting screws through, and it looks great as well. Better yet, it holds up to hostile action (shells, rocks, freeway) very well without any fiberglass reinforcement. When you show that to other skippers, they will go "wow". It works every time. Of course, planking a ship like Bismark will take a long time and a fair bit of trial and error, so it's up to you how you do your bottom.
Thanks guys, Talk with the hobby shop today and they have some 1/64 sheet in stock. going to try a combo of things. the stern has some unique curves (in my eyes) so I will plank the stern and the bow up to a spot where i can get a good line with the ply. then ply to 1 inch below the waterline. this should give me a strong hull and smooth lines after sanding then some glass to finish it off.
thats how I did the yamato, planked it with 1/8" basswood strips, then did a layer of 5oz fiberglass cloth over it. it takes some time but I think you'll be happier with the results
