Half of the 1/8" basswood subdeck is installed. Its purpose is to reduce flexing of the frame when expanding foam is injected and to support the 1/32" basswood deck. The hobby store was out of the 1/16" basswood I'd planned to use. This is a different technique than I've used for previous hull plugs and was learned from Ralph Coles. Before, I had glued the plug's frame upside down to a sheet of 1/8" plywood, which acted as the deck flange for molding. The problem was that the plywood did not bend easily enough on decks with pronounced curves and could cause the keel to 'hog', requiring bracing between the frames near the keel. The strong curve of the Hawkins Class deck from forecastle to quarterdeck meant plywood couldn't be used. I found 1/32" basswood bent easily enough. For several years Ralph has been building plugs with wood or MDF decks before the deck flanges were added for molding. That gives a sharper edge at deck level, versus trying to sand and file drywall compound against a molding flange. Adding the subdeck between the frames allows tweaking to keep the keel straight if necessary. I move a steel ruler along the top of the keel frame and can adjust the length of subdeck pieces to keep the keel straight. The front half of the keel was straight but there's a slight curve to starboard further aft. Corrections can also be made for horizontal misallignment of hull frames. The starboard tip of Frame #2 was 0.5mm low, so the outer starboard deck support was installed 0.5mm higher than the frame to compensate. Checking frame width against the plan. The tips of frames 2 & 3 at deck level are 2mm too long but will be sanded after the deck has been attached. Aft framing. The deck curve may be a challenge. Forward section of the forecastle deck plan glued to 1/32" basswood with rubber cement.
Day 4 of frame construction. The 1/32" basswood forecastle deck is ready to glue to the 1/8" subdeck. Working on the quarterdeck and transitional area subdeck. This should be finished tomorrow.
A couple of hours work this AM before leaving for 'real' work: Balsa inserts between the basswood stringers were sanded to make the forecastle to quarterdeck transition at the sides of the hull. The quarterdeck will be flat in between the curved hull sides. Subdeck sanded smooth. Except for the subdeck pieces at the stern the frame is ready for the basswood deck to be glued on. The ruler gives an approximate location of the end of the 5" BB cannon barrel if trained out 15 degrees. More than an inch will project beyond the deck edge and height above water will be ~1" at maximum depression. The deck will be glued on this evening; blocks of balsa will be added at bow and stern and sanded to shape. The second stern cannon in #6 position will be at the forward end of the quarterdeck, where the curve in the hull sides starts. work :
You guys ever tried floral foam with your plugs? I used it to make a T-34 turret plug back in the day and it worked really well.
I have a block of it I'd planned to use to make the Mound Battery at Ft. Fisher in 1/600 (to go along with my Battery Buchanan sold by Bay Area Yards). When BAY started requiring its product modellers to pay for the molds of their masters I dropped the project. Does the stuff react to resin?
First problem of the plug build. The basswood deck can't be glued to the subdeck with carpenter's glue. The moisture makes the deck curl. To use ca glue, including 'maxi-cure' slow curing I'll have to cut the deck into muliple small sections.
Deck's on - I used slow drying ca glue and cut the deck into multiple sections that could be alligned correctly before the glue set. Quarterdeck view showing 15 degree angles drawn from the aft 7.5" gun positions. Due to the rising stern (1/4" higher aft than at the forward end of the q-deck) the guns have to be trained off center to get good down-angles. The next step is to glue blocks of balsa at bow and stern and sand them to shape.
Balsa blocks have been glued into the bow and stern areas and braces have been added between the 10 amidships frames to prevent distortion by expanding spray foam. Fillets of basswood have been glued under the deck edges and will be sanded at a 10 degree angle to blend them into the frames. The plug will be ready for foam injection by Sunday. At this rate I hope to be applying drywall compound within a week.
Based on my experience with the Courageous, Furious and Hood hull plugs with widely flared bows can be a challenge to shape using expanding foam and drywall compound. The fillets of 1/8" basswood added under the 1/32" deck edge have allowed the sharp angle at the tip of the flare to be shaped and it will be maintained more easily than with drywall, which is easily chipped during plug construction. The bow was carved from balsa and I think the next section, where the flare is most prominent, will be shaped from balsa too. In all plugs I've found the area most difficult to shape to be under the stern where the hull sides transition into the stern skeg. The stern has been shaped from balsa but the next space needs balsa too, to save time in messing about with drywall compound trying to get both sides symmetrical. I've run out of ca glue and balsa but will buy more this evening and finish the solid balsa areas of the plug by Sunday. Shaping of bow in progress. When finished the balsa will be sealed, then given a skim coat of drywall compound. The small deck level tab at the stern was seen to be a thin metal plate in photos and will be removed. Basswood bracing between frames. The brace furthest forward is glued to the frame and 'keel', the rest to frames only, and the vertical stringers beneath the aft end of the forecastle have locked their 3 frames in place. The frames in between cannot move. When building my first large hull plugs (Courageous and Kent/Canarias) I found the expanding foam could push unsupported frames fore or aft at their outer edges and bend the keel sideways,which required a lot of work to correct. More 1/8" basswood was glued to the 'keel' and deck between every pair of frames, giving a total thickness of 3/8" to screw on the deck flanges for molding.
I'm still adding blocks of balsa and sanding them to shape, extending forward from the stern and aft from the bow. It's going well and the balsa is much easier to shape than foam and drywall compound. I might do the entire hull in balsa if the local store has enough in stock.
Tonight I ran out of balsa after filling half the voids between the hull plug's frames, and forming part of the bottom of the hull amidships. If the hobby store has more balsa in stock the basic shaping will be finished this weekend. Balsa is too soft to be the final surface for molding but it's firmer than expanding foam and easier to get a basic hull shape from. I fill 1-2 sections with balsa and shape them before moving on to the next. A little more balsa is needed at the stern skeg. Imperfections in the balsa will be filled by drywall compound. Bow area nearing final shape. You can see a concave area on the port side where I sanded off a bit too much balsa between the frames - that'll be corrected with drywall compound. Forming the bottom from 1/4" balsa. Note the bevel at the deck to match the sloping hull sides.
Day 16: The hull sides have been filled with balsa and the port side has been sanded. The balsa is glued in slightly higher than the frames to allow a slight curve between them after sanding, rather than a series of flat hull sections. Starting to look like a decent hull.
Very nice bob, looks like the balsa worked out great. Is the inside still hollow? Looks like you used about 1" thick pieces on the sides. My pile of balsa is looking pretty tempting for the courbet plug tomorrow...
Most of the inside is hollow Kevin. I used 1" balsa for the bow and stern where there were large differences in profiles between frames. The rest is 1/4" balsa. I used up all of my left over balsa from past projects and had to buy a few sheets of 1/4". I think balsa will work well for the Courbet. So far the Hawkins plug has been built faster than those I made with expanding foam. Foam would repeatedly compress while I was sanding the drywall compound and needed to have many dents filled in the process.
So if I extract the hull 3d files from WOW and print them out to make a plug. I think I'd feel really bad and that somehow I was cheating. Awesome work Bob!
Final sanding was finished this afternoon. I have to say how good the Profile Morskie plans were: the frames posed no problems, unlike some other plans I've bought. The hull shape flowed smoothly over them. I decided to infill with balsa around the stern skeg too because I've always found it the most difficult part of the plug to make symmetrical with the foam and spackle method. Close-up of the skeg after sanding. I love the wide bow flare of the WWI designed ships I've made molds for (Courageous, Furious, Hood); not fond of the 'knuckle' bow of most later British cruisers. Applying Lepage's spackle instead of the softer drying drywall compound I've used before. Zinsser will be used to seal the spackle after sanding.
