Rib Spacing

I have a few questions about the ribs, are you allowed to have different thickness of ribs (like say, 1/4" & 3/8")?
If you did have mixed ribs, say rib 1 is 1/4" thick, rib 2 is 3/8" thick, and rib 3 is 1/4" thick, would the spacing between ribs 1 & 2, and between ribs 2 & 3 have to be minimum 3" on centres or 2" on centres (or something inbetween)?
For the spacing between ribs & bow/stern hard area, if you had a 3/8" rib after the hard area, would I be correct in assuming that you would need a 3" space between the end of the hard area and the centre of the rib?
Thank-you,
Chase

 

Imagine you alternate 3/8" ribs with 1/4" ribs. The 3/8" ribs are supposed to have 3" spacing, while the 1/4" ribs are supposed to have 2" spacing. Your question is would you get to use the smaller spacing since you have the smaller rib? Of course not. Think about it: you'd have the same spacing as if you'd used all 1/4" ribs, but half of them are 3/8" ribs, giving you more impenetrable area than what you should have. If you use different size ribs, you must use the larger spacing.

For your second question, spacing between ribs and hard area should be exactly the same as regular ribs: a 1/4" rib still needs 2" of space to the next rib/impenetrable, and 3/8" still needs 3".

 

Thats kind of what I thought, but I'm used to the small gun way of doing ribs, and I find it kind of weird the way it is worded in battlestations. Of course assuming you alternated 1/4" ribs & 3/8" ribs and used 3" spacing, you'd end up with less penetrable area than allowed if you went with all 3/8" ribs. Its not really a big issue, I was just curious. I'm using all 1/4" ribs on my Charlegmagne class.
Chase

 

I can't imagine at the time the rules were written that the writer thought that someone would mix rib sizes on the same ship. Heh.

 

The only time I know of where mixing ribs was taken into considerations was for building 2-piece hulls that could be taken down for transport. There are special rib rules for that.

Carl

 

I've seen a boat that used 1/4" ribs for most of the hull, then switched to 1/8" ribs in the stern to help define the shape and produce a more scale wooden hull. I don't see any particular harm in using different rib sizes, so long as the larger rib spacing is used. I also don't see much benefit, but that's no reason to disallow it if someone else sees a potential benefit (asides from increasing impenetrable area which breaks the intent of the rules).

 

I have used different size rib spacing before, to allow a wider surface where the balsa sheet joints will be, ie small ribs for complex shapes, but every so many ribs, where i plan to but the two peices of sheet together, I make a larger rib.

 

Battlestations, unlike fast gun formats, does not define the total inpenatrable area a ship may have. Instead. BStations works more like big gun and specifies rib size and spacing along with total stern/bow hard area. In a way, it makes it much easier to build a ship without having to worry about figuring out how many ribs total one needs.

The Bretange I'm going to build is going to be the easiest wood hull build yet in many ways. Since the rib size and minimum spacing is defined, I just have to make sure the rib spacing on the plans don't violate the rules. I also see no reason to maximize rib spacing on a BStations ship to help mitigate damage, unlike fast gun where a little bit extra can help deflect a small amount of the massive damage those ships take.
The waterline is defined in BStations too, independent of the ship weight which makes it easy to set the bottom of the penetrable windows 1" below the preset waterline. No guessing how much weight the ship needs to float at the scale waterline.
I love it.

 

I guess my confusion had more to do with being in a fast gun rules mindset. I'm sure it doesn't really matter if the impenetrable area isn't maximised, that being said I find the fastgun way of doing ribs to be more flexible and easier to do, but thats probably just me.

I totally agree that having the ship float at scale waterline is a lot easier.

Chase

 

When I built the Erin from scratch, I didn't really have the option to shift ribs to where I wanted them. I was pretty much locked into the plans for rib spacing.
Instead, I played with rib thicknesses to get close to the max allowed hard area. The Erin does have two thicknesses of ribs ... mostly 1/4" from the bow to around 2/3rds back, then 3/16" thick ribs to the stern. Without being able to set the number of ribs, I had to compromise by using two rib thicknesses.
But the Erin was built to MWCI rules where total hard area is set and I felt the need to get as close as possible. The BStations Bretange on the other hand is going to get 1/4" ribs at around 3" spacing ... it could have 3/8" ribs at that spacing, but I don't feel the need to maximize it by buying a thicker wood when I have plenty of 1/4" aircraft ply on hand. Heh.

 

That stuff isn't cheap after all Glad somebody is building a bretagne, I still have my hull but I'm not really happy with the way it turned out.

Chase

 

Hey Tug, we really need to put the "Attack" into the Southeast Attack Squadron's BStations fleet. Heh.

Finished the Bretange's hull templates last night. Ready for cutting wood!

 

With B-ADD like we both have are you sure about that?