Hello all, Today marks the start of my build of the HMS Tiger. I figured that I would catalog what I am doing so that way you can all point out the noobish mistakes that I am bound to make Any adivce as I come up to parts of the build is more then welcome. All the images will be posted here along with the posts which will have the details. Well, here goes nothing.
Part One: Rib Templates After finaly settling on a ship to build, I orderd the plans for Tiger from George Goff. Having them arive was about the high point of my week My biggest worry with doing this was drawing the rib templates. I am a horable artist, and fail at drawing stick people (as my Intro to Mechanics notebook can testify) So I decided to use CAD for the rib drawings. After several hours, all 24 ribs were done and printed. I chose to use a dual keel for a built-in water chanal as Mike Mangus did in his Bern build, a thread which I will be using for much of this project. Later this week I will be going to get the plywood for the ribs and will hopfuly begin cutting them by the end of the week.
Very cool, Bikefish! Looks like you're off to a good start. Are you planning to laser-cut or CNC-cut the ribs, or is this a bandsaw job? Also, did you remember to adjust the ribs for balsa thickness, plywood or planked bottom thickness, etc? And lastly, have you considered building a CO2 bottle mount, propshaft holders, or other hardware mounts into the ribs?
Nice choice. I have always like the HMS Tiger. Too bad the British didn't keep her around longer. Certainly a nice looking boat to model. Mikey
I wouldn't overmuch about adjusting the ribs for sheeting thickness if this is being built for Fast Gun. All fastgun clubs allow a small variance in width that will cover the additional 1/16th of an inch that the sheeting will add.
Kotori: Its going to be a bandsaw job, no CnC equipment in the shop I have access to. For the bottom of the hull, I was planing on filling in the gaps between the ribs to use the ribs as guides for the shape of the hull, like Mike did on Bearn (pics on page 2 of that thread). For the sheeting, its a ways off but I have a few ideas for how I could do it w/o making the hull to wide. I have no idea what hardwear I am going to be installing, so i did not build in mounts. Is mounting the hardwere around the ribs going to be hard? Froggy: yep, she is one good looking girl. to bad her armor was still a week as Lion/Princess Royal/Queen Mary. Tiger did avoid an undiginifed end. Also, my closest club does not apper to have many RN BC's at all. Need to bring some style when I start battleing Richelieu: do you know if anyone has done the balsa sheeting just in between the ribs sence the ribs count as inpenatrable anyway?
The sheeting would be hard to attach jsut between the ribs, since instead of mounting to the width of the rib face you'd be trying to attach aong a 1/64 butt joint and your sheeting cuts would have to be perfect. THe first time someone looked at your sheeting funny with the bow of their ship youd probably lose an entire panel as well. Sheeting on the exterior of the ribs in fastgun will not make your hull too wide if the hull is built to spec.
Guess the presure is on to get it right then. Already hit my first hitch, my rib spaceing is slighly off on three parts. just meens that I will have to make aditional copies of one or two ribs and not use others.
You've got a little over an 1/8" that youre allowed for error in the beam, just make sure your widest rib is 7.58 (ship list page max beam) or a smidgen less and you'll be fine. Not much pressure really.
Although I do tend to favor the sanded balsa bottom hulls, another very popular method is to sheet the bottom with thin 1/32" plywood. Use a strip the width that will span from center to center of two ribs. An example of this type of hull bottom can be seen in one of the other build threads going on right now.
Anybody ever stripped planked the bottom of a wood hull with thin strips of wood? Less sanding than balsa blocks and a more fair hull than the plywood method.
I think the Bitondo bros (Kotori & Gascan) are fond of that method. I did it for the stern and forward hull sections of my teeny tiny Orfey class that I haven't finished. It seems to work pretty well, though theres a good amount of work involved to cut the pieces with the correct shape so they butt up tight to one another. Not sure if theres any advantage of doing it that way vs any other advocated here, but it does look good.
Planking is a lot of work, especially if you want it to look good. I have planked a number of boats. It is very hard to get the same number of planks on both sides of the boat, ending in the same spots, without huge gaps between the planks. For the highly scale hulls like my Mikasa, I use 1/64" ply plus a layer of fiberglass.
The plywood for the ribs, keels and deck has been purchased. Hopefully I can start cutting tomorrow. Here goes nothing...
Update Unfortunately, the band saw in the shop was down for repair this last week and will be back online right in time for spring break. I got the ribs separated with a skillsaw, but thats it.
Ah, finaly. I had no other commitments for an afternoon, so I got into the woodworking shop and got the ribs cut out. I didnt have my camera, so no pictures of the cutting itself, but the finished prodects are presented below (yes, I know I forgot one) The "J" rib Some of the ribs layed out. All the pics can be found in there full size on the link to my photobucket in the first post. So now its onto the deck and keels. I already desided to go with a dual keel for buit-in water chanaling, but havent quite figured out what I want to do with the deck. How much of the deck is typicly attached to the ribs compaired to how much can be removed?
