Do warship plans bought through BDE, Taubman, Geoff, etc have rib designs, or are they just various outside views with some views of the hull shape?
Generally, yes - you do get hull sections. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be included in ALL plans, from all sources. I haven't personally seen one that didn't, & I have lots of plans. I have heard from others of some cases where they were missing, though. JM
I've seen some plans without rib-sections but i don't believe from any of the aforementioned providers...
Taubman's plans are varible. Depends on where they are from. Taubman is just a middle man. Most have sections. Some are of low quality, other excellent. Geoff has sections, but of varible number. Quality of plans is very low. BDE= ????? What ship are you looking for?
Probably something like a Maryland class battleship. I.E. a colorado, maryland, or west virginia. Smaller than a heavy cruiser, but with more points. That and it would fit in my car. A little easier to carry around and retrieve than a USS washington, which was the ship I was origionally gonna build.
Hi guys I have a question, do you want the USS South Dakota or one of her sisters? The reason being the super on the SoDak is different then that of her sisters.I built the SoDak from plans I got from the Navy modelers program.These are plans straight from the US Navy.There was a removeal of a twin 5 inch mount and added rooms for an Admirals cabin and staff and extra equipment . Buddy
My preference would be for the Sodak. The plans I have for the ship show too much of the other detail so I can't get a good view of the superstructure to build it.
Plans with hull lines may or may not show all frames, and the frames may or may not be where you want actual ribs. In fact, the odds are against the lines matching where you want rib locations. It can take a while to generate a rib pattern set from the hull lines, though it is relatively easy to make a hull plug from the hull lines. That said, and since the question of the SoDak superstructure came up, BDERC has nice plans and pattern sets for the SoDak that include pattern sets for the superstructure buildings and details. Cheers
... I've had it work out exactly once, where the plan's ribs lined up with the 3"-center ribs I wanted. That was a set of 1:192 plans of HMS Vanguard that I got from White Ensign & enlarged at Kinko's to 1:144. Apparently, the original ship had frames every 36', scaled out to 3" for me! Usually, though, the "draftsman" provides only a limited number of sections. Most will be grouped where there is a lot of change in hull shape, fore-to-aft. Where it doesn't change much, there will be fewer. They're almost never exactly where you want them, for combat purposes. A scale shipbuilder can put ribs wherever they need to be, & those kind of plans work just fine for them. Where rules require specific spacing that doesn't match the plans, you can interpolate where the missing ribs need to be. It isn't terribly hard. JM
Then how do you find where the provided hull lines line up with the hull? Measure the width of the hull line and match it up with the above view? It's getting more and more clear how scratch building a wood hull is such a skill.
I think it's pretty easy. You probably will think so, too, after you've done it a time or 2. The fact that we who are posting are able to do it speaks volumes as to how easy it is! This would probably make a lot more sense if you had a set of plans in front of you: Normally, you get 3 views of a ship: Top (plan), side (profile), & sections. The sections are vertical "slices" through the ship at various points along its length & show the outboard profile of the hull at one point along the ship's length. From the 3 views, you can construct a 3-D model from the flat plans. The profile view has vertical lines, often with letters. Each of the sections is also lettered. The vertical, letter-notated lines in the profile show the position on the length of the ship where each "slice" shown in the sections should be placed. Generally, model plan "draftsmen" are pretty lazy & don't include every section that the original source plans had - only the bare minimum needed to form a reasonable model of the hull shape. Where they put the ribs is convenient for a scale modeler, but not necessarily so for a combat builder. It's pretty easy to interpolate sections, though, creating your own at points where the plans don't show any. I always start at the front, & make my own vertical lines on the plan view where I want ribs (i.e. evenly spaced at 3"). Some will hit right on, or very close, to what the plans show but there will be plenty of other places where they aren't close at all. In the middle of the ship, chances are pretty good that there will be several identical ribs. Forward & aft, is where the interpolation is usually needed. Here's how I do it: Say, for example, the plan shows sections L & M about 2" apart, but I want a rib that's between them, 3/4" aft of L. I find all the points in each rib where the curve reverses direction. Then, I draw a short line between the reverse point on rib L & the corresponding reverse point on rib M. 3/4" is 3/8 of 3", so whatever the length happens to be of each of the connecting lines, I make a point 3/8 of the way from L to M. Then I draw a new curve, through the points that I just drew, following as closely as I can the shapes of L & M. The result is a new section that's plenty accurate enough. Cut ribs using the interpolated sections, plus whatever "real" sections line up right. Ignore those sections in the plan that don't match your evenly-spaced locations. JM
Ok. That is simple. One more thing, is that 3" spacing on center of the ribs or from edge of a rib to the of the next rib edge?
I've seen various interpretations, but as long as it's applied consistently it ends up all being the same. Example: If you measure from the fronts of all ribs, it ends up being the same spacing as if you measure from the backs - or middle, or some arbitrary point. As long as it's consistent, they'll be OK. Check with your club's rules to be sure, but I believe most specify spacings as minimum. You can go a little wider, still be legal, & more than cover what's needed. Some clubs may care more about percentage of penetrable area than actual spacing. If you can, discuss your plans with a club Technical Officer to be sure - that's what they're there for, to help you make sure you get things right. I've seen at least 1 ship where the builder opted for a quick build & just left out those ribs that fell within the 3" spacing minimum, not doing any intermediate ribs at all. That left a huge rib-less gap midships. It worked out fine, but I imagine he had some damage repair issues - if he wanted to replace a small section, between ribs, he could be out of luck & have to replace a large section instead. Probably not a terribly big deal, anyway, since the large sections would tend to be pretty flat. The point is, you should be able to go wider with no problem, if there's any doubt. JM
