Monday 1 April 2013

Model - Lofting

Most boat building books emphasize the importance of "lofting" - so named as that mystical art which the "loftmen" did upstairs in the "loft" above the boat yard. It is recommended to do full size lofting before starting the build. Whilts Defltship has been very useful, I decided to do proper lofting of the 1/5th model of Skye Maid.  I want my model building to get me in the rhythm of all boat building steps.

Pic Below: Using Sitka Spruce batten with nails and small spring clamps to check for a fair curve of plank edges, I'm using some realtively ceap 6mm hardwood faced marine ply from Bunnings - it has a very smooth facing and great for drawing accurate lines in pen and pencil.  I use biros from permanent markings.
 
 Pic Below: Finished adjusted profiles of planking - plan and profile view.  I only did the top section in profile view as this was the main area where I had to vary Iain Oughtred's mould marks given the changes made to beam and sheer line (covered in an earlier blog post).

   The lofting exercise sure brings home how accurate you need to be in transferring plan specs to a build.  Tom Hill says the eye can pick a 1/16th variation in a curve from a fair line.

No comments:

Post a Comment