So I started the construction of my first ship, a Liberty Ship, since I found the plans on here. I had the Ribs and Keel together and was getting ready to place the sub-deck, and I snapped the sub-deck in half, I thought I was building with bass wood, since I currently in C.T. finish an internship I didn’t have the tools to cut plywood.(only have x-acto knife). Come to find out I was working with balsa (I Have no clue how I didn’t notice) so I got a little t'ed and snapped everything so I am starting over with actual bass wood. Currently working on the ribs and keel. Sucks since its takes forever to cut anything out with the limited tools. I'll post pictures of what I had later.
Bass wood is going to take forever with and x-acto knife and your going to get frustrated. your better off just going to local hardware store and getting a cheap hand saw and some sand paper, cut roughly around the ribs and sand it down shouldn't cost you more then 10$-15$. just a thought.
If you can get to a Lowes or Home Despot, you can buy a hand-held coping saw (sometimes called a jig saw), that will be a lot faster, as Jstod says. If you can spare the $5 on top of that, buy a c-clamp to clamp the wood to a table or counter, the cutting will go much faster.
Hmm good ideal didn't think bout going to lowes and yea i started cutting it last night and got one out and was done.
Basswood works well. I have used it on previous ships to good effect. Being a softwood, it will need a layer or two of fiberglass to resist penetration by BBs. Hardwoods like maple, mahagony, etc work well but are hard to shape without powertools. They resist BBs ok. Stacked birtch plywood works well. The stacked peices can be precut to size before gluing into place to reduce the shaping and sanding process. Like most woods, a layer of fiberglass is good to resist BBs.
alright so my progress starting over has been slow, since i just moved back home from my internship, but im ready to put the keel and ribs together. Question where does everyone get there drive equipment, and electronics.
For motors props and shafts you can either find different sites to buy different portions or you can go onto Stikemodels.com or Battlersconnection.com. those are the ones I know of but I am sure there are others that people on here may know about. Show us some pictures of your build if you can.
SO this is where I am after the start over, gotta sand the ribs down but progress is so, with moving home, then having to move to where i have to for school which is next week. Have some sanding and cutting left on the ribs .
looking good. Keep it safe during travel last thing you want is to put all that work into it and have it break in transit
I know this doesn't go in here but is there anyone in the Siler City, NC area or Greensboro im going to be staying in Siler and going to school in Greensboro, anyway anyone that could give me a little help trying to find a club or any help in general.
Aggie; Go to the main screen, Click on Members then type in North carolina and click search. It will pull up the member in NC for you. If you are into BIG GUNS, the Mid Atlantic Battle Group does go down to NC every now and then. We have had displays at the Makers fair in Raleigh for the past several years. Check out MABG.org
So im almost done sheeting, the hull but I just got a thought on how I would put the stuffing tube in because the stern is so thin how should I drill the hole, or should i just cut out a piece. Malcolm
Wow - looks very nice. Keep at it. And keep these pictures. 20 years from now you can say "I started building ships back in 20 something using a hobby knife and thats all..." - lol. Nice going man. Impressed. Thomas
Hey should i do two to layers of glass or is one fine, and what type paint should be used, also what type of self leveling stuff do yall use inside the ship.
Well i was just gonna drill it out starting with a small bit and working up to the right size. But as for as fiberglass cloth, and glassing the hull is better to do two layers or is one enough.
For drilling, try mounting a copper tube into your drill - rough up the edges with a very small file or a dremel tool, and cut away. Nice clean and precise cutting without any chance of destroying anything at all. I recently bought some very tough and very thick aluminum tubing with a hole through it that goes inside the copper tubing I use for cutting my stuffing tubes. I'll epoxy a chunk into the brass tubing - the idea is so that the drill can grab the brass tube without crushing it, and the hole in the aluminum tube allows you to push out any wood that accumulates inside your copper tube cutter. I bored out these here using this method. Would never have worked with a normal drill bit, no matter how many sizes you use, especially since plywood is very brittle when you have such very small pieces like shown below. the stuffing tube sleeves are actually larger steel tubes - a 1/4" stuffing tube slides right in there. No way those are ever gona bend on me, and I can replace the stuffing tube easily if I ever need to. And it helped keep the whole stern assembly in place too, like a structural component!!! Cheers, Thomas
