SOTS SHIPS BOATS

Hi Team

I realised that some where in the build we would be building the ships boats, so I decided to source in the correct scale of 1/84 a boat to enhance the sots to my satisfaction.

On my enhancment the ribs particularly will be in scale plus all the oars, anchor, boat hooks will be in brass etch, plus walnut for the tiller, thwarts ect.

When I built my Victory launch I was never happy with the ribs inperticular being out of scale (many members at the time fitted new ribs from computor card) Here are photos of my finished Victory ;-

SOTS SHIPS BOATs


As you can sea in the photo my new Hull is the same size as the Victory launch.

Here is my new Launch for the SOTS:-

Hi Mike
The beginning looks very good, and straight
Keep up the good work

No I didn`t Mike
I just hat lateschift, and then I come home late at night
And I`m to tired to look into the Forum
So I read it at the Weekend

STAGE 3 BALSA INFILLS


Ok Team I promised you a tutorial to day on fitting Balsa to your SOTS (or any ship)
POINT 1 The object is to make the ship stronger ( remember Balsa is a hard wood and when fixed in situ is very strong).

POINT 2 No matter how hard you try to fix the ribs at 90 degrees, with temperature changes you will experience some movement in these parts with Balsa I will show you how I lock them in to the position they should be in so they do not move

POINT 3 By fitting Balsa infills "Fairing" and planking are so much easier.

So lets begin, we need a razor saw, pencil,craft knife, steel ruler cutting mat, your DRY DOCK (jig) large strong clamps and PVA adhesive, thats all at this stage

In this section I am going to deal with the first 3 ribs:-
The Bow rib 2 (forward bulkhead)
The second (5)and third (6)ribs in order.


Take any thickness of balsa to do the job I used some left over bits, and then I used 1/4inch Balsa which I just happen to have (later on I will use 1/2 inch Balsa)

These first spaces between the ribs we will totally fill with Balsa, the other areas we will use a box method.(more about that at a later stage)

What follows next are lots of photos to show what I have done, but before I go to them,we need some measurements to work with, on my build the measurement of the space between Rib 2 and Rib 5 is 1 inch, and the space between Rib 5 and Rib 6 is 1 1/4 inch yours may be different, but whatever it is that is the measurement you must use right across each space.
So here goes have a look and come back with your Questions :-

STAGE 3 BALSA INFILLS

Now we have finished cutting and filling both spaces, you can see we clamp them with my trusty long bars to allow the adhesive to cure (please note the infills must not be higher than the deck position.

We will now do some trimming:-

STAGE 3 BALSA INFILLS

and so after everything is cured we remove the clamps and trim the infills:-

what does fairing mean? sanding back to the correct shape?

Hi Mike
Thanks for the good tutorial,
I`ll be waiting for the next session

phew
just bean through the whole of MWGs diary! quite a marathon but well worth it such good information Im so glad I didnt glue the ribs to the keel that would have set me back a bit, the balsa wood system sounds a great idea. keep it coming
jeff