Building a Whaleboat, Episode One

[@BrunoWiebelt]

thank you , I will go the way of lofting the model direkt on plywood ... just as a learning

[@arielabrahamson1895]

I wish I had this video series before I worked the New Bedford Whaleboat a year and a half ago !!! Great Video --- My next boat is the Charles Morgan.

[@tornadoalley4495]

Intriguing, doable subject. Poor health prevents me from building, but I will follow along as your tutorial unfolds. Thanks for doing what you do.

[@SandroIvoBartoliofficial]

Well, Master Lauria, when you speak we listen! Fantastic project and monumental lesson from you. Thank you! When Domenico allows me, I will get my hands into meddling with one of those Yankee crafts...

[@shipmodelguy]

Glad you found this series, Maestro. When I started, I don't think I totally appreciated the scope of the undertaking-from the perspective of making the videos. This is not unlike your Scarlatti project, which has been providing my wife and myself with unlimited pleasure over the last few months. Divertiti amico mio. T

[@juandelosmortos7824]

Master of the ax, it was certainly not an offense but my honor for what he manages to do. He has a dexterity that is not always seen. I apologize again, hello from Florence!

[@claeswikberg8958]

Tom, this is an excellent idea, bell ticked!

[@shipmodelguy]

Hi Cleas Good to hear from you. Should have a new episode in about two weeks

I found you right now. Sometimes You Tube recommendations work. I have the plans for the whaling boat of Azores - Portugal. To do next to the model of the boat Moliceiro de Aveiro. I will follow this project with great interest.

[@russellbarnes4233]

Excellent presentation. Lots of fun technical material for ship modeling geeks like me. :)

[@shipmodelguy]

Thanks. Hope you stick around for the whole series. We take a deep dive into the subject. Stuff any ship model geek should appreciate. Thanks for watching. Tom

[@yorkyswe]

Ahh you re-uploaded - well I am still happy to see this series. Thank you for taking the time to do this!

[@shipmodelguy]

Enjoy!

[@jpjobojo]

i'm very excited about the project, it's going to be very interesting..

[@hansvonstetten3236]

your videos are fantastic! I have a question for you. I am making a 1:50 scale charles w morgan and want to make whale boats to scale. the kit provides a very poor facsimile of an actual whaleboat, and looks like a toy. so, is the beetle whaleboat standard equipment on the Morgan? and if so, is 28´6" the correct length? when I scale off of the original design plans it seems they are only 27 feet long. I guess i´m answering my own question, but I don´t think I can fit 3 whaleboats on one side at 28+ feet. any opinions? I am trying to make this boat as true to actual scale as possible. thanks again for the videos, I have already spent hours watching them.

[@shipmodelguy]

There is no direct correlation between a particular ship and the whaleboats it carried. The ship was outfitted with the boats the captain liked. At any given time, CW Morgan could have carried Beetle or Delano or Leonard boats or any of a half dozen other builders' boats in the New Bedford area. As far as sizes of the boats is concerned, it was dictated by where they were to be hung on the ship. The starboard quarter boat could be be anything up to about 32 feet because basically, there was nothing to restrict it, except the cutting stage, when rigged. On the port side, as you discovered, there are definitely length restrictions. The waist boat would have been the smallest of the three, as small as 25 feet and the port bow and quarter boats may also have been smaller. I don't know how accurate the plans are that came with your kit, but if they are good, there will be a difference in the spacing of each pair of davits from which the boats hang. Measuring the center to center distance between those davits could give you an idea of the size boat that hung there. Hope this helps.

[@richardbohlman9014]

GREAT!

[@hansvonstetten3236]

Hi again. I mentioned before about the scale of my whale boats for my CW Morgan whaler. well, I have become quite frustrated in my quest to create a model to scale. for some reason every place I look for actual dimensions on the Morgan I get different answers. nobody can seem to agree on overall length and height. my model claims 1/50 scale, yet none of the purported dimensions match this. are you privy to the real length of the Morgan, and does this include the bowsprit or only to the end of the hull? I´ve seen the original design drawings but when I scale them the dimensions are way off (I can´t read any of the numbers as printed) seems I am stuck at square one...I watched your video about your roots in the modelling life...the Bob Ross comparisons are quite fitting...enjoying all of your videos, they provide solace in a world of chaos and discord. thanks for sharing your skills...

[@shipmodelguy]

It sounds like the easiest way for you to address this problem is by carefully measuring the distance between the centers of all the boat davits. Once you know what the that distance is, you can size your whale boats accordingly. I wouldn't bother with comparing your plans to anyone else's. Deal with the plans you have. If you start to mix and match information, you're headed for trouble. The sizes of the Whaleboats: As in my earlier response, I mentioned whaleboats were all different sizes for a variety of reasons. Once you've measured the distance between the davit falls, it means you know EXACTLY where the eyebolts on each boat are. You can count on making each boat ABOUT two or three feet longer at each end than the measurement between the davit falls. How much do you add on? If adding three feet does not leave enough room, cut it down a little bit until all the boats fit comfortably end to end with one another, with a sensible distance between each. To keep frustration levels at a minimum, do this step with paper or cardboard cutouts. Once you have the lengths for all the whaleboats (and keep in mind, only one or two may have to be sized differently from the rest), you can scale your plans up or down until you hit YOUR numbers. If you have an all in one scanner/printer, you can do it all from the comfort of your own home. If not, you may have to spend some time a copy center. You should work out the size differences in percentages. This should get you close enough so that any minor discrepancies will be of no consequence.

[@hansvonstetten3236]

@@shipmodelguy thanks tom, I was hoping to at least determine what scale my plans are really at, and thus board thicknesses, plank widths and mast and spar diameters could be accurate. I am putting all of my whaleboat plans in autocad, so scaling them up or down is a snap....I was hoping the 28 foot whaleboats would fit but I can´t know that if the scale is way off. thanks again...Happy Father´s Day!

[@shipmodelguy]

@@hansvonstetten3236 Oh. I didn't understand what you were looking for. Now I think I do. CWM was/is 103' from knight's head to taffrail. With that you should be able to determine if your 1:50 plans are close. The length of your hull between those two marks should be 24-3/4" , or slightly less to be accurate.

[@DrTheRich]

When is the next part coming?? can't wait

[@shipmodelguy]

Sorry Matthijs. It’s going to be about two weeks. Just got back from seeing our new granddaughter. So I’m a bit behind schedule. Filming starts Monday. Hang in there Brother

[@DrTheRich]

@@shipmodelguy oooh i thought you said you had it all already filmed and released it after. Sorry that i misunderstood no hurries

[@DrTheRich]

@@shipmodelguy Also congratulations!!

[@Sciguy95]

Why do you need to cut the image in half first if you're just going to crop it together again later? Wouldnt it be easier and fast just to crop out the whole image instead?

[@shipmodelguy]

I'm not quite sure I understand your question, but I'll take a shot at it. If this is not what you meant, write back, and I'll try again. The main reason is so that you're not dealing with any more of the image than you absolutely need to. Since the plan view is not symmetrical (and to make our template we need a symmetrical image), we have to separate to two halves. If you left the image whole and did the whole crop, flip, copy and paste thing, there would be so much extraneous information in the image, you could (read I could) easily get confused as to which little black line is which. Cutting the image in half insures you are only dealing with the portion of it you actually want.

[@Sciguy95]

@@shipmodelguy when you used photoshop to move the top view of the boat away from the whole plan, you cut the boat in half and moved the bottom half of the image first and erased the little extra bit that came with it. Then you moved the top half of it, and put them back together into a whole image of the top view again. Wouldn't it have been easier to just draw a box around the whole top view of the boat and move that? What I don't get is the purpose of cutting the image into 2 separate images just to put it back into what you already had in the first place. Maybe I missed something that you did to each individual part.

[@shipmodelguy]

@@Sciguy95 Because the two halves of the original image are not symmetrical and that's what we are trying to create: something that is symmetrical, top and bottom. Hence the need to pick one half, separate it, copy it, and make a mirror image of it. If you used the original drawing as it is to make your template, you would have a very strange looking boat. The boat tapers at different spots and at different degrees, bow to stern. Using the lines drawing (the overhead view) as it is would result in a hull that would be different port to starboard.

[@Sciguy95]

@@shipmodelguy oh ok, thats what I missed. Thanks

[@hansvonstetten3236]

@@shipmodelguy sorry if I missed it somewhere, what are the 2 halves? one you used to form the shape of the hull, what is the other set of lines?

[@conductorjohnmthtrains2239]

Hi Tom, I purchased an ocCre Montanes ship model1:70. It seems different co. brands have different Hull planking systems and methods. Can you give me your opinion on the best way to finish hull plank this model kit. Thanks. My model is shipping to me next week so I thought I’d get a head start on ideas from professionals

[@shipmodelguy]

Without knowing what type of ship and from which period, I wouldn't know what to say. British ships were planked differently from Dutch ships and American ships different from that, as well. Different time periods yielded different practices. I've never heard of that model company and I'm so I'm not familiar with their kits. The best advice I could give you at this point, is to do as much research on the actual ship as you can. And, not that I'm encouraging you to watch another ship model channel, but there are a lot of videos out there about plank on frame, plank on bulkhead and plank on solid techniques. So start watching KZbin and if the guy seems to know what he's talking about and his results look convincing, it's a good place to start. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[@conductorjohnmthtrains2239]

Tom Lauria oh no! I understand completely. This company is in Spain , and ordered it from agesofsail in Cal.. I’ve seen all the tubes on it but it was just a general question on hull planking. Looking forward to the build, I’ve built a couple of ship models from scratch and are very realistic. I can still learn from watching your videos as well as others. Thank you very much sir

[@johndavis6338]

Hi Tom, THAT IS SO COOL!!!!!! Question: What digitaling software did you use? A Christian and a Desert Storm Vet, John

[@shipmodelguy]

Not sure what you meant, John. Digitaling software?

[@johndavis6338]

@@shipmodelguy Hi Tom! I meant which software program are you using to create your plans as you had shown in the video. I am not a computer guy, yet. A Christian an a Desert Storm Vet, John

[@shipmodelguy]

@@johndavis6338 Oh, okay. The plans I used in that video were reduced from a set of full sized plans (1"=1') of the whaleboat available from Mystic Seaport. So, the short answer is, for this project, no software, at all. T

[@stephengent9974]

all you need to do is copy the layer in the first document and flip it. Easy

[@shipmodelguy]

It's been years since I've looked at the first episode, but I have a memory that's exactly what I did: copy the first half, paste it. invert it and merge.

[@hansvonstetten3236]

Hello, I was wondering if you could explain why most kit manufacturers provide parts and instructions which vary distinctly from the actual boat. my Charles W. Morgan kit has the windows in completely absurd locations, and the steering mechanism is not even close. not to mention all of the dimensions are wrong for the scale. the rudder shape is incorrect, the prow is different and many of the deck features are hardly even stand off scale. I suppose more of a comment than a question. carry on!

[@shipmodelguy]

A kit is only as good as its components. And, that includes EVERYTHING: plans, woods, fittings, instructions. Another thing to remember is that all kits are a compromise; what can the manufacturer do to bring this kit to market at a price that isn't out of reach of most people? That usually means generalizing on parts and fittings. If a kit is manufactured in one country and is shipped to another, the instructions and plans have to be translated. That does not always lead to a clear understanding of what needs to happen. Often, there will be discrepancies between metric and imperial conversions. In the case of the CW Morgan, the kit maker's data may contain details of the ship from various points in its life- Is this the 1841 Morgan or the 1883 version? If there is no target date for a long lived subject like CWM there could be many details that contradict or leave the builder confused. There are two things you can do to ease the frustration you may be feeling. 1. KNOW YOUR SUBJECT. With the Morgan, first read about the ship and zero in on a particular time in its long career. Become familiar with the ship at that point. For example, if you're building her as she appeared in 1841, her whaleboat would most likely not have sailing rigs. And if they did, it would be a very simple rig and the boat may not have had a centerboard. This is just one example of the type of incongruity you might run into. 2. RESEARCH THE KIT. See if you can find people who have built the kit and see what they think of the quality of the components and the clarity of the plans and instructions. This response could go on for days, but I think you're getting the idea that just buying a kit does not assure one they will end up with an accurate portrayal of the vessel on the box. The best tool the ship model builder has is education. Know before you start. I'll get down of my soap box now...

[@hansvonstetten3236]

@@shipmodelguy I don´t mind soap boxes...Artesania Latina made the kit. I started it years ago and have just recently picked it up again. I noticed the whaleboats were toylike and started looking at the details and how true to form they were...wish I could say I am happy...the wood and parts seem to be of decent quality. I have done fairly extensive research on what is right and what is wrong with this kit and the reason I asked about the beetle whaleboats is that they used this kind in the renovations just completed. I have heard the name Beetle bandied about here and there, but not sure if there is any way to ascertain what kind were used in 1841. I may just take the 28.5 foot design and shorten it just a bit to fit more neatly under the davits. I doubt anyone would notice but me. cheers!

[@shipmodelguy]

@@hansvonstetten3236 James Beetle didn't open his shop in New Bedford until 1850, so CWM would not have carried Beetle boats on her initial voyages, but certainly could have, and probably did carry them after that. As to shortening the 28' boat-that would be my plan, too. Keep buggering on!!!

[@DrTheRich]

I have my virtual modeling workbench set up :) i.imgur.com/vEN6o0l.png