| Taking Shape The keel, stations, and top supports for the false deck are shown here in place and ready to be glued. It is starting to look like a ship! It is tempting at this stage to glue the stations on at this point as they "look good" but I had to stop myself. I had to attach the stations in place with a "false deck" which is a deck used to align everything which will come off the model before the actual deck is laid. |
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| Flat and Straight To keep the keel "true" (straight) and to get the stations in place, the keel was clamped between pieces of wood on a perfectly level piece of MDF (Medium Dense Fiberboard). Any curvature on the horizontal plane would translate into a curved hull bottom. I decided on MDF as it is thick, heavy, and very flat. I used a straight edge to ensure it was absolutely flat on my working table. And on this surface is where the ship would be built from this point on. |
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| The False Deck Using the plans as a template, a false deck was cut out of 6mm (1/4 inch) MDF. The location of each station was marked on the bottom of the deck, and then carefully aligned with each station and tacked in place. This worked well, keeping each station at a 90 degree angle to the keel. |
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| Intro / Getting Ready / Cutting Stations / Gluing the Stations to the Keel / Planking / Bow & Stern / Catastrophe/ Casemates / Final Product |