Second on the Delftship, but if you're looking to do it the good old way with pencil and a good eye;
1- You're not lofting, you're designing, so at this stage it doesn't matter (within reason!!!) just how fair the curves are.
2- If you expand the stations onto the centreline in bodyplan view this will give sheer and keel depth at each station. As a designer it is upto you to decide what angle of entry you wish for, where you want the turn of the bilge to be, how much of a tuck you want aft', how much flare to the bows you want and every other detail.
3- I find that if you do the transom, midships station and first bow station aft of the stem they tend to 'fall into place'.
4- Once you have a set of lines that look right to your eye in bodyplan, take the points off your buttock lines and transpose them onto the profile view- creating a grid of waterlines that intersect with the buttocks is the best way to do this. Normally waterlines are tightly spaced on detailed parts- a tight tuck for example- but equal spacing is ok too if your hull form is fairly simple. Draw the waterlines onto profile view and plot the intersections with the buttocks from bodyplan view. The result will be your boats 'lines' a 2D profile of the form of your boat.
5- If you are happy with the profile that's great, but it's rare that a designer is happy first time round, so adjust the lines on the profile view to where you think they should be, once they are somewhere close to looking right, take the plots off the new lines and transpose them onto the waterlines where they intersect with the buttocks on the bodyplan view- you will be amazed how small changes can be on the midship section to make large changes to the lines in profile view.
6- Repeat 4 and 5 until you are happy with the profile and bodyplan views. In true yacht designing the plan view would also be an integral part of the process, but I would suggest you get profile and bodyplan sorted first, then expand the hull into plan view using the grid of buttocks and waterlines from before, but from above. This will show any real problems with the lines under the water, but if you have started with an idea of what shape of boat you want I would have expected you to begin with a basic outline of the hull in plan view in order to give you your plots for the sheerline in bodyplan view.
7- If you are happy with the shape of the boat, photocopy the bodyplan view stations (preferably at an architects or art college where the photocopier has a known accuracy and the ability to scale). Paste the copied stations first onto card, put a small hole through the centreline of each at the waterline- about 1mm dia. Take some none-stretch line (fishing line or similar) and string the stations onto the line. Draw a centreline onto a board, at each end make a braced support (3/4" x 3/4" timber) with a narrow 'V' notch in the centre, narrow enough to trap the line without being able to free itself. On the back side of each support a couple of tacks can be spiked in to make a crude cleat to wrap the line around. THE NOTCHES MUST HAVE THEIR BASES AT AN EQUAL HEIGHT FROM THE BOARD. By pulling the line taught you now have a 3D waterline, and if you have drilled the hole on the centreline of each of the station moulds they will all hang symetrically when viewed from behind or in front.
8- Space the moulds using your drawing. You will now have complete picture of the form of your hull, but in materials that you can modify with a stanley knife and a pot of glue and card.
9- Once you are completely happy with the shape of the boat, and have a set of moulds that you are sure look 100% like you thought they should, put the outlines onto plywood, stick them on your board and pile some planks on top!
NB; the reason that using an accurate photocopier is important is that any error while printing could be hours of head scratching and re-measuring when you bring them home. Another way is to use decent tracing paper.
Greg
