I'm hoping, come September, to be running an adult education class in model boat building. It was decided that the best way to start was by offering a couple of "kit" options. I'd already built a "Wee Nip" sailing boat from Traplet's wood pack (see
HERE) but thought that one of their "Pilot Boats" would offer a nice alternative.
[
NB This is Traplet's picture. I've had their permission to use it for evening class publicity so I hope they don't mind me using it here too.]
Click
HERE for the the details on Traplet's web pages.
It occurred to me that I should spend some of the summer holidays building one for myself - I hope to know what I'm talking about by September
So, I mentioned it to my wife as quickly as I could in passing - which passed for permission - and ordered a box of bits.
I've also acquired a copy of the Model Boats magazine which covers this build HOWEVER I wouldn't recommend anyone else bothering. The original plans, and article, are based around a styrene sheet build. It talks about cutting the hull panels out and fixing them edge to edge to form a monocoque hull. All well and good, but they've modified the design for the plywood, laser cut version. It now includes a thin keel piece and a couple of interior bulkheads. This means that the hull panels have to be fitted to these, rather than each other.
Anyway, I'm going to document the build here for sanity check purposes and in case anybody else fancies building one....or already has done and can offer advice.
NB: I'm making the build process up as I go along so excuse me if it seems a little random at times.
And this is the progress as of this morning.
I began by glueing the bulkheads to the keel piece. I used wood glue but would use thick cyano to tack it together next time - I couldn't find it that day.
I parallel to this, I glued the two halves of the deck together along the precut wobbly line - pinning them to a nice flat piece of wood with clingfilm between (to stop it sticking to the board).
Then, I glued the deck onto the keel and bulkheads. The precut slots and tabs fit very nicely and give a good, positive position.
I've been holding everything together with either tape of clothes pegs as I've gone along.
Next to go on was the transom. This is made from quite thin ply and bends without too much trouble; again tabs and slots give good location. The transom is rather a pleasing shape and also helps to pull the corners of the deck down into a good curve.
I spent some time trying to hold everything together in the right places before deciding what to do next. As mentioned above, the pieces were designed to go edge to edge but won't fit the bulkheads that way. It may be the wrong decision, but I chose to fix the bottom two panels first....tacking them with cyano.
I made a token effort towards shaping the keel edge and the sheet edges, and then glued the two sheets; first to the keel, and then along the bulkheads. I shoe these pieces first as they're oversized and the sheets above will sit quite nicely on top of them.
Once these were set, I taped and glued the transom.
Finally, for now, came the upper chine panels.
These were slightly tricky. Trying them in place showed that the lower, rear edges seemed to curve down too far to fit. However, a little fiddling showed that I could push those corners in a little until the edges would fit square to the lower chines. I could have trimmed them but, because I want to come up with a build suitable for beginners, I wanted a more straight forward fix. As it happens, I think that this will give quite a nice curve to the back of the hull...maybe it was intended by the designer?