My plan, which I hope is not too ambitious, is to make a plank on bulkhead hull. I have access to a local makerspace with a laser cutter, so I intend to laser cut the pieces. I’d like to develop a workflow of going from plans to parts that I can apply to future projects.
Let’s look at the plans of the Sultana.
Follow this link to see the original plans on the National Maritime Museum website. The Sultana was built in Boston in 1767, then acquired by the Royal Navy. In 1768, the lines of the Sultana were recorded at the Deptford naval yard.
Who exactly did the work of recording the plans, at Mr Randall’s dock in 1768? Was it this guy whose name is in the corner? Adam Hayes?
The plans were cleaned up and recorded by Howard Chapelle in 1935. The Chapelle plans are reproduced on the end papers of the Schooner Sultana book.
In white on orange… Thanks guys.
Scan, invert colors, levels, convert to grayscale, more levels, crop into separate files.
That’s better.
What stands out about the plans is how few station lines there are. Just nine. Was Mr. Hayes in a rush to meet his mates at the pub that day?
Often, the plans of a larger ship will have 20 or more stations, and a modeler can just choose all or some, make bulkheads directly from those lines, and be done with it. But nine isn’t enough. Based on my one and only plank on bulkhead experience, I want more bulkheads. I want LOTS of bulkheads.
It’s time to find my bulkhead lines. It’s time to go to the drawing board start up the CAD software.