Building Ship Model Hulls

Building Ship Model Hulls

In comparison with the intricate tasks involved in making some of the tiny detail components, the construction of the hull is just as important. You have to work to a high standard of accuracy ensuring that the hull is not crooked or planks are not buckled and wavy. In the building of a closed hull or plank-on-bulkhead model ship, by far the most popular type of construction, the false keel and bulkheads are the underpinning of both the structure and form of your model.

The three types of models are frame, admiralty and fully planked. The fully planked closed hull is the easiest to build but still requires great care. After removing any spurious material from the laser cut false keel and bulkheads, start at either end by applying the bulkheads. Very often the precut bulkheads - the solid anthwartships – found on plank on bulkhead ship model are out of symmetry and off centre. If you assemble them without correcting the imperfections, you end up with an uneven hull profile.

Place a bulkhead piece from your kit on a thick piece of paper and trace its outline. Cut around the outline, fold the paper in half making sure that the upper outer edges are matched and clipped together before you crease it in the middle. The crease will produce a true centerline and show if the lower outer edges are cut unevenly or if the keel slot in the frame is off centre. If the outer edges are misaligned, remove the excess on the pattern with scissors to even out the edges of the two halves. Return the folded pattern to the bulkhead frame, mark and file off the excess from the frame itself and draw the centerline. If the keel slot is out of centre with the pattern, mark it on the false keel. Repeat this on the other side of the frame by just turning the pattern over and aligning it on the previously drawn centerline.

Next correct the bulkhead frame’s outer profile by filing off any excess you have marked. If the center slot is out of alignment with the centerline, glue on thin strips of wood to fill one side and remove the excess on the other side. Finally, draw the centerline on the top edge of the bulkhead. This mark will help line up the frame with the keel during the actual assembly. If you repeat this procedure with every bulkhead, you will end up with a symmetrical hull profile.

When assembling the bulkheads to the false keel, make sure that the centre of each bulkhead is aligned with the keel, the tops of the frames are flush with the upper edge of the keel and that the frames are neither too tight nor too loose in the keel notches.
One trick is to use the false deck as an aligning method for the bulkhead frames. With a pencil, mark the centerline on both the top and bottom of the false deck. Place the keel on the deck and mark the outline of each of the frame slots on the deck line. With a square, mark the bulkhead lines on both sides and top and bottom of the false deck. Then you can begin the assembly process.

Place and pin the false deck on top of the false keel. Then make sure that every bulkhead frame is exactly on its line under the deck.







Each bulkhead has to be positioned at true right angles to the false keel. Attach the frame by means of wood glue and reinforce with pins. Glue has a tendency to distort the false keel so make sure that one bulkhead is put on at a time and continually check for warpage. Once all the bulkheads are in position and fastened firmly take a long piece of sandpaper wrapped wood or a rasp and gently sand the shape of the bulkheads ensuring clean lines from bow to stern and that the port side mirrors the starboard side without any concave or convex areas.

In order to avoid warpage over time, you can apply a coat of diluted glue or vanish to seal the wood cells.

There are various tools available to help make this job easy to deal with. A Fair-A Frame holds and aligns both the false keel and bulkheads during assembly. A Keel Klamp or a Timber Tapering Tool will help ensure that the false keel does not warp during construction. And a small square is an invaluable aid. Remember that no matter what tool you use, you are building the skeleton of your ship model. You must get this right to have your model looking its best when it is complete.