Half Model of Steam Tug "Hercules"

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I built this model primarily to see if the "Hull Expansion Plates" provided a usable pattern for covering the hull frames. In theory it should.

I obtained the drawing from here: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record::

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The drawing set was good. Scale was of no particular importance as I only wanted to see if the plates fit the frames. I did ensure however that the scale between drawings was the same, which they were.

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First step is of course to get the keel and frames onto heavier stock and assembled.

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I made many photocopies of the "Hull Plates Drawing" in order that I may have enough for all the hull plates. These are on a typical card weight. The intent is to cut off one row of plates at a time and apply it to the frames.
Seen here is the first (bottom) row. Note that I left a small edge on top of the plates so that the next row would have something to attach to.

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The first row applied.

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Row 2 applied and working upward.

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By the time I hit row 3, I noticed that the hull plates as drawn were no longer long enough to cover the frames. Each consecutive row made the horizontal gap grow wider. At this point I stopped taking pictures as it was clear that this wasn't going to work. The final row didn't even mate up with the sheer line as drawn. The spaces both vertically and horizontally were enormus.
I was getting ready to toss this whole project into the trash as the point of the exercise had just been demonstrated.
Anyway, I thought I would just fill the hull voids with card to see what it looked like. It was not a very smooth hull. I sanded it a bit but that made very little improvement. I applied some drywall filler and that worked well, but painting that with enamel wasn't going to produce a decent result so I coated the whole thing in white glue.

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Once I got some paint on it, I started to change my mind about chucking it in the garbage.
One small problem with building this as a half model was that the hull frames were starting to pull the keel out of plane. It is actually quite significant and past the point of correction.

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Next it's onto the superstructure. Here is some of the deck house put together. Still more to add. Working from the drawings as templates sure makes it easier to visualize and align mating components.
Anyway, this is a spare time project so the progress to this point has not been all that quick. I wasn't even sure if I was going to post this, but what the heck.

[jleslie48]

what a stunning build. I am looking forward to how this comes out.