Making blocks for sailboat models. Sailing modeling

When building sailing models, the greatest difficulties arise when you equip them with “small things”: blocks, turnbuckles, deadeyes. I also spent a lot of time making so-called “efficient things” until I settled on the next method.

It turned out that the easiest way to make these parts is from... cardboard. To do this, first of all, blanks are cut from white cardboard 1 mm thick and glued together. The operation must be performed carefully, using tweezers. After the glue has dried, they are cut with a razor blade and equipped with sheets or braces. The block is painted to resemble wood (if the prototype is wooden) or simply varnished.

In this way you can make one-, two- and three-pulley blocks and deadeyes. The latter are glued together from round blanks, after which three holes are pierced for the tackle.

Perhaps the most difficult thing in the manufacture of miniature sailboats is screw lanyards.

Below is the final view of the two lanyard designs.

The easiest way here is to use a “turnbuckle” knot. How to tie it is shown in Figure 3. In this case, the tight end of the shroud or stay is folded in the form of two loops (Fig. 36), the root end is wrapped around the upper loop in the form of a hose, which is tightened tightly under load. The running end is passed through the butt, the tackle is attached to it, then passed through the lower loop and tightened (Fig. Zv). To prevent the fastening from loosening, it is enough to tie the end around the lanyard above the butt or behind the butt. To more fully imitate a screw lanyard, you can stretch a polyvinyl tube onto the tackle (Fig. 3d)

V. PETRICHENKO

For model making enthusiasts, sheets of pressed and glued wood veneer have always been one of the most sought after materials. They are easy to cut, perfectly processed, drawings of ships made of plywood are easy to find on the Internet, and therefore it is with plywood patterns that many craftsmen begin their acquaintance with modeling various ships.

Making models with your own hands is a very difficult task, requiring a significant amount of knowledge and a certain skill. In this article we will only talk about the most basic techniques, and you will hone further skills yourself.

Materials for work

If you want to make a small model of a ship, then you will need the following materials:

• Wood - cedar, linden, walnut or other wood, preferably soft and non-fibrous. Wood blanks must be smooth, without knots or damage. Wood can be used both as a material for the main elements of the model (hull, deck) and for fine detailing.
• Plywood is perhaps the most popular material. For ship modeling, either balsa or birch is used, since these are the types of wood that provide the minimum number of chips when sawing. Model ship plywood, as a rule, has a thickness of 0.8 to 2 mm.

Note! Sheets of beech veneer of thin thickness are sometimes used as an alternative to birch: although they are inferior in strength, they bend much easier.

• Veneer – thin plates of natural wood of expensive species. As a rule, it is used for veneering, i.e. pasting surfaces from inexpensive material.
• Fastening elements - thin chains, laces, threads, brass and copper nails.

In addition, we will definitely need wood glue, cardboard and tracing paper for transferring templates, etc. Fine detailing is made from metal casting. As an alternative to metal, you can use colored polymer clay.

Making a souvenir boat

Preparing for work

Any work begins with preparation, and modeling will by no means be an exception.

• First we need to decide what we will build. If you have not previously dealt with shipbuilding art, we recommend downloading drawings of a ship made from plywood online: as a rule, they contain all the necessary information and are understandable even to a beginner.

Note! Kits are available for sale that allow you to assemble a ship from ready-made parts. Beginners will be interested in such kits (although the price of most of them is quite significant), but it is still better to master the technology from the basics.

• After analyzing the drawing, we check whether everything necessary is available. In principle, if something is missing, you can buy more a little later, because building a ship (even a miniature one) is not a quick task!

• After printing the drawing, we make templates for the main parts.
• We transfer the templates to .

Cutting out and assembling parts

You can cut blanks using either a manual or an electric jigsaw.

The latter is more expensive, but with it you will have less trouble cutting out small parts:

• We make a starting hole in the plywood sheet into which we insert a file or jigsaw blade.
• We cut out the part, trying to move exactly along the marked contour.
• We process the sawn workpiece with a file, removing small chamfers along the edges and removing the inevitable chips and burrs.

Advice! Working on one element (deck, sides, keel, etc.), we immediately cut out all the parts necessary for assembly. This way we will spend significantly less time, and the work will move faster.

When everything is ready, we begin assembling our ship.

• First, we put transverse frames on the longitudinal beam - the keel. At the bottom of each frame there is usually a groove for fastening to the plywood keel.
• For joining, you can use standard glue, or you can use special adhesive mixtures intended for ship modeling.
• We attach the upper parts of the frames to the deck. For simple models, the deck is a single sheet of plywood, while for complex ones it can be multi-level.
• After the glue on the frames has dried, we begin to sheathe the sides with thin strips of plywood. The thickness of the material should be no more than 1.5 mm, since only in this case we will be able to bend the skin without the risk of damaging it.
• For bending, you can heat and humidify. After this, the material will bend without difficulty, and over time it will acquire a stable shape.

Note! The body can be covered with a continuous sheet for painting. But to imitate plank cladding, it is better to use strips up to 10 mm wide (depending on the scale).

• We fix the glued plywood with clamps and clamps and leave it to dry.

Final finishing

By and large, this is where carpentry ends and art begins.

When the body is assembled and dried, we need:

• Make from thin plywood and secure deck superstructures.

• Extend the sides so that they protrude above the plane of the deck.
• Cover the surface of the deck with wooden veneer or outline it with an awl, imitating plank cladding.
• Make and install all the small parts like the steering wheel and steering blade.
• Secure the masts with all additional devices (the so-called spar), install the sails and stretch this entire structure using rigging threads.

Finally, all plywood parts must be treated with stain and varnished. This will provide our souvenir with at least a couple of decades of preservation.

Conclusion

Almost anyone can make a simple plywood boat with their own hands - just patience and minimal skills in working with a jigsaw (read also the article). But if you want to implement a complex drawing with many small details, then you will have to work hard. That's why we recommend starting with the simplest models and gradually increasing your skill!

In the video presented in this article you will find additional information on this topic.

Similar materials

While working on miniatures, at one time I was faced with the need for serial production of sailing ship rigging blocks on a scale of 1:500 - 1:600. Although it is possible to make a working copy of a block on such a scale (some cupcakes fleas shoe), it is technically somewhat difficult, given the total number of blocks on the ship. Therefore, we will talk about the process of making an imitation block, which will allow you, after gaining some dexterity, to equip your model with rigging with blocks measuring from 0.5 mm without compromising the time spent communicating with your family, TV, beer mug or bathhouse.
First, about the essence of the subject under consideration. The block itself consists of wooden or metal cheeks that form the body of the block; between the cheeks there are one or more pulleys made of backout or copper; the pulleys rotate on a metal axis called a dowel. To prevent the backout pulleys from grinding on the dowel, a copper bushing was cut into the middle of the pulley, and a groove for lubrication was selected in the middle of the bushing. One or two grooves for slings were chosen on the cheeks of wooden blocks; these grooves were called bales. The cheeks of the block consisted of side boards, a middle board and liners. These parts were fastened together with through rivets on copper washers.

Rice. 1. Blocks:

a) parts of the block: body (cheeks), dowel, pulley; b) single-pulley block; c) a two-pulley block with two bales for slings; d) three-pulley block with two bales for slings; d) a guide shroud with a groove for a benzel.

In the Russian fleet, a distinction was made between usually made, thick-propelled, thin-propelled and specially made blocks.
Thick-moving blocks had thicker cheeks and pulleys than ordinary blocks and were used where the tackle could withstand very high stress.
Fine-running blocks had thinner cheeks and thinner large-diameter pulleys than ordinary ones. Fine-speed blocks were used where the tackle had to pass into the block with great speed, or where it was necessary to increase the force without increasing the number of pulleys.
The blocks were distinguished by the number of pulleys - single-pulley, double-pulley and three-pulley, as well as by the number of bales - single-bale and double-bale.
The specially made blocks included: gitov block, anaput block, butt block, longtake block, lot line block and kanifas block, since their shapes were different from ordinary ones.
Wooden blocks with iron fittings, with swivel hooks and brackets were also made. The binding could be external or internal.
The main advantages of iron-framed blocks were their strength and ease of disassembly for inspection and lubrication. Such blocks were used on the topenants of the lower and topsails, braces and topsails, dirik-halyards, gaff-prouds, etc.
The length of all blocks, except rosin blocks, was measured in English inches along the length of the cheek.
The size of the blocks depends on the thickness of the gear threaded through them. In order to select a block according to the thickness of the tackle without threading it itself, the following rule was used: the length of an ordinary block should be three thicknesses of the tackle, a thick-stroke block should be two thicknesses, and a thin-stroke block should be five thicknesses. I recommend that the modern modeler not forget that the thickness of the tackle was measured along the circumference in inches. In the domestic fleet, single-pulley blocks had a length from 4 to 27 inches, double-pulley blocks from 5 to 26, three-pulley blocks from 13 to 24. Ordinary double-pulley blocks did not exceed 19 inches. Thick-moving single-pulley ones were made from 6 to 16 inches and were used on the chicks of the mainmast, for the sheets and tacks of the lower sails, for the reef hoists on the luffs of the topsails, for the fore and main sails on the ezelgofts of ships below the frigate, etc. Thus, it is easy to calculate that, for example, the length of the thick blocks in the clew corners of the lower sails of a model of a battleship, made on a scale of 1:540 and presented in, should be 0.75 mm. Thick-moving double-pulley blocks were made from 10 to 16 inches and were used mainly for fore- and main-toppers on the ezelgofts of ships and frigates. Thin-stroke single-pulley ones were made from 12 to 26 inches and were used for the fore- and main-braces on the ends of the yards, on the lower blocks of the fore- and main-tops of halyards, water hoists and under-foresails. Thin-speed double-pulley ones were made from 11 to 26 inches and were used on the upper blocks of the fore- and main-tops halyards.
Kurti mentions a special machine for making blocks. In Russia, similar machines were also used, and four blocks were turned from a blank at once; the time to manufacture them was about half an hour. Approximately the same time is required to produce four blocks using the methods described below.
So, depending on my mood, time of day and weather, I use one of two methods for making miniature blocks.

1. The material used for making blocks is a coating used in furniture production to refine chipboard. About ten years ago I bought a pack of these scraps in a store. It can be successfully replaced with whatman paper or veneer with a thickness of 0.15-0.25 mm. Whatman paper, to give it greater rigidity, is pre-tinted with stain or paint and impregnated with PVA glue or diluted wood varnish. Then a strip of prepared material is cut in width corresponding to the width of the cheeks of the simulated block. The corners are cut off on one side and the future workpiece is cut along the length of the cheek, and then the corners are cut off on the other side, thus giving the block its shape (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Cutting cheek blocks from strips

The required number of cheeks is prepared. Then a thread simulating tackle is prepared. If you don’t have a special thread at hand, the thickness corresponding to the scale of the model (I gave up using fishing line, hair, polymer fiber after a certain number of experiments), then it can be made in the following way: a piece 10-15 cm long is cut from a spool of nylon thread of the corresponding color. It blooms into strands - there are usually 2-3 of them. In order for the strand to become even, it must be thermally treated - heated in a taut state over an electric stove. This is a very delicate procedure: it is necessary to catch the moment when the fibers of the strand begin to melt, stretch slightly and stick together, but do not overexpose it over the tile, otherwise the strand will break. This is achieved by selecting the distance above the tile and its temperature. Now the actual process of making the block. The cheek blank is placed with the inside facing up, the tip of the strand is dipped in glue (I use cyanoacrylic superglue in small tubes) and glued to the cheek, the second strand is glued in the same way - this way the tackle being threaded into the block is simulated. If a block of hoists or gordens is imitated, then three threads are glued, the middle of which imitates the root end, and the two side ones imitate the running end. Then the other cheek is glued on top, thus creating a block with threaded tackle (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. Gluing the two halves of the block.

If the cheeks do not lie on top of each other exactly, the ends of the finished block are trimmed with a knife. Now you need to sharpen the finished block. A thread simulating a sling is glued to one of the cheeks along it. The end directed towards the tackle is wrapped around the block and at its upper end is connected to the other end of the strand simulating a sling (Fig. 4).

Fig.4. Sling for block.

The length of the sling is regulated by the number of knots; the free ends of the slings are tied to the spar or sail. To prevent the sling from moving around later, I cover it together with the block with a layer of superglue. All that remains is to tint the ends of the block with gouache to match the color of the cheeks and the block is ready.
Double-pulley blocks are made in a similar way.

2. The essence of the second method is that the cheeks of the block are not cut from a narrow strip, but are made using a special drift. The latter is made from a needle from a dropper of the appropriate diameter: the inclined tip is filed off and the end is sharpened. The circles of whatman paper or veneer knocked out with such a simple device are pushed out of the needle using a thin wire and are used to make cheeks. As in the first method, strands of tackle are glued onto them, another circle is glued on top, then the product is given the shape of a block, cutting off the excess from the sides (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. Making blocks using the second method.

The final results of all actions:

And finally, about the manufacture of hoists and gordeni. In order to make several hoists of the same size, I fasten a piece of a wooden ruler into clamps. I lay two strands in parallel on the scale, placing them at a distance slightly less than the width of the blocks and press them with clamps to the scale itself. To do this, I place pieces of cardboard between the scale and the scale. Then I place a pre-prepared block cheek between the strands and the scale, apply a drop of glue and cover the second one on top. At the required distance from the first block, a second block is made in a similar way, then the remaining hoists are made on these strands in the same way. After this, it is cut into separate waists. All that remains, as in the first method, is to straighten the ends, tie the blocks into slings and tackle, strengthen the assembly with glue if necessary, and paint the ends to match the color of the blocks.

Fair wind, I hope it was not in vain that I pressed the keys of my beech and someone will extract useful grain for themselves.

I think that it is suitable for building aircraft, cars and other models that use frames. Let's consider this method using the example of building the hull of a ship model. The theoretical drawing contains spacing and frame contours, as well as the intersection points of the DP and KBL lines.

Start manufacturing the body by preparing templates for frames made of duralumin or sheet metal 0.2-0.5 mm thick (can be made of textolite, getinax, electrical cardboard or plywood) with two holes at the intersection points: the first DP and KVL, the second - DP and VL. Drill them or pierce them with an awl. Then cut foam plates with a thickness equal to the spatula.

Place the template on the plate and use a thin drill bit to make two holes in the foam. Insert thin threaded rods into them, on the other side of the plate, put the template of the adjacent frame on them and tighten this block with nuts. Draw the ends of the frames with a simple pencil. Now if you run hot nichrome wire along the frame templates, you will get the corresponding part of the hull.

Disassemble this block and assemble the next one from adjacent frames, etc. For the bow and stern bosses, use rectangular pieces of dense foam. Process them by hand according to the bow and stern templates, also using the first and last frames. It is better to handle them with a knife, a sharp razor and sandpaper.

To make the work easier, I advise you to cut the block in half along the DP. When assembling the foam body, to fix the blocks into the holes, insert long knitting needles or thin tubes (if the body is long) and assemble all the blocks using PVA glue. If, when processing the blocks with hot nichrome wire, the foam shrinks, then after gluing the body, fill these places with paraffin and bring them to the required shape, in this case you can get smooth contours.

If shrinkage has not occurred, then the resulting body may suffer from such a disadvantage as angularity, but here sandpaper comes to the rescue. Sand the body, achieve smooth contours. Now it is ready for covering. A slight reduction in the body when sanding is only done by hand, since when pasting it will fit into the desired size.

The best covering, as is known, is currently covered with fiberglass (nylon) impregnated with epoxy resin. If there are complex contours such as rotating bodies or casings with damage, it is advisable to cover the entire body, and then cut out hatches for installing mechanisms. To increase the rigidity of the model, plywood (or cardboard) frames can be glued into a foam body. Manufacturing of deflector fans.

In the literature on ship modeling, the authors, when it comes to making this “tricky” part, most often suggest casting it from lead, sharpening it from a metal rod, etc. While the superstructure parts of a floating model must be light and durable, for example, made of thin plywood, electrical cardboard, aluminum, and plexiglass.

Of all the materials listed, I prefer plexiglass when making deflectors. Firstly, it is sharpened on a machine, secondly, it is more than two times lighter than aluminum (and also has a wide range of thicknesses, starting from 0.8 mm) and, thirdly, it is easy to glue. I make the deflector from two parts: one is a cone, the other is a cylinder. This simplification allows them to be turned on a lathe. First, make a rod with the diameter of the socket and drill it through the axis.

Then turn a rod for a vertical pipe and drill a hole as shown in the figure. Install the horizontal socket into the jig and drill a hole equal to the diameter of the vertical pipe. Trim the pieces if necessary and fasten them together with dichloroethane-based glue. Using a template, use a file to give the socket the desired shape and bore it into a cone.