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| Block Island Boat "ISLAND BELLE" plank on solid by Don Meadows | ||
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Moderators: Winston, aew
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| Author | Post | ||
| Don M |
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 Registered Member #4431 Joined: Mon May 26 2014, 07:41pmPosts: 9 | I know, I know I am supposed to building the 6 Gun Cutter LEE, and I am! However I saw the plans for this little dream and was interested. When I read her history I knew she was mine! This little build would also give me some plank work of which I have never done. Lap strake to boot. (If you're gonna go, go big!) The entire model will be from raw materials. Total cost about $10, maybe. The Island Belle was one of maybe 50 or so "Block Island Boats." She was mostly open except for a small area planked in to form a small cabin. and her cargo area could be shut. She carried beach rocks for ballast which could be tossed over the side. Interesting huh. She was 23 feet long and drew 5 feet of water. She was two masted with no shrouds or stays. What got me about the Belle was what she was used for. For a number of years she was the only means of communication between Block Island and the mainland. She carried the US Mail, packages, live stock, Grandfather clocks, wood the list goes on. No big deal except for the fact that this little work horse would make that trip in any and all weather! It seemed nothing the sea could throw at her mattered much. It was said that ships would ask the Belle to Go out and see it was safe. That is what hooked me big time. A boat and a crew so dedicated to their job they went and did it. It is rare these days to find that kind of dedication to duty. So in loving tribute and hope she will not be forgotten here is my build of the "ISLAND BELLE." I enjoy building a small model. Of course with 24 years on submarines I had to learn to do everything compact. I chose plank on solid for a few reasons. The model is small, and as this is a first planking attempt I wanted a good surface to practice. I found these plans. The text of the book gave a vague description and no other pictures except by a line drawing and the plans. I did about a week of looking into Block Island Boats. I found next to nothing Belle, however the other items I found helped me at least make some educated guesses. I do not know if I just did not look hard enough, but I could find nothing on how the boats were painted. So in another of my self lessons I will be using fine woods to bring her back to life. I travel some and when I can I find bits of this wood or that wood. I have some walnut from the tree at my Dad's place. Some maple from back home in WVa. I even found some scrap Mahogany from a dumpster outside a cabinet manufacturer. My poplar is plentiful. My wood sits in the garage curing and waiting for whatever I have in my warped little mind. Cherry is my favorite and my oldest son has a few behind the house. I transferred my plans to tracing paper, then using my band saw I cut the top and profile. I made a set of templates from card stock and began carving. Remember when you guys said never trust the plans till you check them? Well seems I forgot about that. The hull was not looking the way I thought it should and the mid section make Belle look like she was expecting. I check the plans and sure enough the stations lines were not in the same scale as the profile. Lucky for me the lines were bigger. I corrected the templates and carved her out. As she was mostly and open boat and I also wanted to show what she looked like inside I hollowed her out. I will fine tune the thickness as the planks move up. The stem, keel and stern post were then made from maple and Tiger wood, to give a hint of contrast. While I was at it I also made the rudder out of scrap bass. Got the pieces all in place and they looked so very nice. Never did a scarf before. However there seemed to be something vital I was forgetting. Hummm maybe it would come to me later. I prepared mahogany planks for the bottom strakes on the band saw. I made a special fence attachment for cutting my planks to.....to....well pretty darn thin. However when I tried to spit them in two the band saw ate them. So I made a simple jib to accurately spit them into 2.5 MM widths. Oh boy......time to plank!! I studied all I could about lap strake planking. I thought this would be a breeze. Why all the fuss about planking? 4 hours later and a small pile of splinters later and not one plank in place the thing If forgot came back to me. RABBETS! Ugg. So with nothing to loose, I chucked up one of my small triangle diamond cutters in the ole moto-tool. Just knowing disaster was looming I took the time to take some sheet aluminum and cut out the profile of the keel, stem and stern piece as one unit. I calculated the angle and using a small bevel gage I filed the angle of the Rabbet. I held the template in place and ever so gently used it to guide the diamond bit. Wow that worked out pretty good. I stated planking and it was going great except for the third plank, which just did not want to play. She he went off to the kindling bucket. So that is where I am now. More Later!! Keep a zero bubble! Going Deep! Torpedochief           [ Edited Sun Jun 08 2014, 03:20am ] | ||
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Arthur   Registered Member #1929 Joined: Wed Nov 30 2011, 03:05pmPosts: 3070 | That's a nice bit of carving! I made the ships boats for Gulnara in a similar manner; they were also clinker built, but I only used the solid hull as a former and removed it when the planking was complete. The method I found to work best for getting the planks to lie correctly was to use superglue/CA to attach a plank close to the stem only. When that was set I could soak the plank and bend it down the rest of the way along the hull. I then glued it in place with PVA glue. | ||
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