Dolphin 16 Cabin Cruiser (Mechano Magazine 1967) Plan included

[Tamiyacowboy]

before you read please visit : http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=25841989&postcount=13

here you will find the correct scale plans. download the PDF and print onto 9 A4 pages.

Tape together and you have your plan and layout. 

i have also dug out the original magazines online so you can read the full build:

 

http://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1967-01/mm196701#page/n5/mode/2up

 

http://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1967-02/mm196702#page/n9/mode/2up

 

i do advise you print three copys, one to use and cut out, one for reference and one for your plans tube.

 

 

You WILL need as a shopping list 

 

4x 14x3 3/32" sheet balsa or obeche ( to skin your boat)

4x 1/4" balsa sheet to cut your frames from.

some wood filler from hobby store

some sandpaper

SHARP N11 craft blades and handle

Superglue and or wood glue

 

now you want a good few balsa strips/battons. maybe use obeche as gunwale rubs and/or rub rails.

 

1/4" square

3/16" strip

1/16" strip

1/8" beam 1/4" beam.

 

to give you an idea on how the plan should look when finished.

 

 

 

Some tips: 

 

on some boats you will see planked decks and hulls, you will tend to find a balsa sheet skin, then the

planks are glued ontop. 

On some decks you will notice those lovely black lines between the planks, this is more on the older woodies as we call them.

to get this effect you can cheat somewhat by using a black marker pen and coloring in the planks sides and ends.

when glued inplace you can sand down the deck and finish with a lovely clear coat varnish/epoxy.

 

this model would have run an old nitro/electric outboard motor but you can still add a rudder and propshaft as you please.

or just build for fun and as a mark of your model crafting skills .

Edited August 17, 2013 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

 

 

 

so here is the frame sets and a moddfied keel dry fitted. 

Always dry fit your frames and keel, make sure they are all square and true.

with the frames in place on the keel your boat starts to take shape.

 

from the front to back there are 6 frames. on this cabin cruiser frame three has a large panel , this blocks of the

inside of the cabin to the outside. on this boat i wanted a more norfolk broads type look with an open cabin,

usually a canvas cover flips over and keeps those onboard dry.

 

Also notice this cabin cruiser has no prop shaft or stuffing tube. you have two choices, run an inboard motor

or find a old 1960-1970's electric outboard motor and hence this is what i shall do find a nice mercury or ervinrude outboard.

 

now the hard part. the cost. the price at the moment stands me into around

[Tamiyacowboy]

Quick update: 

 

i went to my local hobby store to get my balsa sheet and likes.

now i am all for my local hobby store BUT, when i pay

[Tamiyacowboy]

well i am back after the me and my Johnson lol, hope you had a giggle at the video heading.

are you happy with your johnson lol.

 

anyways lets head back to our 1967 cabin cruiser construction. 

there is going to come a time when you fit your chine stringers. 

or any type of stringer. they are not very flexi and snap. so a kettle will be your next best thing. 

 

the three images show you the hull frames fitted with chine stringers. here i used superglue.

its quick and fast setting is a bonus, BUT you must be sure to place your spar bang on perfect.

there is no ungluing once its inplace.

 

 

 

 

Now a little helpful handy section. 

 

take your superglue and have it ready. start up the kettle and take your stringer in your fingertips.

about a 6 inch gap between your two sets of finger tips. now as kettle come up to the boil and switches off.

hold your stringer into the steam vapour, WATCH THE STRINGER its going to kind of shrink but also become sort of flexable

you will know what i mean, just keep a good watch on it and as you steam it move along the length and bend with your fingers.

 

your will notice it starts bending so go careful. take off the steam and offer up to the hulls stinger notches.

take your time here. once you have the bend and curve you are happy with we will glue it.

 

start at the rear and dab superglue into the transom stringer notch set your stringer in and let it dry off.

now gentley add glue to next stringer notch and seat your stringer in. keep going all the way to the bow.

 

now take a good earned rest and have a cuppa tea/coffee, and admire your stringer work.

also get ready to start steaming your topdeck stringers in the same way.

this time we will glue from the front bow and work to the transom.

 

well times to go steam some more stringers, and i shall be back soon with another update.

 

toodle pips and tally ho !!

[Tamiyacowboy]

hey Ho back again with the last of todays installment 

 

so we steamed some stringers and fitted them to the chine notches.

and we should now have steamed some more stringers.

these deck stringers are called gunwale stringers. 

 

so lets see how they should be fitted and how no to fit them to the bow and how they should fit to the bow.

( the bow is the front of your boat and the transom the rear, just incase). 

 

 

 

 

 

now look at the last two images the deck/gunwale stringers are fitted correct they but upto the bow.

the chine stringers are NOT fitted correct, so remember think twice cut once, dont cut glue then think what you have done.

 

well there we are, those sheets of balsa look like a boat and a fairly smart looking one to.

so if you want to be one awesome dad , grabs some wood and tell your lad " hey son let us build a boat"

then using this quick guide throw up something you can both do together on cold winter nights.

 

well thats it for now, i shall carry on with some more of the build very soon.

[scrumpy jack]

Really enjoyed reading that, reminds of the days I used to play about making balsa aircraft....could never get the hang of covering with tissue and dope though....the wings always ended up horribly warped looking forward to the next installment.

[Tamiyacowboy]

thank you scrumpy. 

 

next installment we move onto skinning the boat, using the sheet balsa and a natural property of wood.

to help us get the curves we need, we can steam the sheet or we can sheet up with grain running vertical.

 

well i have to pop and shove the camera onto upload images , have been busy today,

cut out the deck sections, have them prepped, steamed a sheet to conform some curves i wanted.

downloaded a new project for everyone to tune into, lets just say american river boat style build.

and as usual links to the plans and a follow by pictures build.

 

anyways toodle pips and tally ho back soon !!

[Tamiyacowboy]

well hello again, are you ready to skin your boat hull.

first off lets grab some tools to hand

 

a good decent pencil

a ruler

your craft knife with a new N11 blade, always use a new blade.

your balsa sheet

superglue and clamps/elastic bands ( big ones, or masking tape)

 

first off, we CAN bend large long sheets of balsa using the steam method but they will only curve so much.

you can see from the images below , we have reached the max curvature this sheet will produce, its very close

but not enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

Now you can see that is very close but if your try to push it more the sheet will start to break along the grain.

if you try to force the curve you will break your Chine stringers and or crush your gunwale stringers.

so here is what we shall do . we will use the sheet and cut it so our grain runs up and down.

these panels will be glued into place. 

 

Now when you cut these panels you must allow a overhang above the gunwale stringer and the chine stringer.

we will fit our decking and then trim down the overhang and finish with a gunwale strip.

same for the chine, but here we will cut it then sand it flush to the keel panels.

 

 

here we can see the paneling taking place notice how the grain runs up and down, this allows us the bend the wood naturally

, balsa has a knack of slightly curving along the grain, so we use this property to our advantage.

DO NOT skin one side then start the other, one panel on left side, one panel on right side and work along each side 

left-right-left-right. this way we help keep a straight and even keel. as the glue drys it can warp the frames

if you do one whole side first. so take care.

 

 

 

well here we are four panels fitted each side , i have run out of superglue so i will show you how to

skin the bow panels later ( i will not forget ).

notice how the panels are raised above the decking line when the deck is placed and crafted/sanded to fit.

we will glue it in then sand away the side panel overhang. we will finish around the top with a strip to hide the join.

we will also be adding a rubbing strip this goes mid way from the bottom of keel it stops boats sides being scratched.

the same for the gunwale rubbing strip.

 

so there we are nearly but there is a lot more one can do, the skin we have placed down can be the main boats skin or

we can now lay fancy beech-cherry-ash planking. the skin gives us a nice flat surface and smooth contours to follow.

like the posh wooden boats you see. or the old cris craft barrel racers.

 

well hope you are enjoying this boats construction and is maybe fueling your own ideas or winter build.

toodle pips and tally ho till the next time !!

[Thorpey69]

Great thread will be following with interest now,thanks for taking the time to post this.

[Tamiyacowboy]

you are welcome thorpey.

 

a little advice. smaller boats are a little more awkward to skin and finish. the same goes for aircraft. 

 

you can use tissue and celulose dope to cover your boats like we do our airframes. but skinning with sheet is quicker.

the bigger the model the more easy curves you tend to have. a 24-30 inch cabin cruiser would be more easy to steam 

spars for and even sheet in large panels. 

 

if this is your first build do not be afraid to pop me a mail or shout a question, have a problem or just unsure

i will try to help best i can. Model choice is key, so a small cabin cruiser is going to be more easy for a newcomer

than something like a full blown fishing trawler etc etc.

also a simple design is always going to teach you wood working, and how to eyeball and hand carve parts.

the more you spend building the better you become. 

 

once you have one model under your belt, construction become more easy and you find your racing ahead.

 

Bending spars, we can cheat a little with hard wood stringers and spars, but also balsa. No steam. but we will use rubbing alcohol.

places around 25 fluid ounces into a sealed drainpipe/waste pipe, let your wood soak for a while.

when removed the wood will be more flexable as the alcohol does its job.

good thing is you can use superglue when this wood is still wet. 

the alcohol thats left can be put back into a container for use again later on.

Another household product is Windolean , spray it onto your balsa, and let the ammonia

in the product start a chemical reaction inside the wood making its soft and plastic'y.

 

good night and see you soon for the next installment.

[Tamiyacowboy]

hey hey hey we are back again. grab yourself a ladys nail file

those ones that are fine paper one side and red course paper on other side.

you will use this a lot and makes for quick and easy sanding in hard reach places.

 

so we fit those last plates around the bow. we want to dab glue along the boards seam

that buts to the previous panel and also a bead of glue along the sides of the stringers.

now gently allow the panels edge to but to pervious and set.

now gently curve the board as you guide fingers along the top and bottom sides of the stringers and panel.

it will curve natural as we use the grain running up and down, once done do the other side the same.

 

par of the leftover overhand from all the side panels once glue has set and stood for an hour. you should have something like this.

the two image below show our hull sided parred down and sanded flush to the stringer rails. dont worry about nics in the panels we can fill these later and sand

 

 

 

 

So next we added some side panels in the read deck area and also a fake floor in the cabin area as seen above.

Remember that womans nail file i told you about, you will use that to sand down your frames, as you may notice they will stand somewhat proud

so take a nail file and sand them down like you can see in the image below. the left side is sanded the right side the original shape.

also note the sweep to the chine, this little hull will plane up nicely and turn good to with them sharp chines.

 

 

 

 

 

well now she is starting to look like a boat, i bet you did not expect something so ugly as a block of wood,

could start to turn into something fairly good looking for a first ever time build.

 

so whats next, well we need to finish our hull with some sheet, we also need to mark out join and cut a top deck

and we need to make our cabin. but i need to do some experiments to see how we will finish the bow curves

so you guys do not fall into the problems i am having. i think we will be doing some rubbing alcohol steeping soon.

 

well next installment i think we will cut the topdeck get it glued down in place and cut out our cabin sides and roof.

so until then toodle pips and tally ho !!

[chewbacca]

You'll have to change your name to Leroy Jethro Gibbs lol

[Tamiyacowboy]

You'll have to change your name to Leroy Jethro Gibbs lol

 

thank you young whippersnapper ,

 

i like to see these types of skill kept alive, and passed on to sons and the likes.

technology may one day send us back into the dark ages and skills like this will be much needed.

 

this boat cost me all in like

[Bonez]

mate you got skills! well done to you for keeping them alive as well bud

 

unfortunately i havent got the skill to build something like that haha maybe one day i may give it ago

 

i'd like to build something bigger tho, i love the really big scale ships etc maybe a canal barge!

[chewbacca]

thank you young whippersnapper ,

 

i like to see these types of skill kept alive, and passed on to sons and the likes.

technology may one day send us back into the dark ages and skills like this will be much needed.

 

this boat cost me all in like

[Tamiyacowboy]

well we are back with another installment. 

this time lets start to make some impact on the eye.

we shall now sheet some of the bottom. 

 

word of warning i would say if your building this, at the same time as myself.

you will need to sheet from transom to frame number 3 ( counting from bow to stern/transom)

 

now what you are going to do is take a sheet. eye it up along the keel and mark where frame 3 sits.

infact make the centre of frame 3, one mark where frame three joins keel and a mark centre where frame 3 sits on the chine stringer.

you should have a nice little panel and the grain runs up and down along the keel.

Take that panel and flip it over, now check and see how it fits the other side of the hull from transom to frame 3.

now if like me it is a good fit, so glue them both into place.

 

you can use superglue here, or better still your wood glue but you will need to use rubber bands and likes to hold panels 

into place while the wood glue sets. ( Go the wood glue route if i was you).

 

OVERHANG !!! your going to have an overhand , do not worry, as our grain runs up and down along the keel we can trim this away with a knife very easy. TAKE YOUR TIME !! remove to much and you cannot put it back so slow and easy, think shaving that sheet down to the edge of side panels. use your ladys nail file it .makes short work and gives you a lovely flush and sanded finish.

 

In the images below notice i have left the wings on the panel as i par away from the transom to the bow,

i sand as i go along so i have less work, more tea drinking time lol.

 

 

 

 

So image 1: 

 

you can see how the transom gets cleaned out from the overhang, panel by panel.

take your time here and use the ladys file as i mention above.

 

image 2:

 

notice our grain on the balsa sheet runs long ways, this gives us a little flex and the sheet contours to the frame three shape.

you can also see the curve of the hull starting to form up.

 

image 3: 

 

here we go from a flat transom to a curving hull and bow, you can see the definite curve being formed as 

we go along. 

 

 

well thats it for today, go grab a cool one or a nice cup of your fave hot drink.

sit back and start to admire what you have created.  grab some tracing paper and trace out your

cabin sides and sections 7 and 8 from plan, your going to want these later.

 

toodle pips and tally ho till next time !!

[scrumpy jack]

looking really nice now, would be having a go at this as well if I had any sort of spare time at the moment.

[chewbacca]

You should be filming this and putting it on YouTube.

[Thunderwolf]

You should be filming this and putting it on YouTube.

this ^

[Tamiyacowboy]

No work over the weekend going to have a little break and get the plans sorted for the pushboat.

 

But i do want to teach you how to ebonize wood the cheap and easy way. 

 

you will want some :

 

white vinegar 

a brillo pad OR some wire wool , a iron nail. if brillo pad you will need to wash it to remove the soap, a used one is better.

and maybe a teabag steeped in water for a good hour or so before

 

now place your wire wool into your jar and pour on your vinegar.

around half way should do. now wait, but DO NOT put the lid on.

after a little time you should notice the mixture start to form baby bubbles.

these are hydrogen so do not play around. just leave mixture for around 24/48hrs.

untill it stops making hydrogen.

 

now take your wood, depending on the tannin content of your wood we will have a chemical reaction take place.

grab a good few sheets of paper towel. dip a single sheet into your liquid and wipe it onto your first wood face.

throw the towel take a new one and dip again , this time doing a second face, each time a new towel is used

we NEVER double dip incase if contamination.

 

now wait and watch what happens, it may start right away or it may take a little time but the wood will start to blacken up.

that opaic black you see in ebony , frosty black. , do ok you say but mines not even a shade of gray.

remember that steep tea, give a towel a dip and a wipe onto your wood surface, then put a coast of your soulution on with a new towel.

Tea has a lot of tannins in so it gives the reaction a kickstart. 

 

hey presto you just made ebonized wood effect.

[scrumpy jack]

^ that is a new tequnique to me...very interesting indeed. I hope you get a picture up of this 'ebonized' effect up soon, I can think of a couple of uses for this. Does it work on different types of wood equally well or does it have to be a very absorbant wood like balsa?

[Tamiyacowboy]

most woods will work but for the black-black effect your wanting wood that has a good high tannin ratio.

mahog - balsa and the likes will have high tannins, but other woods may lack so thats where we add the tea

steep mix.

 

test a small area unseen, if wood does not give effect you want right away ( leave an hour to get full chem reaction.)

you can then give the wood a wash with a towel dipped in the tea, then a new towel to swipe your solution on.

the tannins in tea will start reacting.

 

if your not happy at all , sand and/or plane the piece down and start again.

 

little tips from the trade, when i left school i got myself a job in a joinery.

was a saw mill boy, used to work with the huge crosscutter saws hulking block and 

plank, we would cut and plane it to length , then send it down the line to joiners to be made into windows

doors and even pencils.

the old chaps were a blast at dinner time, a game of footy and a yarn about the tips n tricks used.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

Well am back with a small update and a couple pictures i will add in the evening.

 

now if your following the plans you could be somewhat lost. your not seeing any bow curve.

nothing like my images. but do not worry. you will use two balsa blocks.

these will glue direct to frame n1 and make your bow.

 

there is one tool i highly recommend any new comer to building buy, 

a David Plane , this is also called a razor plane sometimes. we use this palm plane to trim away and put curves

into our wood, it will allow you to carve your balsa very fine. and let you do it without making a mess of the bow.

remember your first boat is not going to become some uber model. but your next ones will.

so if the bow looks a little wonky dont worry. i had planes looking like a bomerang , but hey they still flew abit lopsided.

 

well i have pressed a damp form into a small sheet of 2.5mm balsa, took a boiling kettle a paper towel and hot hot hot fingers.

very damp balsa then compressed to the form and gently worked as it cooled and set.

need to pop to maplins and grab a can of ISP 170 ( isoproply alcohol in a spray) , this will let me

bend the balsa even more. a few sprays and 5 mins to work its magic the basla should become very flexi. 

just like it would if we used ammonia.

I also skinned the topdeck bow area, i was way off cutting the rough shape for the decking. i messed up so had to add a couple 3mm stringers

centre line of the keel/bow. but its good. sanded down and also saved the sanding dust/sawdust i will use this with woodglue for a filler.

 

well thats it for now i will pop a couple images up this evening to show the nearly formed steamed plate and the bows topdeck.

toodle pips and tally ho !!

 

 

kept to my word here is the hull bow plates in place and sanded for profile curves.

Under the two bow plates sits the keel laid down date. when we build a ship/boat we mark our keels

with the date they got placed down on the board and fitted with frames. 

we also sign our work to  hence under the thumb is the model makers name.

 

it will be sealed away until a plate is replaced or the hull is damage to much for repair.

only then will the maker be unmasked

Edited August 24, 2013 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

Well its late but i took some more time and plugged away at the bow plating and got it all glued down.

it needs some extensive wood filling and sanding down to a nice profile but it is ok. 

not pleased but its done. 

 

next is the cabin and cabin roof, then i can seal it and shelf it.

 

 

[Tamiyacowboy]

right am back again. 

 

have been slowly bashing away and now have topdeck nearly fitted. i just have two small end sections to glue in place ( i ran outta glue again)

i have also cut the cabin sides out and also the windows in the cabin sides. 5" ratchet clamps helped lots here

clamping two sheets together i made one cut and have two side panels.

 

next i need to cut out a roof top and window fairing flange, and get my booty down the shop for some more superglue.

i shortened the cabin sides to i did not want them running all the way back to the transom so i have them swooping down to midway between frames 4 and 6.

the front of the cabin sides sits about an inch or so forwards of frame number 2. 

 

pictures will follow when i have a tidy area and some not so bright sunlight. so keep tuned in

to see how the whole cabin cruiser starts to finally take its finished form.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2013 by Tamiyacowboy