Very few commercially produced Titanic lifeboat kits are known to exist on the market and the ones that do exist are all having major issues(errorneous hull designs, huge portions of details missing,etc). I once bought a kit made by Artesania Latina, the kit was so hopelessly inaccurate to the point that I find finishing assembling the hull along to be near impossible.
(the notorious AL kit)
One would need to abandon all these commercial kits and start from scratch, if he or she wishes to build a relatively accurate model.(saving quite some money in the process since these old and troublesome kits usually cost a lot) I started my scratch-building project after more or less having understanded how an actual clinker/lapstrake boat is built, most notably how the strakes/planks are processed. Since there are two important features of boat strakes which are often overlooked in commercial kit manuals: One being the plank's inner and lowerside where it overlaps another plank, such area needs to be slightly beveled(a procedure skippable on model boats provided that the adjoining planks are not near the boat's bilge area,where the hull has the sharpest curve) The other one is rabbeting/grooving the upper portion of both ends of a strake/plank,, in order to ensure a flush plank joint at the stem and stern post. Beveling the rabbeting the plank tips are quite essential even in model boats since neglecting such procedure would also result in uneven joints and sanding would not be able to remed the problem.
Figure 1 ,2 and 3 shows the cross section of adjoining planks near the stem and how it look like on model planks.
Titanic's standard 30ft lifeboat,which I've been modelling, has 14 hull strakes on each side,minus the top strake and gunwale(12 on the smaller emergency cutters),but due to some unforeseenable problems I only managed to construct a 13-strake hull. I'll adress the problem if I get the chance or time to build a second one.
Other features that are recently made are the rudder, a boat compass(placed on the aftmost thwart between two wooden chocks while in use), one or two water breakers(effectively small fresh water casks fitted under the thwart). Other provisions such as biscuit tank,oars,painters,dippers,row locks,boat hooks are currently on the to-do list.
A boat compass and two water breakers
A similiar boat compass
Olympic's lifeboat,with a water breaker visible.
B.O.T. official inspecting lifeboat provisions on board R.M.S. Olympic.
(the notorious AL kit)One would need to abandon all these commercial kits and start from scratch, if he or she wishes to build a relatively accurate model.(saving quite some money in the process since these old and troublesome kits usually cost a lot) I started my scratch-building project after more or less having understanded how an actual clinker/lapstrake boat is built, most notably how the strakes/planks are processed. Since there are two important features of boat strakes which are often overlooked in commercial kit manuals: One being the plank's inner and lowerside where it overlaps another plank, such area needs to be slightly beveled(a procedure skippable on model boats provided that the adjoining planks are not near the boat's bilge area,where the hull has the sharpest curve) The other one is rabbeting/grooving the upper portion of both ends of a strake/plank,, in order to ensure a flush plank joint at the stem and stern post. Beveling the rabbeting the plank tips are quite essential even in model boats since neglecting such procedure would also result in uneven joints and sanding would not be able to remed the problem.
Figure 1 ,2 and 3 shows the cross section of adjoining planks near the stem and how it look like on model planks.
Titanic's standard 30ft lifeboat,which I've been modelling, has 14 hull strakes on each side,minus the top strake and gunwale(12 on the smaller emergency cutters),but due to some unforeseenable problems I only managed to construct a 13-strake hull. I'll adress the problem if I get the chance or time to build a second one.
Other features that are recently made are the rudder, a boat compass(placed on the aftmost thwart between two wooden chocks while in use), one or two water breakers(effectively small fresh water casks fitted under the thwart). Other provisions such as biscuit tank,oars,painters,dippers,row locks,boat hooks are currently on the to-do list.
A boat compass and two water breakers
A similiar boat compass
Olympic's lifeboat,with a water breaker visible.
B.O.T. official inspecting lifeboat provisions on board R.M.S. Olympic.
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