On this forum I mainly live in the model train section's logging minning and industrial section, bit I do do some things outside of that sub catagory, and I love wood, and have a loot of tools for working with. Years ago I was walking through a Hobbly Lobby, and saw an acadamy plastic model for a Roman Warship on sale. I bought it, and while studying it had the thought; "This is cool, but it's too small, so I used the plastic model as a guide, and built this creature. This was my first atempt at plank on frame modeling; is did not build the upswept stern, frankly because I had no idea how at that time, I got fancifull with the face and the tail.
this construction photo shows the construction details. It is built with yellow poplar, with a urathane based spar varnish finish, the dark wood is cut from the hearwood, and the lighter wood is cut from the sapwoodwood i, the deck is stained. I have a four inch tablesaw, an old Dremil saw that has been heavily modified. the planks are glued down with Leach F-26 glue, and nailed down with model RR spikes, which I nipped the sike heads off of. Trying to get the ram right was an issue, so I gave up and went full bore fantasy on it, some teeth are painted on, other teeth and the horns s are rurned from brass, shaped and soldered, and applied into holes drilled into the ram, and secured with epoxey
In this photo you can see the painted face before the teeth and horns, and without the removeable deck. the deck and the tower have a base of model aircraft plywood. the deck has yellow poplar planking on top, and the tower has stone "Blocks" made of stained balsa wood glued on to the plywood frame inside and out, so the plywood is completely covered and invisible
Some might ask, does it float. that was the plan. I built it for RC. just like me, I was way too ambitious, never having worked with RC before. I did build a mechanism to make the oars work, whith each bank powered by a sevo tith the stops cut out, so it would create a circular motion. my mechanism, and the other radio gear was too heavy though (or the model was too samll. I have been removing a lot of the excess structural wood inside the model to reduce weight, and hope to build a newer ,simpler, lighter mechanism, in hopes of terrorizing the local waterways with this little monster
a link to a video, and another showubg the failed mechanism
Bill Nelson
this construction photo shows the construction details. It is built with yellow poplar, with a urathane based spar varnish finish, the dark wood is cut from the hearwood, and the lighter wood is cut from the sapwoodwood i, the deck is stained. I have a four inch tablesaw, an old Dremil saw that has been heavily modified. the planks are glued down with Leach F-26 glue, and nailed down with model RR spikes, which I nipped the sike heads off of. Trying to get the ram right was an issue, so I gave up and went full bore fantasy on it, some teeth are painted on, other teeth and the horns s are rurned from brass, shaped and soldered, and applied into holes drilled into the ram, and secured with epoxey
In this photo you can see the painted face before the teeth and horns, and without the removeable deck. the deck and the tower have a base of model aircraft plywood. the deck has yellow poplar planking on top, and the tower has stone "Blocks" made of stained balsa wood glued on to the plywood frame inside and out, so the plywood is completely covered and invisible
Some might ask, does it float. that was the plan. I built it for RC. just like me, I was way too ambitious, never having worked with RC before. I did build a mechanism to make the oars work, whith each bank powered by a sevo tith the stops cut out, so it would create a circular motion. my mechanism, and the other radio gear was too heavy though (or the model was too samll. I have been removing a lot of the excess structural wood inside the model to reduce weight, and hope to build a newer ,simpler, lighter mechanism, in hopes of terrorizing the local waterways with this little monster
a link to a video, and another showubg the failed mechanism
Bill Nelson
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