Boats for Pulp

[odd duck]

A while back when carving some balsa into dugout canoes I experimented on some other pieces of balsa that came in the scrapbag I'd bought for the purpose this led to my first San-pan and my chinese harbour for the build contest,and an unfinished hull for a small motorboat.unfinished because I got a little heavy handed and gave myself a nasty gash on my palm with the utility knife! After letting it sit on the workbench for over a year I finally decided to get back to it.


I widened the ends of the interior at the bottom to make more room for figure bases
(it can hold six figures mounted on pennies) and made a deck out of basswood to cover some of the rough surface caused by hollowing out the hull. etched a caulking pattern(?) copied from a photo of a 1930s motorboat on the deck and a groove for the windshield.Made the windshield from an old figure pack painted the edges gold to simulate brass  left the deck etch lines unpainted used folkart english mustard for the decking and sprayed with some polyeurothane then glued it to the hull which i painted white






I'm planning to make a removable interior with seats to use when ther are no figures in it

[Ironworker]

Really nice work!  I like that you made them deep enough for the minis to "ride" in. 

[odd duck]

Ok as you may have noticed the post is boats not boat I was so happy with the first one I had to make another,so I planned a motor patrol boat to chase the first one!Started with a 8'1/2 long 2'by1'piece of balsa  (the size was determined by what was in the grab bag) measured and drew the centerline and then the shape of the bow.Cut out the bow shape in stages going in 1/3 the thickness of the piece at a time this gives more control of the cut and is I believe safer.


It also allows the last cut to be made from the bottom which was required because the wood was thicker than my utility knife. A quick sanding to smooth out the cut lines and then cut the verticle angle of the bow and redraw the centerline(which I should have mentioned earlier is drawn on both sides of the piece)


then carve and sand thefinished bow

now I measure out the dimensions of the interior to be hollowed out

[Sangennaru]

quite amazed by your precision with the sanding paper... great work!

[odd duck]

As I had'nt finalized the deck layout at this point I hollowed out more than was really needed (but hollowing larger sections is easier)

getting it to this stage from selecting the wood took about five hours split between two days.Having come up with a rough layout of the finished model in my head I started working on the deck

and cabin

I forgot to take photos on the last few stages but here are a few as the project stands now






Not really a historical representation of any boat just a generic gaming piece to be used as a Coast guard , Navy,Harbour Police or warlord's vessel as required by the scenarioI'm hoping toget the details and armament on thee two finished soon

[ushistoryprof]

Looking good, has the real feel of the Pulp Era.  Thanks for the step by step pics.

Prof
----------
http://worldhistoryprof.blogspot.com/

[Stu]

Inspirational

[Burnt65]

WOW!
Very nice work!

[Wirelizard]

Those look great, I especially like the smaller runabout!

How did you get the carved-out sections so neat? Even along the bottom of the carved areas you managed to get it smooth & flat!

[odd duck]

I ran the flat end of a chisel over the bottom a few times to get the big bumps out then used sandpaper to finish.It's smooth but  not completly flat there is a slight wave to it

[odd duck]

Got around to making the removable interior for the speedboat

the bench seat was origionly going to be apolstered with greenstuff but a test fit showed it was sitting higher than intended so rather than redo it I carved the seat cusions in! i also had the posts for the front seats to far forward hence the extra holes


checked to see how many figures I could get in with pennies and cut out the front seats from scrape basswood

another test fit  and the paint

looks like I should be able to get five figures mounted on pennies in
only one less than without the insert!I used a brass nail to make a flagstaff at the stern ,now I just have to find a steering wheeland then I can but in a dashboard.

[Axtklinge]

Great job!
I'm almost making up an excuse to need to build a couple of them myself!
 

Cheers,
A.

[Aaron]

Nicely done. The big one looks ideal for smuggling Canadian whiskey in to the bootleggers!

[Hupp n at em]

Very nice!  Quite impressive work and excellent results. 
Jim

[whill4]

Nice job. Your boats are cool.