Princesse Loane Trawler Build (cont.)
Once the hull was built and sealed, I was on my own since the downloaded plans only had a few visual pictures of what the cabin and pilot house look like. Since there were good views of the side, I could accurately place where the cabin structure would sit. Using my Autosketch CAD program along with the Cricut Maker Machine, precise paper templates of the Deck pieces were made before actually using the machine to cut the wood for the deck. The deck consists of 4 pieces: the Fore and Aft deck along with two mid sections which fit under the cabin portion.
Once the deck pieces are glued into place, the "Hold" is made by cutting the crossmembers of the ribs, and making a small wall from strip balsa where the cabin will rest. The Hold area gives access to the battery, motor, controller and receiver as well as the servo for the rudder. There is also an access hole for the rudder linkage in the Aft deck, which has its own hatch.
Using auto body spot putty, all cracks and gaps between the deck pieces and the walls of the deck are filled to further waterproof the top. The picture showing the open hold was taken after the cabin and Pilot house structure was built. It also shows that the inside walls and top of the hull was finished out with basswood.
The remaining pictures show the different angles with the cabin and pilot house attached.
I didn't take any pictures of the cabin build, since I was just "winging it". But I think it came out fairly well. I basically built a rectangle box of balsa around the "hold" frame of the deck and at a height that looked correct with the plans. With this sitting on the deck, I centered and glued the two cabin top pieces to the rectangle. When dry, I then cut triangle pieces to form gussets between the cabin structure and the top of the hull so that these would form to the curve of the hull. These gussets then support the angled sides of the cabin when they were glued in place. I also did this similar type of build for the curved front of the cabin. Thin balsa is then attached to form the curved and angled areas.
The pilot house is just a very simple structure of 1/8" balsa. There is a cut out between the cabin top and the pilot house so navigation light wiring can be added. The top front of the pilot house shows the cut outs for these lights. The rest of the detail pieces are all just bashed up pieces of balsa and metal tubing.
I really appreciate the thumbs up and positive comments so far.👍😊.
You can see a picture of the Princesse Loane's first float on my harbor page. When I figure out how to post videos, I will add that as well.
Until next time...