17th Century Battle Station

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This project takes a bit of a different approach and uses some techniques not generally seen in the hobby. The Admiral and I own a home business making wedding and anniversary gifts. Our investment into this business allowed us to purchase both a CNC machine and a 60 watt laser. I have recently begun to take advantage of these tools within the modeling hobby. I have partnered with two of my long-time modeling friends Dave "Doc" Blake and Don Robinson to scratch build not just 1 but 3 examples of a 17th century battle station based upon Jeff Staudt's plans. The models will be in 1:32 scale and exhibit the following features:

- Use of both CNC and laser for the fabrication of parts. In some cases parts may be fabricated using a combination of both tools.
- Over 200 parts - all architecturally dimensioned for perfect fit including the planking. Very little manual cutting, sanding, or shaping.
- Experimental laser etched details to include properly scaled treenails and the use of laser char to simulate plank caulking.
- Paint-with-wood. Entire model built from various custom milled hardwoods. No paint or stains will be used (we hope). Thanks Dave!
- Hand turned brass cannon and custom fabricated metal work. Thanks Don!
- The use of Google Sheets for real-time collaboration of technical details such as part numbers, dimensions, machine specs, etc.
- Much more ...

Prior to starting this log, we did a bunch of work up-front to include:

- Imported all of Jeff's drawings into CAD software, cleaned them up, made corrections where needed
- Rendered each of the parts for either CNC cutting or laser cutting... or in some cases both
- Test cut prototypes of all 200 parts in poplar and basswood
- Assembled the prototype taking extensive notes and making updates to the design where needed
- Created a spreadsheet of all 200 parts to enable selection of hardwood types, machine method, and grouping

Our next step is for Dave to work on hardwood selection and milling while Don turns the 9 brass cannon required for the project.

Attached are a few pictures of the prototype. We are very excited to share this with you and hope you enjoy the ride.

Mike Shanks
Dave Blake
Don Robinson


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This is really nice Mike. I like the simulated treenails as well. Did you CNC mill the wreath around the gunport? If so, excellent job and touch. Thanks for sharing by the way.

Bob

Thanks Bob!! A lot of the basics are techniques the three of us learned from your practicums. Yes, the military wreath is a 3D CNC rendering using a 1/16" tapered ball nose bit at 14,000rpm. The model in the picture is only the prototype... just wait till you see it after the Doc's and Don's treatments!!
 
there is a kit available of this project on model ship builders also I just sent masters for the cannons to have production molds made for casting resin cannons.
I do think the plans and the kit has a copyright held by model ship builder.

Yes the practicum and drawing are free for anyone wanting to build the model, they are NOT free to reproduce them or to create a kit from them.

http://modelshipbuilder.com/page.php?131
 
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I can draw those in 3D and have them 3D printed in high resolution plastic for you if you're interested. Takes maybe 30 minutes to draw them both. I would just need the various dimensions or a scale drawing with dimensions.

Bob
 
G'day Don, he might be having a problem, his post states that it was posted 10 mins before mine, but when I posted mine the last post was the one by Bob, mikes wasn't there.

best regards John.
 
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