Fully detailed and painted, the scratchbuilt lighter is ready to go to work along the industrial harborfront on the author’s HO scale layout. MODEL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
Scratchbuilding a B&O RR stick lighter: Pt. II
This month we cover building the barge/Tom Griffiths W
e started our B&O stick lighter project last month by presenting drawings and
building the hoist, hoist house and crew cabin. In this issue, we will begin work on the barge. The barge is, I think, the easiest part of this project, even though with its deck shaped by compound curves it looks quite difficult. Since the deck is made of individual planks, the com- pound curves do not cause the prob- lems that would be the case if using scribed basswood sheathing. In addi- tion, the finished product looks fantas- tic. To save some time while waiting for the glue to dry, you can pre-stain all of the stripwood that will be used to cover visible portions of the model. My local craft store (Michaels) carries thin plywood sheet, and this is what I used to create the interlocking “egg crate” form over which I placed the hull sheathing. I wanted to use plywood for
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
this part of the construction because of all the half-lap joints I would be mak- ing. The basic core consists of three lon- gitudinal stringers and nine cross pieces, all cut from ¹₈″ plywood. It really, really helps to own, or have access to, a small hobbyist’s table saw. You could cut all the pieces by hand, but to cut all the half-lap joints accu- rately will be tedious, to say the least. Lay out three stringers, getting the dimensions from the plans. The center stringer is 5′-3″ high above the water- line at its extremes, and 4′-6″ high at the center. The 9″ difference is due to the gentle curve of the sheer line. Cut three pieces from the ¹₈″ ply that are a scale 80′-0″×5′-3″. The grain should run lengthways. I marked them with the letters P (port), C (center), and S (starboard), and also mark the ends as to B (bow), and S (stern). Next, make a sheer line template from light cardstock (I save the stiff
cardboard pieces that come packed with computer photo paper for uses like this) and lay out the sheer line on all three stringers. The sheer line is at the top of the center stringer, but six scale inches lower on the two outer stringers. This will create the camber of the deck. You can now lay out and cut the slop- ing ends, being sure to work from the bottom edge of the stringers. Working along the bottom edge, lay out nine lo- cations, evenly spaced, to position the transverse bulkheads. The positions of most of these bulkheads is not critical. However, one of them, probably No. 7 if you are following the plans, is critical! On the center stringer, lay out the po- sition of the mast. (It should be plumb, or at worst, have a very slight lean towards the stern.) The No. 7 bulkhead needs to be installed so the forward face will be flush against the rear surface of the mast. The center stringer will need to be cut out later forward of this bulkhead so
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