Small Craft Advisory, making lifeboats and such

I have mentioned in several posts that I needed to add boasts to my model warships and never got around to adding them. I have fund a bit of time and decided to build them rather than adding another larger model. The materials needed are simple; heavy card stock and a strip of  one inch wide  balsa about 3/32 thick, a razor knife,  a pencil, a pair of scissors, and a ruler are that is needed by way of tools.

 

the first step is to draw out the sides of you boats on the card, 

I used sides that are one inch high

 

next step is to cut a bottom out of the balsa strip, 

shape it roughly with the razor knife and sand it to the final shape

 

cut a strip of card

 

fold it at the center and crease it firmly

 

then fold it again about 1/4" back, fold this both ways 

add a tiny amount of glue

 press firmly, the glue dries very quickly

 

the creased bit will provide your stempost

  

a thin bead of wood glue and then stick the sides on

fold the end around and trim to form the stern

 I decided to make a longboat as well

  by tracing the smaller boat onto the balsa facing both ways

I formed the bow but had to fit it very carefully so that the stern would line up

 for once I measured twice before cutting!

 only a tiny amount of glue

 it dires even fasdter if you spread it thinly

 and press firmly for a few seconds

 then I fitted the bottom into the sides to be sure it fir properly before gluing

 two boats in about ten minutes, not bad

 then I added seats by cutting strips of card

I folded these over a bit of the one-inch balsa so that they were the right width

then creased them sharply

 

before gluing them in place

 

I wanted the smaller boat to have an enclosed bow so I traced the bow onto a bit of card

 and cut it out

 then I feathered the edges and creased them

  then I glued it into the bow

all in about an hours work to make three boats

     As with the ship models these are wargaming toys and are designed primarily to work with 28mm figures mounted on pennies but the techniques would apply to models for 15mm as well.