Random boat thought...Vertical Lofting???

[Ethan]

...as in lofting on a vertical surface instead of the floor.

I know it's been done - folks around here have made references, etc. My question is, what special considerations, equipment (the damn ducks keep falling!!), etc have people found necessary/helpful?

[W. Marks]

Great way to go! Saves knees, back and more importantly, floor space and you have access to it any time during construction. Buy a bunch of ice picks with wooden handles, tape is also useful at times to hold battens tight against the surface.

[Nelson]

My guess is that anything over about a 20 footer, and you will need to do it out of doors or remove a portion of the roof.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

[clifonef]

Originally posted by Ethan:
...as in lofting on a vertical surface instead of the floor.

I know it's been done - folks around here have made references, etc. My question is, what special considerations, equipment (the damn ducks keep falling!!), etc have people found necessary/helpful?

[Wild Dingo]

Ethan me ol cobber vertical loftin Ive thought about constantly over the years and I reckon this is the way to go

First get ye some ply boards enough to cover the length x breath of the boat design plus extra say 4ft every direction... lay it out face side down and join them together with say 2 x 1 battons then flip it over holdersbolders so now youve got your lofting serface... okay so now attach some hook eyes to the top edge batton (note here this I reckon should be about a foot or so from the edge of the top of the ply) okay done that? so I reckon the go would be to now loft the boat totally onto the ply as one normally would

{yeah yeah the knees but we know Ethans a young fella so whats he worried about his knees for eh? its only us ol pharts with clicky dicky knees thats gotta think of gettin some young fella to do the crawlin for us)

Now I reckon if we now run a rope or two from the beam of the shed down through a pulley affair to the hook eyes at either end of the lofting surface and hoist away ye swab!

push her over to the nearest wall and bung her fast with some bolts through some areas that do not have the lofting on them

WHALLA!! Eureka one vertical loft to refer back to without havin to stand on ladders and set up flamin scaffolds so you can be a pretzel as you try to run that lofting batton the whole flamin distance along that sheerline!

anyways thats the unedjoomakated untried way Id do it I reckon :cool:

[LazyJack]

I actually have lofted on a vertical surface, a 23 foot boat and it did have some distinct advantages most notably space savings and keeping it clean. The only bugaboo was making sure that the lofting board is smooth and flat, no humps or hollows in your panals or at the joints or it is really difficult to sight a fair line. I did really miss gravity...not to bad if you have two people working the ice picks and batten but single handed I found it a bit awkward and I was less likely to tweak the batten around in search of the sweetest curve as it had a tenancy to spill away from the wall.
But that was all a long time ago...

[Stephen Hutchins]

For small boats, we could use projection (an overhead projector), as some artists use. It would be big enough for stems and sections.