Building a (Very) Little Giant - a 1:12 Scale Model of Peaceful

[Tom Freeman]

Some of you may have looked in on my restoration thread (http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?110427-Restoration-of-a-1939-Richardson) over the past couple of years where I've been documenting the work we are doing on our 1939 Richardson Little Giant. Now that we have the restoration to a manageable point, we are starting a new project - a 1:12 scale model of the boat built from scratch. I decided to post the project here for a few reasons.

I'll be collaborating on the build with my father-in-law, Clark Stewart. Clark looked after Peaceful for about a decade before passing her along to us. He knows the boat inside and out, and since he lives in Knoxville, TN the forum is a good way to keep in touch on progress. I will be doing most of the structural bits and Clark is going to focus on the hardware and scale details. He is a masterful modeler, so I'm really looking forward to working with him. He should chime in here shortly.
I'm already learning some things I didn't know about the boat as a result of researching the project. Others may get some value from the resources we are discovering.
I'd like to employ similar building techniques as were used on the full scale boat where practical and useful. Since I've never built a boat, I imagine that you guys can offer a lot of suggestions.
I'll be posting our progress so far over the next day or so to get caught up on the work we did when Clark visited over the Christmas holiday. In the meantime, here are our Reference Photos (https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=73c3d186ab4d5c7e&resid=73C3D186AB4D5C7E!151&parid=root). You can check these out from time to time to see how true we are keeping to the full scale.

And so it begins, with this end in mind...

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p03-SvdYAUPSs5y9rBdpK3Zh01G0VZ4sMuXsnYc9rvTtqn1h693LOV xU3oOufdu5-ofSgp2zPE8BghrLa3feC-w/Clark's Visit 047.jpg?psid=1

[P.L.Lenihan]

Very nice project Tom ! One question however; the accommodation plan and the profile drawing appear at odds with each other. Do I need my eyes checked or is something amiss?

Looking forward to following along this neat thread over the winter months!



Cheers!


Peter

[Tom Freeman]

Very nice project Tom ! One question however; the accommodation plan and the profile drawing appear at odds with each other. Do I need my eyes checked or is something amiss?

Looking forward to following along this neat thread over the winter months!



Cheers!




Peter


Hey Peter,

I'll get to that momentarily. As of this moment, we don't have a complete set of factory drawings for this particular design, so we are having to cobble the plans together from the versions that we've been able to find. I have some hope that the museum at Mystic Seaport may be able to help, but not sure yet.

Tom

[Tom Freeman]

As Peter noticed, we don't have a complete set of drawings for this particular model. In 1939, Richardson built 8 different models from the same hull. Clark remembered that there were a couple of exterior profiles in the book "The Richardson Story." So we scanned those and then imported them to Visio and enlarged them to 26" to be the correct scale. Here are the line drawings we started with.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p35U4yAu1eeFARu0_QgCNMeS9qqzj9j8E04Bfp_a54o1ciDP 0V_94emsMlvawHAS8m4UbGRjeHCyVhWfL8B7B2g/Side View Scaled.jpg?psid=1

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pjfxYiRDg8mS7YNW5OWmu87X51VzKGXgmDxnrffbYowAd_qw CXxx4-gzKHMNODek_L9_eibf5lT57WLJDOXo5AA/Hull Outline 1.jpg?psid=1

We then looked through the hundreds of pictures we have from 3 years of restoration work and selected the best exterior profile shot that we could find. This is the one we chose.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1p03-SvdYAUPSs5y9rBdpK3Zh01G0VZ4sMuXsnYc9rvTtqn1h693LOV xU3oOufdu5-ofSgp2zPE8BghrLa3feC-w/Clark's Visit 047.jpg?psid=1

I spent the better part of a day before Clark arrived trying to create a 3D Drawing using Google Sketch-up, but found it to be way more time consuming than doing it the old fashioned way. More on that shortly.

[Tom Freeman]

Clark spent his entire career teaching drawing at the University of Tennessee, so the next bit was a no-brainer for him. He used my sliding glass door as a "poor man's light table" in order to trace the useful bits from the two line drawings from the book.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pVaRI0h-Qwn3Yufbw8mAzbSETDlJxmuMdoujhO3-J1-Pa0-JhKk5sKp0UL8z87gw9JdZWLtS9tNgS5nQFqZSwKg/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 002.jpg?psid=1

Once he had the basic hull outline completed, he reversed the profile photo of our boat and used it to create the cabinside outlines. In order to do this, he traced it first on the backside of our plan drawing, and then retraced it on the forward side to create a mirror image.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pVaRI0h-Qwn0Mgi0bMH8gkciwPs6bjnn9y3H62rrnh2N4F1aERizs5de0y k3HGVb7Yb4iBsHzMesXtTI7rZ4BZA/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 003.jpg?psid=1

Then he spent another couple of hours adding in all of the hardware and details based on measurements of the boat that we took the previous day. After about 4 hours of drawing, we had our initial plans scaled to 1:12.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pfRp1jzryy5AuqBkCdfTn2HG-7Y9szc0VgCat3TardnCeCidXSQy4m7trwaY3LP8hc5ZTb_4-ykaWhBYfmD5iiw/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 005.jpg?psid=1

[Tom Freeman]

The stickiest part of the plan development is the lack of a set of hull offset drawings. Had I been thinking about this project 3 years ago when I had the boat torn apart, I could have gotten a lot more direct measurements. Today, not so much. We were able to take direct measurements of two of the main forward ribs at about 36" and 60" aft of the stem that gave us a starting point for the hull shape at the bow. I still hope to get a good set of factory drawings including the offsets. John Bowman, the historian at the Richardson Boat Owners Association remembered that a lot of the early designs were drawn by Eldredge-McInnis and subsequently modified by both Richardson and Sparkman and Stephens. He suggested that I contact Sparkman and Stephens First and then check the Museum at Mystic Seaport. I got an immediate response from Sparkman and Stephens, but unfortunately, both of their designs were larger and later models than our little boat. Still pretty interesting reading...

http://sparkmanstephens.blogspot.com/2010/12/design-349-richardson-31-power-cruiser.html

http://sparkmanstephens.blogspot.com/2010/12/design-478-richardson-33-power-cruiser.html


I moved on to the plans library at Mystic. The Eldredge-McInnis Plan 94.12 looks interesting. Unfortunately, they are somewhat understaffed to deal with all of the inquiries they get, so we won't know if this is the right set of drawings for 3-4 weeks. Still a great resource. Plan
94.12 at the Mystic Seaport Museum (http://library.mysticseaport.org/manuscripts/coll/spcoll094.cfm)

[Tom Freeman]

I'm getting a little ahead of myself with the story line. Prior to kicking-off the research on the original plans, Clark and I decided that we should try to model the hull shape from florists foam and then if needed, we could cut it into 1-2" slices athwartwise and use each segment to create a proxy for the hull offsets. We had the direct measurements from the forward stations to use as a couple of reference points and the hull outlines to get the profile correct with respect to width and depth. We had to glue up a few pieces of foam using thickened epoxy to get a rough starting point to work from.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pTcFn_A4IJeEU07Z8u7cd9qcSBxX0BjU7qLDOFgYr1WgjP3b SQH4I4ehjyNLropLd1BanrXSgL6Yz09VV151gYA/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 008.jpg?psid=1

Clark then sawed the rough shape. We sawed the form athwartwise at the appropriate stations and used templates that we created from our direct measurements to get the offsets right at those points.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pZPTZbwBNz5x9AbHCP8xWdz4NW6YMWte99CBvAke6xvCuVTv KdWuNnlWfuUwIorBbWpfqUy2ooY7mnWj_VVGfGQ/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 009.jpg?psid=1

Clark continued to do the rough shaping until each of the segments were roughed in, and then we glued the slices back together.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pcN4DDZ21QrFR3Ok11gU6unLXAXA3g4Hj7W6eBqxQAncPozy 6gaN7WdKO_5JyO1fWm1FlwrzzY5IJy01Wfc-91g/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 015.jpg?psid=1

A lot of filing, sanding with various blocks and by hand got us to the final shape that we were happy with. I'm not sure yet how long it will take to get all of the foam fragments out of my shop. We think that even if we don't get a good set of drawings that we can cut this form into slices and then average the halves of each slice to get a pretty respectable set of offsets.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pmoTnQQWboSR3ykZkjTCKYIncuNPyiJcKC1OUllIp4gJ9Du_ A9-pZARbk_6EvR6HCJj0ASlYMkqwMDQ3aBT4fdQ/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 018.jpg?psid=1

[Tom Freeman]

We are now caught up. I'm in the process of laying a couple of coats of light spackling on the foam form so that I can finish sand it to fair it and smooth it prior to giving it the salami-slicing treatment. Coat one of two is pictured below.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pVaRI0h-Qwn1QdWnLSZ8NgSpA0nLTavqZALn0DHRSoZQwmFVbN0EaRhRnk y5h7dinFjGu3sXqpbA5lCmAVNFp-Q/Little Peaceful Drawings and Hull Form 019.jpg?psid=1

[C. Ross]

Tom what a great project! Thanks for sharing!
I have had a desire to do the same with my boat someday, and have been slowly the lines off her for that someday project!
Keep sharing, please.

[Tom Freeman]

Will do Cris. I wasn't sure how many folks on here would enjoy a model boat project, so I'm glad to hear that there is some interest.

[moTthediesel]

Very interesting Tom! I'm currently doing just the opposite, modeling a boat first in 1/12th scale with a view to (maybe) building in 1' to 12" scale later.

Here's a few pictures:

Foam poster board section molds set up on blue board strongback:

http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu236/motthediesel/molds.jpg

All planked up:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XYmbSRVeiOk/TvyQOqPWZII/AAAAAAAAAZM/lWNEe_LRy6M/s720/IMG_1610.JPG

Tunnel stern:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xekPX8pA-iU/TvyzmevlYfI/AAAAAAAAAag/KXXGk_jD8l4/s720/IMG_1608.JPG

You can draw a boat on paper, or model it on a computer screen, but I think nothing beats actually being able hold it in your hands, feel it's shape, and eyeball it from every angle.

Good luck with your model -- I'm looking forward to following your build!

Thousand Islands Tom

[Tom Freeman]

Very cool, Tom. You are doing a nice job with your build. Looking forward to seeing more of your progress!

[moTthediesel]

Thanks Tom, it's been great to see all the good work you've been doing on the full size boat too, it's nice that it has found such a good friend so far from home in Buffalo!

As a future source for foam carving blocks, don't forget about dock floatation billets. They are BIG, so no need to glue them (makes them hard to shape along glue lines) up first. When I rebuild my older docks with new floats I always save my old billets for that purpose -- if you weren't 3k miles away I'd be happy to give you some. :<)

T

[Tom Freeman]

That's a good idea on the floatation billets. With all of the floating homes and docks around here, there has to be a pretty good supply of surplus. The green florists foam is easy to carve and shape and it resists epoxy resin, but it is pricey. And you are right about the glue lines causing problems. We ended up with some hard points along the glue lines that were a real PITA to file and sand.

Another good find - Clark looked through his old issues of "The Cruisabout" (the quarterly newsletter of the Richardson Boat Owners Association) and found a set of line drawings for our model that shows both the profile and the interior accomodations. A nice add to our reference drawings.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pofpGS0tH7-X2RHCvvtGjlM7PCz6k6F02x8WgVbs2qrTTVewBM3yfbE1Umrw0 A2iLzJ83BOcFx_eIRxuQq9C9Xg/Very Little Giant.jpg?psid=1

[donald branscom]

Thanks for sharing your photos and the story about your project.

[Tom Freeman]

I hoped to make some more progress on the hull this weekend, but life got in the way once again. We had to say goodbye to our little cat who has been with us for 17 years. We were a mess for the rest of the weekend. We did get out and about today, and I got the plans that Clark drew scanned and copied. Clark, I will drop a full-size copy in the mail later this week. In the meantime, here is an image to give everyone else a sense of where we are starting.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pDNHddEVetkv6AvxDbKnD-3MnlWaz6oPU7eT59QX8dV4BA0FnGt_csAlAyrADvzQIUThykeh Ab-gc9URj1GnivQ/Plan View.JPG?psid=1


As luck would have it, the Classic Yacht Association is holding the International Change of Watch Meeting in Mystic next weekend, and one of my friends has agreed to stop by the museum and take a look at the drawings there to see if they match our boat, so we may be able to move that forward sooner than expected.

[chuckt]

Amazing Tom. I am once again blown away by your attention to detail, patience, and meticulousness (is that a word?)

[Tom Freeman]

Thanks for the kind words, Chuck. Clark is the master at the drawing bits. I'm in awe every time I watch him work.

The prop arrived today from Dumas Products. It looks great. Very pleased!

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1py8pkYcaTIGziIWKSVYm-7Vmd3YjI-57WnF35p8xuP23KaOaJopALgayCOSx5AZwi3gdX5nZKsFNxgIQ pDFq93A/Old Engines and Model Boat Prop 009.jpg?psid=1

[jsjpd1]

Neat project Tom, thanks for sharing your progress.

Jim

[snow(Alan H)]

Hi Tom
I'm hooked - I'm a bit of a 1/2 model collector & have a few pond yachts as well so this is very cool for me.

I just posted on your 'big boat' thread an idea that might be of interest to you. Check it out

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?110427-Restoration-of-a-1939-Richardson&p=3263207#post3263207


Cheers Alan

[Tom Freeman]

After procrastinating for a decent bit, I finally made time to rough sand the spackling back on the hull form and have a look at the initial shape.Before getting started, it looked a bit like a frosted cake.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pYO-Ht_0E_Q7w7v3VA1dcfvEQQV-2bIjIvMjm3pEO1fUAMVLMuGFCfWqvHX4akJw5ESKWzOIDR8F3Q zRMORxo0A/Continued Hull Shaping 001.jpg?psid=1

Clark mentioned to me earlier this week that something looked off about the transom. He was worried that we hadn't angled it down enough toward the keel. When I looked at our reference drawings more carefully and took some relative measurements, it turned out that we were about .7 centimeters too shallow and about .5 cm too narrow at the turn of the bilge. So I re-drew the transom to match the reference photo and created a new plywood template. The innermost lines on the drawing is where I started and the outermost is where I ended up.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pGP0CYv1nHX_mE1Xe9U-L-EUsP5im1zqRc3PkNYiB_-uZk_s5uNXoe3UxCYr3Lup_ZKOvhju5VHYCpHBI2Qz_Uw/Continued Hull Shaping 007.jpg?psid=1


I then epoxied the template to the form to create a good outline to fair into. It was pretty obvious that the aft 1/3 of the hull shape would need to change.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pOGTJ9ensmtkY5aBjJlZavjCM3i2HfD1opHV4PNPtc7KaGmH K31TxthTt3vKoXCq_z7c5_SHMxHFjNiHG3T2IEw/Continued Hull Shaping 004.jpg?psid=1

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pU4Edt1AQ5W8y0Nsg7WDaAO3fQJeOoPZS0LvYNNPp5TgBdfR tlP6hgRkRjSvRQLQMcE_KR-Vu-u0DOZpZzT30JQ/Continued Hull Shaping 005.jpg?psid=1

Finally, I got back to work with the mud and faired the hull shape into the new transom profile. Now waiting for it to dry. It will probably take at least one more pass of mud to blend everything properly with sanding in between coats.

https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pU4Edt1AQ5W_03mgH5Ml1C0_QFdw2r64ihOBt36CuSusGxKE yht4ShvXvSmj-eTP2trcQkGtKNpAv9IKnkUzOeg/Continued Hull Shaping 006.jpg?psid=1


I haven't heard back yet from the crew that went to Mystic over the weekend to see if the plans there matched our design. I'm still secretly hoping to get a good set of drawings so that I can put this bit of foam and spackling in the corner of the shop and forget about it. Of course you know that even if I do get a good set of drawings, I will still finish this exercise to see how close we were able to get without a good set of plans. We are supposed to get quite a bit of snow here over the next couple of days, so I may be able to sneak in a couple of hours of shop time when I would otherwise have been commuting.

[WX]

Please excuse the thread drift Tom but are those Corsair plans on the wall?
https://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pTcFn_A4IJeEU07Z8u7cd9qcSBxX0BjU7qLDOFgYr1WgjP3b SQH4I4ehjyNLropLd1BanrXSgL6Yz09VV151gYA/Little%20Peaceful%20Drawings%20and%20Hull%20Form%2 0008.jpg?psid=1

[Tom Freeman]

Please excuse the thread drift Tom but are those Corsair plans on the wall?


Yes, those are the Royal 1/8 plans blown up to 1/6 scale or 81" Wingspan. I was just getting started on that project when the boat showed up unannounced 3 years ago and put everything else on the back burner. Since then, my shop has been dedicated to stripping, painting and varnishing boat bits, and everything else has been on hold. I did manage to complete the retracting tailgear. If I think of it, I'll post a picture here.

[WX]

I'd like that.:)

[Tom Freeman]

Here is a link to my tailwheel (http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7433838) in primer. If you want to go deep on modeling a Corsair, you can follow that thread for a couple of hours.

[WX]

Here is a link to my tailwheel (http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=7433838) in primer. If you want to go deep on modeling a Corsair, you can follow that thread for a couple of hours.
Thanks Tom, I had leanings toward building a scale RC Spitfire Mk VIII one time but it never happened.

[Tom Freeman]

I did hear back from the curators at the Mystic Museum, and it looks like the drawings there aren't going to be particularly useful. I cross-referenced them against the Richardson Story and they appear to be the drawings of the original 26' cruisabout design that was initially produced in 1927. The design went through several significant revisions before the Little Giant was initially produced in the early 30s and then a few more before our model was produced in 1939. So it was a fun research project, but it looks like I need to get back to shaping our hull mold. It's amazing how slowly spackling dries in a 40 degree shop. Here are the details from Mystic. Maybe item #2 - the undated offsets for revised lines will be applicable, but I doubt it. I sent our line drawings to the staff for comparison.

CATALOG #94.12
Eldredge-McInnis hull #107
Richardson 26 Footer
Cruiseabout
25’11” x 25’6” x 8’4” x 2’


1. Lines and offsets, 3/4” = 1’; August 1926. Note -- new sections, sheer and water line shown dotted
2. Offsets for revised lines; not dated
3. Deck beam plan, 3/4” = 1’; September 1926
4. Construction sections, 1 1/2” = 1’; August 1926
5. Inboard profile and cabin plan, 3/4” = 1’; August 1926
6. Outboard profile and cabin plan, 3/4” = 1’; April 1927
7. Outboard profile and deck plan, 3/4” =1’; September 1926