| The plans from VTH (Verlag für Technik und Handwerk) that I had used were horribly inaccurate. My hull matched the VTH plans perfectly, but when compared to the original SMS Deutschland drawings, the hull that I had put 8 months of effort into was too narrow at the stern, too wide at the bow, the entire hull was 10mm too high, and just to finish it off, the stern and bow that I have spent hours carving from laminated hardwood were completely the wrong shape. Well that's just great. I was momentarily discouraged, but if anything, angry at a company like VTH for selling such useless and inaccurate plans. A search on the internet revealed several SMS Schlesian that people have built using these plans, no more accurate than a toy boat. Giving up after all this effort was out of the question. What I had to decide now, was how to fix this mess. I decided to approach it, one step at a time to make my hull completely accurate. The first and most serious problem, was that the entire hull was 10mm too high. How could I possibly make a clean, accurate, straight cut across every single hull station as well as the top of the bow and stern? |
Bringing it Down 10mm
A power saw would not work in this case, so I decided that I needed to make a jig, so my hand saw would ride across a hardened steel flat rod. It would destroy my saw, but at this stage, who cares? I clamped the jig onto each station and sawed away. It worked brilliantly and I was able to trim a perfect 10mm off the entire hull. So the hull height now matched the SMS Deutschland drawings, being 13.0cm from the bottom surface to where it meets the actual deck, with a slight rise at the bow to 13.9cm at the very tip of the bow. And it did ruin the saw.
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