Half Model of Sailing Boat

As a boat owner you want to have a half model of your boat at home. I wanted to buildt one in an easy way without 3D software or 3D printer, just with my equipment i have in my little wood workshop. Mainly i used a band saw and a belt sander. But anyway the model should show my boat.

If you don't own a boat you might buildt a half model of a boat you dream from.

Matereial you need:

• a block of wood, one side (back side) should be flat or you glue some layers together like i describe below
• a piece of ply wood as base plate
• some pieces of aluminium for mast and boom
• Color spray
• Color foil
• wood glue
• carbon paper

Tools you need:

• band saw
• belt sander
• sandpaper
  

Take a brochure of your boat and check the drawings in there. Minimum you should have a top and a side view. Choose a scale for your model and copy the views to the size your half model should be.

My model has a lenght of the hull of 27cm, the real boat, a ETAP 23iL 7,36m.

I glued 3 pieces of beech together wich gave thickness and lenght a little bigger than the model.

With carbon paper (i hope you know what this is) it's easy to draw the contour through the paper to the wood. This you do with the top view and the side view. If you don't have carbon paper you can glue the views to the wood.

Both views must be aligned.

With the band saw you cut now the side view and afterwards the top view. Now you have a very rough model of the hull in hand. I decided to have the superstructure as separate part, buildt in the same way as the hull.

With the belt sander remove carefully the edges to come closer and closer to the hull shape. If you have front view or rear view of your boat you can check the shape.

You should have a nice piece of wood now with a good shape in hand now. Next step will be hard, because we have to cut the hull in 3 pieces to buildt the cockpit. See in the foto the pieces 1,2,3. In piece 2 with the band saw you create the cockpit seat and bottom level.

Afterwards glue it together again and sand the connection by hand to have smooth hull again.

Also glue the superstructure to the deck. Now the model should represent your boat already.

The details you should limit to a minimum. I only added keel and rudder in wood, part of the mast, boom and bowsprit in aluminium. It is a litte bit tricky to cut an aluminium tube in the middle.

First spray with clear paint. You might see some imperfections in shape and correct by sanding again like i did. Afterwars i put 2 layers of white color on it. For the grey and red stripes i found self adhesive foil. This is much easier than painting them. The underwater part i painted with real underwater color, a rest from my boat.

A piece of plywood with clear paint gives a nice maritime look as base plate for the model. Just glue all pieces to the base plate. At the rear you should add 2 hangers to fix it to the wall.

After finisdhed this steps i decided to add details like wood in the cokpit and the entry and just black foil as windows.

Not perfect, but self made and family and friends really like it.

Try your own, you will be proud of the result!