zelatore
11-21-2008, 02:06 PM
Since I'm at home today I thought I'd snap a couple pics of my 'favorite' boat.
My grandfather built this from plans for a 1932 Ed Monk design. Overall, it's about 18" long (1'=1") and lives on my dining room table.
I'm not sure where he got the plans; sometimes he gets them from places like Wooden Boat magazine, sometimes he takes pics of a full size boat somewhere and scales it back then lofts his own drawings, and sometimes he just builds from memory.
As a young man, he worked for years in a small marina on the Ohio River in Evansville, IN. He later opened his own shop on Lake Barkley, which he moved to Cadiz, KY in the 70s. He sold it in the late 80's or early 90’s – I don’t recall the exact year.
As for the model, I'm amazed at the level of detail. I could never pull this off. Pretty much everything but the prop he made by hand. The hull planking and stringers go together exactly like a full size boat, except he didn't screw the planks to the frames, he only glued them. Although knowing how detailed (anal, some might say) he is I wouldn't have been surprised if he had told me he made then installed hundreds of tiny screws and bungs to cover them.
The gauges are wood blocks he painted, glued down a paper 'face' with needle for the front, then floated a drop of clear over the front to create the lens.
Note the 6v battery, complete with actual wires; the rule-type bilge pump with rubber hose going to a thru-hull; the spark plugs with wires; the copper fuel line running from the tank in the back to the fuel pump; even the tank vent to a thru-hull on the stb. side. Just about everything is cut from wood, even the 'metal' parts which he covered with a rub-on silver leaf type finish. I believe the rub rail, prop, shaft, and fuel line are the only metal parts on it. The seats are wood (because 'I don't do upholstery'); and the coaming bolsters are split pieces of wire sheathing.
The sled it sits on is modeled on one of the service skids they had at the first marina where he worked as a mechanic. They'd pull a boat onto it, then use a tractor to drag it up the bank.
I know some of you either have an appreciation for old boat or are model builders in your own right. I don't know how long it took him to build this model, but it was (is) his favorite. He's built quite a few models over the years, but I'm lucky he chose to give this one to me. I suspect it's because I'm the only person in the family still working in the boat business.
My family isn’t especially close. Plus, I live on the other side of the country, so I don’t often see any of them. This boat is my touch-stone to my grandfather and probably my single most prized possession. It's about 10 years old now and holding up pretty well, although I did have to re-glue part of the bow rub-rail after it's trip from TN to CA when he gave it to me a few years ago.
Fair warning: the pictures are big.
My grandfather built this from plans for a 1932 Ed Monk design. Overall, it's about 18" long (1'=1") and lives on my dining room table.
I'm not sure where he got the plans; sometimes he gets them from places like Wooden Boat magazine, sometimes he takes pics of a full size boat somewhere and scales it back then lofts his own drawings, and sometimes he just builds from memory.
As a young man, he worked for years in a small marina on the Ohio River in Evansville, IN. He later opened his own shop on Lake Barkley, which he moved to Cadiz, KY in the 70s. He sold it in the late 80's or early 90’s – I don’t recall the exact year.
As for the model, I'm amazed at the level of detail. I could never pull this off. Pretty much everything but the prop he made by hand. The hull planking and stringers go together exactly like a full size boat, except he didn't screw the planks to the frames, he only glued them. Although knowing how detailed (anal, some might say) he is I wouldn't have been surprised if he had told me he made then installed hundreds of tiny screws and bungs to cover them.
The gauges are wood blocks he painted, glued down a paper 'face' with needle for the front, then floated a drop of clear over the front to create the lens.
Note the 6v battery, complete with actual wires; the rule-type bilge pump with rubber hose going to a thru-hull; the spark plugs with wires; the copper fuel line running from the tank in the back to the fuel pump; even the tank vent to a thru-hull on the stb. side. Just about everything is cut from wood, even the 'metal' parts which he covered with a rub-on silver leaf type finish. I believe the rub rail, prop, shaft, and fuel line are the only metal parts on it. The seats are wood (because 'I don't do upholstery'); and the coaming bolsters are split pieces of wire sheathing.
The sled it sits on is modeled on one of the service skids they had at the first marina where he worked as a mechanic. They'd pull a boat onto it, then use a tractor to drag it up the bank.
I know some of you either have an appreciation for old boat or are model builders in your own right. I don't know how long it took him to build this model, but it was (is) his favorite. He's built quite a few models over the years, but I'm lucky he chose to give this one to me. I suspect it's because I'm the only person in the family still working in the boat business.
My family isn’t especially close. Plus, I live on the other side of the country, so I don’t often see any of them. This boat is my touch-stone to my grandfather and probably my single most prized possession. It's about 10 years old now and holding up pretty well, although I did have to re-glue part of the bow rub-rail after it's trip from TN to CA when he gave it to me a few years ago.
Fair warning: the pictures are big.