Fleet boat deck

[uss silversides]

Sorry! I meant .030 x

Sorry! I meant .030 x .030

[tom spettel]

The formica idea sounds interesting!
I

The formica idea sounds interesting!
I have a 1/48 fleet boat waiting for a
deck. give us more details
Tom

[uss silversides]

The thing I have against

The thing I have against the Formica is cutting the right sized pieces. For my 1]http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]) lined end to end would stretch well over a mile!!! For a 1]rosemonthobby[/url]
and as Jim Butt recommened, glue the tiny strips to one big sheet of styrene. Would love to see some pics of your sub!

Jonathan

[kd6hq]

There is another option that

There is another option that I have seen on e-bay recently. The deck was engraved. The person who is selling it created a drawing in a CAD software program. The CAD program output the file in a format that could be used by the engraving machine. Thus the deck was made. So I guess depending on your recourses you could do that also. The deck he created was for the USS Bluefish by Dumas.

[boatbuilder1]

I used wood from micro

I used wood from micro mark on the same scale boat for a customer this year and have heardnothing about warpage or rot to date I sealed the wood with stain and wood sealer (dope) then 4 coats of paint and used the 1/32 it is a bit of a test in patients marking out the lines for gluing and getting them glued on with out and waves and leveing the hatch covers open gives good venting I used G10 as a base for the deck and marked out the hatches and other items and drilled then filed the hatch covers square and also drilled a line of hole from bow to stern in the center of the deck
if you want a few pics email me and I will be hapy to show them I am unsure of how to post here
I came up with a neat system to keep the deck widht constant and removeable as the deck needs to be removeable for the instalation of the wtc

chuck

[scott t]

Could Formica be cut on

Could Formica be cut on some type of sheer?
Paper or metal sheer.

Haven't checked how thick Formica is; maybe .040; but maybe
cutting strips and stack them on edge in a jig and run a belt sander or file across them to get a straight edge.

How would you get a straight edge?

[uss silversides]

Hmmmmm, sounds interesting. But in

Hmmmmm, sounds interesting. But in my opinion it still seems very tedious. I think I like styrene better.

Jonathan



Edited By USS Silversides on 1069087413

[tom spettel]

I can check on that

I can check on that for ya tomarrow.
I have a cabinet shop in my delivery
area and i know the guys will know
about cutting formica.
Tom

[tom spettel]

OK here it goes... i

OK here it goes... i went to my fiends cabnet company and talked to him about cutting formica in thin strips. and he told me that his machines that cut the stuff have a minimum cut of 7/8" he has two machines both are run off of c.a.d one is a saw and the other kinda scores the formica. He told me that any cut in thin strips as thin as we are talking about here would be tough
since formica is very brittle. it sounds like a good idea but its a little hard to cut, but if anybody has
any other idea's let us know...
Tom

[kd6hq]

Have you considered using PVC?

Have you considered using PVC? You can find it in 1/8" x 1/8" x 60" at http://www.mcmaster.com/ search for item # 86660K27

[bigdave]

I feel there are two

I feel there are two main rules in model submarines, #1 If water can find a way in, it will. #2 Never use real wood in a model submarine. When I built my 1/48 fleet boat I wanted to go for realism so I decided to make a real Teak deck. Starting with a 4inx72inx1/2 piece of Teak. After 2 weeks of carving, sanding, sawing, and lots of Dremel bits. I had a solid one piece Teak deck that I had to cover with black paint to be scale. I looks good an I know it is Teak but it was a pain in the A--. Even with the paint the Teak will suck up water and its oil still comes out. Never again! Dave.



Edited By Bigdave on 1069272184

[bob the builder]

What about laser-cutting the formica?

What about laser-cutting the formica? Any reason that a laser wouldn't cut it?

[scott t]

PVC sounds like a interesting

[color=#000000]PVC sounds like a interesting idea. My brother made a musical instrument out of pvc pipe. He sanded and stained it, and it looked just like wood.

Another idea may be to take sheet streyne and scribe it with an exacto knife blade with the tip broken off to a square. I used a straight edge and pulled the blade the length of the deck on my lindberg PT boat model. It acctually looks like individual boards. All it needs is to be scuff sanded litely, painted and washed with some diluted black to hilite the raised board area, and scuffing for wood grain effect.
Experiment a little. ]

[JWLaRue]

Laser cutting the formica will

Laser cutting the formica will work.

In the past, I did some test runs before deciding the photo-etching was the way to go for my Type VII decks. I still have a couple of conning tower decks cut from formica.

-Jeff

[uss silversides]

What kind of laser? http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/icon_question.gif

What kind of laser?