Down to the Waterline

The newly cut waterline hull alongside the wharf at Aquia Landing. It's hard to photograph as it is so big. 

Tonight, I glued in the plywood deck to the styrene hull. I used a combination of CAA and Wellbond. Before I did that, I reinforced the area of the hull where the deck meets the hull sides with a strip on 1/8th by ¼ inch basswood. The area near the paddlewheel in particular needed some stiffening.

Marking the waterline. 

Once the CAA glue had a few minutes to set, I marked the waterline using various thickness boards to get the hull at the right attitude with respect to the nearly flat bottom keel. The deck at the bow is about 1/8th inch higher than the stern.  Before cutting, I double checked the dimensions along the hull with my calipers. I needed to re-mark one side. It was easy to wipe off the incorrect line with an alcohol soaked rag and then carefully redraw it.

With both waterlines the same,  I then  used a utility knife to cut the styrene hull  along   the marked line.  I made multiple light passes with the blade and eventually the styrene snapped open.  I actually had to change blades as the knife edge quickly wore away.

With the bottom cut off, I had access to the interior.  I ran a thick bead of Wellbond along the deck hull joint.

Tomorrow I'll add some lateral stiffeners inside the hull, but I was pleasantly surprised at how sturdy the hull was even now without them. Then I 'll sand the cut edges and get it all squared up.

This was the toughest part of building this model. The rest of the ship is not much  different than building a land structure.   Using the styrene hull saved a lot of time. So far I've worked on this hull about 4 hours and it is nearly done. If I had cut my own bulkheads and planked them, it probably would have taken me about 30-40 hours of work.

It really looks cool sitting alongside the wharf as it dwarfs the trains near it.