OT Making a model ship with a 5 year old

I checked a few, looks better than the stuff I bought before.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus8098
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Ignoramus8098 wrote in news:gbydnWsPWe8TTFHYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Does he expect the play with the model on the local lake, river, waterbut? be a shame making a kit that didn't float. you might be better off with a some blocks of wood and a few simple hand tools for the first one....

Reply to
Jerry

I think that my plan with plywood bulkheads is a sensible one. It will float with enough epoxying and a sensible sized keel. If the deck is removable, which seems to make sense, it can be later enhanced with LEDs etc. I will try to make it big enough so that it can be messed with later (1.5 ft or so).

i
Reply to
Ignoramus8098

OK, this one is courtesy of my dad.

Take a piece of 1x6, about 10"-15" long.

Take a couple of angle cuts on one end to form the bow AKA: "Pointy Part".

Add a rudder skeg using some 1/4" ply.

Form a mast using a piece of 3/8" dowel rod.

Form a cross arm using a piece of 3/8" dowel rod.

Sew up a down wind sail from an old bed sheet.

Use some mason's twine to lash the cross arm to the mast as well as for sail rigging.

Use some screw eyes to locate the rigging.

Paint it black.

Get out your wood burning kit and engrave the name "Falcon" on the sides, then fill letters with silver paint.

You have just duplicated my cub scout project when I was about 8 years old.

BTW, typical square rigger. Goes like hell down wind, but doesn't point worth a damn.

Have fun.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Reply to
Larry and a Cat named Dub

How about Wood? You mention cardboard, but I think I'd let a 5 year old use a saw on wood before letting him use a craft knife on cardboard. Take a 1x4 board and a 1/4" dowel. Cut a pointy end on the board. Shorten board to taste. Drill a hole in the middle. Insert dowel in hole. Hoist a paper sail and go boating!

Kits have been mentioned. Here is a quality outfit:

Be sure to look at the 'Pine Wood Sailers' and the 'Model Boat Plans'. The 'Pine Wood Sailers' are very simple and the one plan they have is fairly complex, but uses no glue and can be scaled. Everything they do Floats.

Keep it Simple and Fun and make sure it is really a Joint Effort!

Reply to
Lobby Dosser

Reply to
JR North

Many years ago when my daughter came home and said she needed 5 model airplanes by the following weekend, and wanted to building them in different shapes and wing styles out of balsa wood, we found a compromise.

she fashioned different types of cones and we filled them with Great Stuff, the foam in a can. Where necessary she left excess and then shaped the foam into the body she wanted.

You may try something similar for the boat. The foam is easy to work with no major sharp tools and you can make into about any shape you want. When finished you could paint it and it could be played with in or out of the water.

Reply to
Keith nuttle

Hey, here's a crazy idea. When I was young, I loved boats and model rockets. I had several models of aircraft carriers, destroyers, etc. And I also had a bunch of those Estes rocket engines that were launched by battery to what seemed like thousands of feet in the air. Now, if you and your boy make a couple disposable boats and strap one of those rocket engines on it........Anyway, let him push the launch button....TONS of fun...Just make sure there is no one else in the line of fire! --dave

Reply to
Dave Jackson

One of the most important considerations is keeping the young person involved. In my experience, it helps if he/she has small jobs to do while you tackle the more complicated stuff. Back in the 70s, a young lad asked if I could fix a Stuart 10H that he had. It seems his father built it, and died soon afterwards. His mother gave permission for him to be present when the work was done. Just about everything on the engine was misaligned. The young lad soon started to get bored. In response, I started setting up cuts on the lathe, then had him turn the hand wheels. He soon had the knack of it, and his interest returned. In two hours, and forty five minutes a very pleased boy was watching the engine running on air! He walked out the shop cradling it in his hands, pleased as punch. It was the only thing he had from his father, as his mother disposed of everything.

Steve R.

Reply to
Steve R.

Exactly. A child of that age has no concept of proper construction------a cardboard rocket is probably every bit as desirable to him as a fine car would be to an adult. Way to go, Ig.

Harold

Reply to
Harold and Susan Vordos

Yes. You got it. This is not an exercise in building beautiful models. This is an exercise for the kid to learn the pleasures of making stuff (as well as the value of patience and planning). I am fully aware that the result will be far from beautiful.

If I wanted to own a beautiful model ship, I would buy something mass produced in Chinese sweatshops using CNC, for $30 or so.

Functionality wise, what I want from this model is 1) to look like a ship 2) be able to float in water 3) be able to survive exposure to "life" for decades, in case if he wants to keep it as a childhood memory.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus8098

My suggestion would actually be to use "1 inch" white pine. Build up a stack of cross-sections glued together, and then shape on a belt sander. Part of the reason for this is that the result is durable - it can take years of sailing the living room floor, enduring bombardment with 3/8" ball bearings from older brother's pen-spring- loaded shore battery, etc.

It is true there's more use of power tools involved than ideal, but you can have your son heavily involved in the design and "supervision" of the work, which goes pretty quickly. It's also a great way to introduce the idea of filling a need by desining the solution and then building it. You can either do full-scale design drawings, or simply draw directly on the wood - place the crew and cargo on the board and draw the hull around them. Place the cannon and draw its ports, etc. Then while you are cutting out each additional layer, he can either watch you, or play with stack of those cut so far. Glue-up is just before bed time - the next day he has the unsmoothed hull, that evening you sand it with a combination of power and hand tools.

You can also make it a two part project - either do a prototype as a suprise gift to introduce the idea, and then a nicer one as a joint project with his design input. Or do one together, and then an even bigger/better taking those ideas further. After all, with no upkeep costs, what owner wouldn't want two boats?

I think my brother and I did a lot more with the never-really finished ship of this sort than we ever did when he finally received the commercial "pirate ship" it was intended as a substitute for. Sure, all that rigging and detail looked cool on the packaging, but the decks were just too crowded for much activity.

Reply to
cs_posting

Foam insulation - the rigid kind.

Cuts with a sharp knife (good lessons there for the kid) or a hot wire. You can get nichrome from a hobby shop and make a simple wooden U-shaped frame with a hook and spring to tension the wire. It's _fun_ to carve with this setup, and foam is cheap, & will float.

Reply to
jtaylor

Next you want a large block of balsa wood. I see its possible to get

2"x4" a foot long for about $6 or so. You *really* *really* want balsa wood because its so soft its easy to work with hand tools which means far far more of it will be his project rather than Daddy's project. A selection of smaller pieces as well for the superstructure and some pine dowels for masts etc. should also be got.

It would be a good idea to get a small saw and hammer, You may need to take a few inches off the handle for the hammer so it balances in a kid's hand. These will be *his* tools and you ask before YOU borrow them. (with what you have around the place, teaching respect for other peoples tools ASAP would be smart)

You will also want some stiff paper or thin card for templates. Trace round the block onto the paper to help him with the maximum size then get your child to draw what shape he thinks the deck should be if he was on a bridge looking streight down at the ship, fold it down the centre line for symmetry,.cut out, and stickytape it to the block of balsa for your kid to colour round with a marker top and bottom.

Then its HIS job to remove the wood he just coloured. Teach him to cut a little outside the line then take the rest off with a rasp. Then have him decide how much more he wants the bottom smaller than the deck, make another template (flip the old one over?) and repeat the cut out/mark/cut away process but this time at an angle rather than streight. Then its onto sanding it smooth.

Details on deck will be made from smaller blocks pinned and glued into place (you want a supply of long brass panel pins here, steel *will* rust. Any 'oops' get fixed by you with scrap balsa, balsa sawdust and exterior wood glue. As long as you avoid chisels, planes, knives etc. there is very little risk of injury.

A few days later after its been pushed around the house for a while, its time to discuss painting it. Basically, you want to get him to help apply a coat of low toxicity primer (balsa is far too porous and will be really difficult for him to paint otherwise) and you can improve the surface with a little filler and get a second coat of primer on after bedtime.

Next day, its time to see if it floats near enough level, correcting any tilt by adding lead free solder (plumbing solder) let in to holes drilled for it then plugged with filler. Assist him in marking the waterline then get the boat dried off to paint. (an excuse to have to go out for a few hours is good here). He gets to paint it (ask the woodworkers for advice here) then a few days later when its properly dry, you spray it with clearcoat.

I've read most of the other suggestions and thought back to my first boat model which was on display till I was grown up and my Grandmother died then heaven knows what happened to it. You need to keep it simple, (remove anything that isnt boat shaped) and safe, which means no edged or power tools yet. One *can * cut onself with a small hand saw, but he isn't going to do himself serious damage yet. Dont forget a dust mask each when sanding, good habits start young.

Further projects could include a boat towed from the bank on a bridle like a kite, rubber band powered boats (you *will* need some sort of gearbox to match the rubber band untwisting to a model boat propeller) then an electric boat using parts guttted from a cheap RC toy.

Reply to
Ian Malcolm

He's only 5 ! He doesn't need to learn anything about boats just yet, he only needs to emerge with something and to feel, "I made that".

5 year olds also have minimal motor skills and no ability to use complex tools. IMHE just about all they can do is hammering, gluing, sanding and painting. Knives are out for safety, saws don't work well unless you have good control over their movement and most planes don't work well enough to keep their attention. 5 year olds also have minimal conscious control of their attention. They're OK while they're actively interested and things are working out, but if something doesn't work for them first time, they'll just walk away. They might spend ages sanding a boat hull to shape, because they can work sandpaper glued to a stick, but they'll not plane it if they haven't learned to control the pressure on a plane, even though most of us would see this as quicker and easier than sanding.
Reply to
Andy Dingley

Don't carve foam insulation with a hot wire. The old polystyrene insulation was unpleasant for fumes, the modern isocyanate foams cut much better (no beads) but the fumes from those are really pretty toxic. As they don't break down into loose beads anyway, they can sand to shape very quickly.

A bread knife with a wiggly edge, not fine serrations, is the best tool for slabbing out blanks.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

One option is to "wing it" - make a solid pine hull using a bandsaw or belt sander. Do this ahead of time, as it's not something you want him to attempt. You present the kid with the hull, and then ask hom what should we do next. You can add masts, sails, strong, life preservers, or whatever you want. Let him paint it and add whatever he likes on the deck. Maybe add an additional "layer" in the aft (IANAS) with ladders, the wheel for steering, portholes, lifeboats, etc. etc. etc. Suggest things to add if he's not sure.

Let the kid decorate it. Buy some miniatures and let him paint them, and glue them on.

And then - try floating the thing in a bathtub. It may not be stable - never tried. May have to add some weights to the bottom to keep it bottom heavy.

The point is, once you make the hull - the rest of the design is left up to the kid. It lets him use his imagination - and he can be as silly as he wants to be, or as serious. He wants a four-poster bed on top, and a hot tub with a TV. Sure.

It's unstructured, and open-ended. He might be done with it soon, or may keep going. Let him decide when it's done.

If he had fun, then perhaps take him to a hobby shop and look at the easy models. See if he wants to do something more "sophisticated."

You will have the memories of the first model, and every model he makes afterwords can only get better. I bet you will have memories of the "first model" for a long time - even if it's the only one he makes.

Reply to
Bruce Barnett

I'm not sure he really wants balsa. The stuff is easy to cut but it's hard to cut _precisely_. It's so soft that unless the knife is absoluely razor sharp it crushes instead of cutting. Doesn't saw very well either, tends to clog up the saw teeth with fuzz. It's main strength is light weight, not workability. Basswood might be a better bet.

A caution--there is a tendency to give kids cheap tools. Resist that temptation. Kids aren't very strong and they aren't necessarily all that coordinated--you don't want them fighting a tool that doesn't work very well besides. If you give him a saw make sure it's a saw that actually _saws_ without much force. A jeweler's saw or fretsaw might be a good bet--they aren't horribly expensive, they cut just about anything, downside is that the blades are very fragile--also it's a very narrow blade so learning to cut straight can be a problem. In a wide bladed saw bite the bullet and spend the 35 bucks for a 6 inch dozuki. He'll see how a saw is _supposed_ to work.

My parents were weird--they turned me loose with an Ex-acto knife at an early age but wouldn't spring for the jeweler's saw, so I was forced try cuts that the knife just plain wasn't enough tool to do and ended up cutting myself regularly as a result.

With hammers it's harder--he's not strong enough to be accurate with a hammer that will actually drive a nail of any size. The question is whether to give him a hammer that he can control but that is going to take a lot of pounding to drive anything bigger than a brad, or one that can drive a fair sized nail if he chokes up on it but that is going to have him missing more than he hits.

Reply to
J. Clarke

No reason he can't saw it out with a jeweler's saw.

as serious.

Reply to
J. Clarke

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