Plotter-cutting wood: nice try

Hans Groenenberg asked about the scale of the Diana, in order to work out the width of the margin plank. The scale is 1:64, but I couldn’t find the actual width of such a plank anywhere. Peter referred me to Mondfeld and to page 49 of the Anatomy of the Ship book, which has a fine drawing from which the width can be derived. How that turned out is covered under the gun deck.

Today I went to the plotter and embroidery fair. After all, you have to be well prepared if you want to plotter-cut wood. Never seen so many plotters and embroidery machines in one place, but nobody could tell me whether plotting wood is possible. Just try it was the motto. Back home, the wood from England turned out to have arrived, so I set to work full of good cheer.

Let me put it this way: I hope my new hobby knife blades arrive soon, because the plotter cutting was not a success. The machine cuts through the wood perfectly well as such, but the original picture doesn’t really come across. Square corners become round, and to make matters worse the whole thing turned out to have shifted a few millimetres, so the notches for the bulkheads didn’t all line up. The thing also had its own idea of how rounded the cut should be, and that was a bit less rounded than I had hoped. Usable if need be, because all the mess ends up under the bulwark anyway, but neat it is not.

Peter suspected the craft knife would be a bit more accurate after all. He’s right about that. Had a lot of fun though, and that’s the main thing.