[23] You can get this height by taking two sticks whose combined length is somewhat greater than the height of the room. By letting the ends lap over one another in the middle, the sticks can be slipped along on each other until they just reach from floor to ceiling. Hold them tightly together (or fasten them with a clamp) when in this position and you will have the exact length required.
[24] This method of putting in a back answers very well for the beginner, and is often used in cheap work, but, unless quite small, the really workmanlike way is to make a panelled frame, which is screwed in place as one piece. The degree to which the panelling is carried depends upon the size and shape of the back. When you become able to make your work more neatly and accurately than can be expected of the beginner, you will do well to construct the backs in this way, but it involves much more labour and is hardly worth while for such simple work as you will do at first.
[25] A more workmanlike way is to work all such mouldings on the edge of the top, making it as much thicker as may be required, thus avoiding putting on the moulding across the grain of the piece to which it is fastened, which is not a scientific form of construction; and for that matter it is a more thoroughly workmanlike way to work all mouldings on the solid wood.
The top can be made of two thicknesses, the moulding being worked on the edge of the under piece before the two are glued together. Various forms of moulding can be worked on the edge by a moulding machine at almost any wood-working mill.
[26] See footnote on page 198.
[27] Still another way sometimes used for model yachts is to build the hull much in the same way that a real vessel is built—making a framework or skeleton and covering it with little planks, but this method (though a good one in some respects) requires more skill than can be expected of the average amateur, and this mode of construction should not be attempted until you become a skilful workman and accomplished in the building of regular model yachts.
If your boat is quite small it will probably be easier and better in most cases to cut the hull from a solid block; but if much more than two feet in length it is usually better to build it in layers.
Either of these methods can be used in any case, but for a small boat the building in layers is more difficult, while for a large one it is hard to find a block that will be sufficiently free from defects.
[28] In making the plans for a boat, three views are usually drawn, known as the sheer plan, the body plan, and the half-breadth plan. These correspond to the "front or side elevation," "end elevation," and "plan" in ordinary drawings, and give side, end, and top views of the boat,—or of one-half of it, which is all that is needed, as the sides are of course alike. Several equidistant horizontal lines are drawn across the plans. One of these represents the line of the water when the boat has its proper load. It is called the load water-line. The other lines being parallel to it represent other imaginary levels, at equal distances apart—like the lines which would be made by the water if the boat sunk deeper or floated higher. Other lines are also added to show vertical and horizontal, longitudinal and cross-sections, at regular intervals, and also other longitudinal sections, but these details you will find fully described in works on yacht-(and model yacht-) building.
[29] The fin can be cut from sheet metal (brass or sheet-iron) and inserted in a thin saw-kerf cut exactly in the centre of the bottom, being set in thick white lead, or it can be riveted to thin plates screwed to the bottom of the boat, or lips can be bent over alternately on either side of the upper edge of the fin and screwed to the bottom.