Creative Woodworks & Crafts-059-1998-Fall, страница 78

S The Agate Whaler, com-ij-| plete with sails, is pat-p

terned after an 1836 t American whaling vessel ;

The UJooden 5hips of Benny Basile

by Lawrice BrazeI Photos by Andy Chen

H Benny Basile built his first model boat about 20 years ago, while recuperating from a hospital slay—a friend had purchased the plastic kit to help him pass the time. Benny soon becamc interested in constructing model boats made of wood, but he found the costs to be prohibitive; at the time, a basic kit cost about one hundred dollars. Determined to pursue his new passion, Bonny did some research and found that he could actually craft model boats from wood for practically nothing. The secret, be found, was to get his hands on the plans and then use his own materials.

Obtaining the plans

While some model companies do sell plans for boats, Benny discovered that he could obtain plans for free at the library. "I found books containing hundreds of line drawings," Benny explains. "If you put these lines together, you get the outline of the ship."

The first model he built from scratch was the Leon, based upon plans from Harold A. Underbill's book, Plank on Frame Models. "Underhill wrote the book in the Lrenches during World War 1/ Benny notes. "He made beautiful model boats out of ammunition boxes." Over the years, Benny has discovered other useful books, such as Howard I. Chapelle's

The History of American Sailing Ships and V.fi. Grimwood's American Ship Models and IIow to Build Them.

Acquiring materials

Most of Benny's materials are donated to him by friends. "If someone has an antique or something they're going

lo throw out, they give it lo me—everything from old desk drawers to rulers," he explains. For fasteners, Benny uses small bamboo splinters cut from chopsticks.

While many of the original ships had painted-copper bolloms, Benny prefers to leave out this feature in order to show off the colors of lhe contrasting woods. One of his favorite models is the Elsie, a boat made from some butternut stock thai a neighbor had stored away in his basement for 30 years. Currently, Benny is working on a Chinese Junk boat made from an exotic wood called Purple Heart.

For the rigging, Benny uses heavy-duty upholstery thread, while mooring chains are fashioned from knotted gold jewelry chains, "if it looks good and I like it, it goes on," he exclaims. "The lines and everything pertain lo the original ship—it's all in scale—but I decorate it the way 1 like it."

There are some parts, however, that Benny prefers to purchase at model supply stores. "The pulleys, for example.," he concedes. "There are hundreds of pulleys on each ship, and if you made 100 of these things, you wouldn't ever want to see one again. So for a nickel

apiece, I say, give them to me. Even the real ship builder didn't make pulleys he bought them."

Making the ships

The first step in the building process is to read the line drawings and create the plans. For convenience, Benny uses a copy machine lo change original plans to the desired scale. Next, he glues the scaled copies to the wood with carpenter's glue. The paper ads as a veneer, strengthening the wood as he cuts each piece. The paper can be left on for strength if the part won't show.

Although Benny has carved some model boats, he prefers the plank on frame technique, in which straight