Ship-BUILDING (continued)

Plate X

All these pieces, viz. the transoms, the fashion-pieces, and their top-timbers, being strongly united into one frame, are elevated upon the sternpost, and the whole forms the structure of the stern, upon which the galleries and windows, with their ornaments, are afterwards built.

The stem and stern-post being thus elevated upon the keel, to which they are securely connected by knees and arched pieces of timber bolted to both; and the keel being raised at it's two extremities by pieces of dead-wood, the midship floor-timber is placed across the keel, whereto it is bolted through the middle. The floor-timbers before and abaft the midship-frame are then stationed in their proper places upon the keel; after which the kelson, which, like the keel, is composed of several pieces scarsed together, is fixed across the middle of the floor-timbers, to which it is attached by bolts driven through the keel, and clinched on the upper-part of the kelson. The futtocks are then raised upon the floor-timbers, and the bawse-pieces erected upon the cant-timbers in the fore-part of the ship.

The top-timbers on each side are next attached to the head of the futtocks, as already explained in the article Naval ARCHITECTURE. The frames of the principal timbers being thus completed, are supported by ribbands, as exhibited in the plate referred to from the article RIBBANDS.

Plate IV

The ribs of the ship, being now stationed, they proceed to fix on the planks, of which the wales are the principal, being much thicker and stronger than the rest; as is represented in the MIDSHIP-FRAME. The harpins, which may be considered as a continuation of the wales at their fore-ends, are fixed across the hawse-pieces, and surround the fore-part of the ship. The planks that inclose the ship's sides are then brought about the timbers, and the clamps, which are of equal thickness with the wales, fixed opposite to the wales within the ship; these are used to support the ends of the beams, and accordingly stretch from one end of the ship to the other. The thick sluff, or strong planks of the bottom within-board, are then placed opposite to the several scarfs of the timbers, to reinforce them throughout the ship's length. The planks employed to line the ship, called the ceiling, or foot-waling, is next fixed in the intervals between the thick-stuff of the hold. The beams are afterwards laid across the ship to support the decks, and are connected to the side by lodging and hanging knees; the former of which are exhibited in their proper stations in plate III. F. and the hanging ones, together with the breadth, thickness, and position of the keel, floor-timbers, futtocks, top-timbers, wales, clamps, thick-stuff planks within and without, beams, decks, &c. are seen in the MIDSHIP-FRAME.

Plate III

Reference Works