Mike In Maine
Lofting Tools
Lofting Room/Tools at the Maine Maritime Museum - Bath, ME 20-Aug-07
Lofting means to take the 'Lines Drawing' and 'Table of Offsets' supplied by the designer and reproduce them full size on a loft floor. The shapes for making the patterns for the keel, frames and anything else can be taken off from the lofted lines. Originally, before computers, designers drew boats or ships by hand. The architect made up a table of offsets for each frame, and had to be read off the drawing on a scale ruler by eye. Sometimes there were one or two small errors which were easily picked up and corrected by the lofts man who would redraw the ship full scale. by running long battens of wood (like giant flexible rulers) through all the points, and drawing the curved lines, produced fair curves and showed up any little errors in fairness from the hand drawn drawing.
Usually for boats under 60 ft. the lines are drawn full size. (Large vessels may be lofted at 1/10 scale if sufficient floor space is not available.)
Lofting Tools
Lofting Room/Tools at the Maine Maritime Museum - Bath, ME 20-Aug-07
Lofting means to take the 'Lines Drawing' and 'Table of Offsets' supplied by the designer and reproduce them full size on a loft floor. The shapes for making the patterns for the keel, frames and anything else can be taken off from the lofted lines. Originally, before computers, designers drew boats or ships by hand. The architect made up a table of offsets for each frame, and had to be read off the drawing on a scale ruler by eye. Sometimes there were one or two small errors which were easily picked up and corrected by the lofts man who would redraw the ship full scale. by running long battens of wood (like giant flexible rulers) through all the points, and drawing the curved lines, produced fair curves and showed up any little errors in fairness from the hand drawn drawing.
Usually for boats under 60 ft. the lines are drawn full size. (Large vessels may be lofted at 1/10 scale if sufficient floor space is not available.)