Ship Models' Plans
The block model is made by drawing out the shapes of the horizontal slices through the hull of the ship. As with the development of the scale model and the introduction of the bread-and-butter model, it can be said that new techniques in ships' plans were developed. The designers kept on basing the shape of the ship or hull on vertical sections or frames.
Towards the end of the 17th century horizontal sections or waterlines began to be used to test the ship. Waterlines were standard on ships' plans by the beginning of the 18th century. By the mid-18th century the use of block models to approve the design of hulls declined. Ship designers used a variety of lines on the plans to fair the shape of the hull, such as waterlines and diagonals.
Basically, hull drawing consist of the plan, elevation and the body frames. The plan is the drawing of the hull as seen from above, the elevation is the drawing of the profile and the body frame is the hull as seen from either the front or from behind. When all the data of the three separate drawings is transferred onto the material used for the model, the hull is formed.
Gun Deck plan
Contrary to all the models and dioramas mentioned in this website, the gun deck was built as an exact replica. However, this gun deck, which can be seen daily in the Malta Maritime Museum, was built on a plan I sketched to scale.