First, scale drawings, which are widely available for ship modelers. Scale drawings are generally external views of ships, and sometimes called "three-views", although they may often contain more than three views of the ship. They are NOT instructions on how to build a model. They show no internal detail (usually), and have no step-by-step instructions. They are sometimes called "ship's lines". However, ship's lines refer only to the hull, while a GOOD set of drawings would include other stuff, such as deck houses, major hardware, and for a sailing ship at least the major spars.
Assembly instructions, on the other hand, show you piece by piece what order to assemble parts, and sometimes even, how to make specific parts. Such instructions for scratchbuilding are very rare. Most are found in books or magazine articles. Experienced scratch builders can use scale drawings, as they have learned how to make the individual parts and subassemblies, and what sequence is best to put them together.
For those who have never built a scratch model, the best bet is to do a project
for which an article exists, such as in Ships in Scale, or one of a number of
books which give projects for scratch building.
{ Don Stauffer}
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