Planking the Hull, pt 1.

September 24 - December 4, 2015

The first layer

Initially, when I read the first couple of build logs I somehow thought I could do this really well. There is no real explanation on how to de planking in the original plans, but there is plenty on to be found on the internet.
The most important sources I've used were:
When I say used, I mean looked at, tried, deemed to complex and forgot about it until -eh- basically now :-/
I would encourage any reader to look at the video's and then see where I didn't follow them and made mistakes.

First I made several bands so I could fill them with planks. The goal is to have similar numbers of planks in each band. The above mentioned Planking calculator might help with that. Planks are not supposed to be narrower than half their width.




Big fail though! I read in the instructions to use the nails to fasten the planks to the bulkheads. DON'T!
Only later on it tells you that it's temporarily and you will have to remove them again. I leaves you with lots of extra work and huge holes in your plank.







Now for this model I think perhaps the planks are a bit wide for the overall model size?

It took me a lot of sanding to get the edges nice and the depressions less notable. Planking was the bit I was least looking forward to. It's boring, tedious and you don't have much to show for it.
Very excited the day I finished all planks!




Lessons learned:


  1. Don't use nails to (temporarily) hold your planks in place. I've used pins, but there are special pins or you could make your own devices. For the first layer it doesn't really matter though as it will be hidden anyway. It's good practice though!
  2. If you really want to go professional, you would need curved planks that follow the curvature of the hull. This is discussed in chapter 22 of the Simple Hull Planking for Beginners document.
  3. Don't use your wood glue as filler material. Get some wood filler; you will need it down the line anyway and if you use needles to hold your planks in place you can't get through the glued bits.
  4. When you work on the gunwale (the planks above deck) you shouldn't really glue them to the wood poles. These need to be removed later so it'll save you a lot of hassle then.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introducing...

Image
Hello everyone. This is my first post on the progress of building a wooden model ship. I'm a software developer by trade and because our day job is so very abstract and un-creative (and because we are all nerds) most of us have some rather obscure hobbies. For me building a model ship was always a bit of a dream and I never though I could do it, but with the help of e-bay and some good fora  I decided to give it a try and see how long I would last. Because of a good deal on e-bay I got my hands on a model by Mamoli called the Black Prince from Mamoli. The ship has everything I wanted: 2 masts, some guns and a great back-story :) I will update (probably on an infrequent basis) you with my progress and will also make some room on my own blog as well. So far I found it a very rewarding (and time consuming) hobby that I can easily put aside (whilst having a baby) or spend the whole day on. It's great, and I love working on my ship. I also love researching it, so I shall st
Read more

Planking the Hull, pt 2.

Image
December 9, 2015 - April 16, 2016 The second layer My model came with strips of walnut wood (0.5mm thick) to add the wood finish to the hull. Thin strips of wood are fragile, but easier to bend and cut then the first layer planks. This, and the experience gained has made the process go much faster than the first layer of planking. Since this model has 2 layers you could be less precise on your first layer, but I myself was glad I spend the time learning to do it properly. I soaked the planks just to be sure and did not encounter too many problems to be honest. First the bullwark (that's the top bit) Since I followed the advice of my big example  Russell   to add an extra plank to the bullwark so the guns would fit, I did order a bit of extra wood to make it work. I then started planking from the bottom up, both sides. This way the planks are pretty equal on both sides. Finishing the last planks was a bit fiddly, but I got them to fit snugly. 
Read more