thibaultron

Mark,
It's worth to spend some extra money for a good quality. Don't settle for a divider under 60 dollars!
I did and sent it back.
Second one is made in England and I spend 90 dollars instead.
Nice quality and nice protective box too.

After seeing this mini tutorial, I guess I need to get some dividers after all.   Thanks for posting it.

Scott, I appreciate that. Hope maybe some day it will help

Hi Mike, a great update and as Per said a really well done tutorial on how you use the dividers.  Scott

Per - thanks for the feedback. I'm glad it made sense.
 
One thing I forgot to say, the kit supplied planks for the first layer are too short. They don't reach from stern to bow. I had to start/stop them at the first frame piece on each end. I don't think that will matter. The second layer planks are longer.

Mike,
Thank you for that tutorial, you broke down the whole part perfectly to a basic.
I have no questions at all and you were lucky with the numbers!
This planking is going to go fast for you.

Trying to spread my efforts across all my projects - so it's time for Arrow. I decided it was safe to begin hull planking. The kit has wood for 2 plankings. As Niagara was a single planking this is my first build with 2. Honestly, I still don't see the need - just do it right the first time . To each his own. I will do the 2 layers just for the experience this time.
 
So hull planking - time to break out the proportional dividers! There's an ongoing thread about these in one of the forums. Some like them. Some don't. I wouldn't plank without them. I decided to do another how-to so this post will be rather long. Hope it helps (or converts) someone. Arrow is a very easy hull, almost flat bottomed with a simple bow & stern.
 
I had already glued the wider wale plank at deck level and done 2 strakes below that when I realized (or woke up) I would need to thin down the ends of the strakes.
 

 
There is no real planking plan with this kit, so I had to calculate the bands on my own. At the frame piece with the longest distance between the keel and the last hull strake, I laid a strip of paper to determine that distance.
 

 

 
As luck would have it, that distance was 36mm and the planking sticks are 3mm wide - perfect! That's 12 planks to complete the side. I decided to break up the distance into 3 bands. Here's where it gets cool. Not sure what the part on the dividers is called but I set it to 3 (for 3 bands).
 

 
Then with the long end of the dividers span the distance between the keel edge and the strake edge.
 

 
The short end of the dividers is 1/3 of that span.
 

 
Using the short end, you walk the dividers over that same span and make a mark at each step.
 

 


 
Yes there is a slight space after the last step. Nothing done wrong, it's just the fact that I am doing a linear measurement on a curved surface. This is not a big enough discrepancy to worry about. You'll see why in a minute.
 
So here are the band marks for this frame.
 

 
From here it's just repetition. Move to next frame, measure the full distance, then make the marks for the bands. Lather, rinse, repeat. Usually you will find that the frames in the middle have the same span. As you move to the bow or stern the measurement will get smaller. Don't skip any frames - do them all.
 

 
Now get your plank, lay it where you will be gluing it and mark where it contacts each frame.

 
Now it's time to focus on a band. I'll do the one next to the existing strakes. If you remember the original calculation was 12 strakes / 3 bands = 4 strakes per band. So set the dividers to 4.
 

 
With the long end, measure the span between the band mark and the edge of the last strake. This is the total width of the band.
 

 
The short end of the dividers is that span divided by 4 (4 strakes in the band). I started on one of the middle frame pieces - the widest overall span. On this frame the strake should be full width (3mm) and by golly that's what the dividers tell me.
 

 
So there is no width adjustment needed on the strake where it crosses this frame. Continue this pattern, measure the band width on the frame, put the short end of the dividers across the plank and eventually you will hit  the  point where the distance on the short end is less than the width of the plank.
 

 

 
I just stab the divider pin into the plank to make a mark. NOTE: some of the cheaper dividers don't have pins on the ends. I would recommend getting some with pins if you can. Here's the plank afterwards. From the holes upwards will need to be removed.
 

 
You can cut with a knife or just file/sand. I'm almost done here. I've sanded the plank edge down to the holes. I left the holes just for demonstration. The trick is to sand the edge until the holes just disappear. Your plank will be the correct width at that point.

 
The finished strake. At this point if you were doing short planks to make up a strake you could cut them now. Since this is a first planking I will not.

 
I glue the strake 2 or more frames at a time. PVA along the long edge of the plank with CA at the frames. Be careful not to get them mixed - they don't play well together. Of course you can glue them any way you want.
 

 

 

 

 
So much for that strake. 3 strakes left in the band. For the next strake you go thru the same process except this time (and subsequent times) the span to measure will be the from the edge of the strake you just laid to the band mark AND before you start set the dividers to 3 since you have 3 strakes left. When done with this strake repeat again after setting the dividers to 2.
 

 
The beauty of this is that it doesn't matter if you screw up a strake - maybe a little too wide or narrow. Since you remeasure the remaining span after laying a strake the dividers will correct any errors.
 
 
I hope this makes sense. Once you do a few repetitions, hopefully you will see the pattern and understand the process. Essentially you are measuring some distance and letting the dividers divide that measurement into however many portions they are set to. The nice thing is you don't really care what that span measurement is. You just let the dividers do their thing.
 
 
Whew - good night all.....
 
 
 
 

I got after the frame tips this weekend. I destroyed several of them while trying to get them out of the laser cut sheet. They're too small and the sheet is too thick.. My plan for replacement was to use a dowel the same diameter as the parts when they are in the sheet. Then on the table saw, rip a piece of the dowel in half, rotate 90 degrees and rip again giving quarters. Then take those and slice to the proper thickness. They pieces came out OK. Given that I had the saw out anyway I used it to cut the remaining laser cut pieces out.
 

 
As you may notice - a lot of char around the edge. Sanding that off was not easy. Seems like walnut is always harder to get the char off.
 
My replacement pieces were too light colored (not sure what wood it was) so I stained them.
 

 
When I had enough pieces I glued them to the upper deck - doing a better job of lining them up this time.
 

 

 
Note to future builders - do this as late as possible!  I started in on my next task, the bench seats, and have already knocked off quite a few of the frame parts.
 
 

I can give that a try Scott. If I could use a jewelers saw that might work as well. Maybe a good chance to practice.
 
I am going to have to replace 3 pieces somehow as I have already destroyed them.

Do you have a scroll saw? I wonder if that would be easier. Scott

My first real problem with kit materials. Maybe there is a way to do this without mangling the parts. These are the top piece of the frame or fake bulkhead. They will be glued on the upper deck.
 

 
The parts get splintered when cutting them from the plywood with an exacto.
 

 
Unlike the other pieces of the frame, I believe these parts may be in view when the build is complete. And being laser cut there is the unsightly char that would have to be sanded off. I'm thinking of replacements. Take a dowel, rip it into quarters, then cross cut. If I can keep the results from flying away from the saw, it might work.

Upper decking is laid. Color is still questionable but I will wait until tomorrow to see what the stain looks like when it is completely dry.
 
Normally for a strake, I like to cut a stick into pieces and lay those as individual planks. At the bow & stern this didn't come into play as those are all short pieces. I did not do it on the central beam either as that will have quite a few covers for what I suppose would be storage. Short planks would have been laid in between them not staggered.  I could have cut planks for the rails but I had already put down 2 whole sticks before I realized I should have cut them. The rails will be fairly busy with little items so it probably won't be noticeable. Planking around the big holes was the only real challenge. I forgot I had a set of riffler files, so when I finally pulled them out it was easier to file the round edge.
 

 

 

 

 
Still have some hull fairing to do. As suggested by Joel, I added some "padding" to the false bulwarks. Now I can sand a little more aggressively.
 

 
BTW - there is another piece to the bulwarks that will sit on the upper deck. I'll do a better job of lining these up.
 
Hull planking is supposed to come next but I have a bad feeling about the foot rails not being correct - too high - so I will continue on with the upper deck for now.

OK guys - Continuing on. Will leave everything as is for now. As Scott mentions I could always stain it some color. What I was using earlier was Natural - no color added. Should be finished in an hour or two.

There is some variation there.  Perhaps the OCD kicking in preventing you from seeing it.  Haliburton has a good idea to try.

Mike, maybe you can experiment with a different stain or a stain pen to even it out a bit, or maybe some surface sanding to lighten the dark areas? Scott

Thanks Joel. I think the variations might look better had I not done the stern with the dark planks. I may try to pop a few of them up and replace with a different shade.
 
Maybe some O.C.D. surfacing?

Just keep on a plankin', Mike.  Try to keep the variations going, too.  Grab a few full length ones of different colors and make sure to switch back n' forth from plank to plank.

Thank you Scott. It's an interesting build. Some details here that you wouldn't run into on a sailing ship. As a matter of fact, oars is one of those. If I do choose to do them I would consider having them in place sort of like the Roman & Egyptian galley models. The reason being there's 28 of them, I think trying to bundle up that many and place them somewhere in the boat might look funny. Even if I did 2 bundles of 14 - one per side.
 
I have run into an aesthetic  quandary. The planks for the upper deck are walnut. I will give Amati an A+ on the cutting work - good clean edges, consistent size. However the color range goes from the dark brown we know & love to something so light it looks like basswood. I did not notice this as I began the deck planking. It took 2 sticks to cover the stern deck and as luck would have it I grabbed 2 of the dark ones for that. So the stern is all dark. Now I'm working down the boat and seeing that the contrast between the darkest & lightest sticks may be too much. Especially since the stern is all dark. Don't get me wrong, I like having planks in varying shades but maybe not in this case. I put some natural stain on to see if that might even it up. Ehhh. 
 
The pic sort of shows this but it is more pronounced in person. Would appreciate some opinions before I continue on or tear them off and redo.
 

 
And no, I will not be outfitting the build with carbon fiber tubes 

Welcome Joel and a great idea. I was getting concerned that the entire hull was getting smaller. Once again, me trying to make things complicated.
 
Joe - Welcome also. That's interesting. McDonough built a number of galleys - Allen, Burrows and 4 others. They found a galley downstream from Eagle and Linnet and it is believed to be Allen. So they have quite a bit of info. I'd be interested to know where any info (specs or design) on Burrows is. I would imagine since they were built at the same time they would be fairly similar. There was some discussion earlier in this log as to whether the cutwater in the kit is accurate. From what I have read about the Allen excavation the stem was not complete, so we may never know. When they drew up the plans based on the wreckage the stem had no protrusion forward like the kit does.

Nice start Mike.
 
I've heard conjecture that the kit is a representation of the Burrows, which was one of McDonough's row galleys on Champlain. Arrow was a mis-translation from what I recall from somewhere...

If the deck edge seems a nice fair curve, perhaps the solution is to pad out where needed on the bulkheads to match the deck edge.  Add a shape like this:  (( to the bulkhead and sand back to get a nice curve.

Here's a look at the deck section after "bending" it.
 

 
However I could not get the edge in line with the edge of the side piece of decking so I cheated. Added a brace to the side piece that will go under the bent corner of the bow piece. They'll be nice and flush that way. A few pix may explain it better.
 

 

 

 
So here's how the decking ended up. All of that will be planked.
 

 
I guess I did not grasp the concept of those false bulkhead pieces. I glued them down for support of the deck not realizing they are really supposed to be the extension of the frame pieces down below. It's going to take a lot of sanding to round all that out. As you can see some of those bottom frame pieces don't even extend out to the edge of the lower deck.
 

 

 
No matter. It all needed some serious fairing up anyway.
 

Don - that was a big part of it. The rigging is relatively simple as well - that's what set the hook.
 
As far as history, while designs varied, this type of boat had some interesting roles from the late 1700's into the 1800's. From bay and coastal duties to lakes and rivers.  The English used them quite a bit also.
 
BTW - the trick I tried - wetting the deck with a wedge under it worked. This morning the corners of the piece stayed put. I will be doing that one more time. I need to find slightly thicker wedge to list the corners a little bit more.

Very interesting build. I don't know anything about the history but I do know it looks cool and that's what counts, to me at least   .

More work on the interior tonite. Finished up the foot rails - 28 total. I still haven't learned how to get consistent placement for repetitive things like this. They're all close but not exact.
 

 

 
Next up was the faux bulkheads. These were odd. There were supposed to be 3 different height pieces - 7.5mm, 8mm, 11mm. Well darned near all of them were about 8.2 - 8.4 . The placement was strange too. the tallest ones (4 of them) were placed 1 on each side by the bow & stern. Working towards the center next was  the 8mm, then filled in with the small ones. These are supposed to support the upper deck pieces.
 

 

 
However the bow and stern decks came out at some funky angles as you can see.

 
This is a problem as there are some side deck pieces that are supposed to meet them but the side pieces are too high (or actually the other pieces are too low). So after the glue dried I found something to wedge under the corners to lift them up. Then I wet down the area and will be hoping that the wood stays in that position when it dries.
 

 
I did catch one potential disaster before it happened. The masts are stepped at about a 3 degree angle. Given the typical ships we build I assumed they tilted towards the stern. NOT! The lateen rig in this build has the masts leaning towards the bow. That would have been trouble had I begun to add all the deck items.