Chuck Seiler

Originally a question...now a cautionary tale. As I am almost finished hull planking, I come to a part where I make a caprail sort of structure for the stern. The sheet has parts 131, 131a and 132. ...however the instructions only tell me about 131 and 131a. I scoured the instructions and saw nothing on this. I THINK I know what it is for, but I don't want to do anything the instructions don't tell me (as if THAT has ever happened before). My question was going to be...what is this for? As I was pondering this, Chris posted some shots of his progress. Huzzah!!!! There it is!!!!! Question answered, but another example of SHIPYARD instructions being incomplete.

SURPRISE!!!!

Acronyms- They are the spice of life. ALLRIGHTY!!!!! We got to page 2!!!!

Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!!!!! 🤪

While the two SHIPYARD models above are not the definitive authority on cogs, I believe they do faithfully represent two styles of cog as seen in many of the paintings, coins and tapestries you have posted. I would also like to throw in-various replicas. While one style has NO fore-castle, another has a very clear forward castle integrally built into the ship. WH appears to represent the middle ground where you can take your basic commercial cog, run down to Home Depot and get some lumber, slap together a forecastle and duct tape it to the bodacious stempiece. Obviously the various depictions span several centuries and can be attributed to different building styles and conditions. The ones with the Home Depot Fore-castles (HDFC) could well be ones built in less than tumultuous times but were pressed into military service or added when the threat suddenly increased.

Steven, Many thanks. I appreciate it. In my limited but growing research, I have come to appreciate all your posts and info on medieval ships and architecture. Medieval ships have supplanted US Colonial navy as my current area of interest. I am looking at building the DUSEK COG incorporating some of your critiques of another build.

Construction on the hull continues. So far so good, as long as you don't look too close. That's a better look. Clinker + a bunch. We are now cresting above the deck. As mentioned above, I am finding the strake about .25 inches to short, so I need to cut out a plank and insert a longer one. Close up of the plank. Painting is not as good. Long story. Same plank, inboard side, showing supports. The support on the right is a kit supplied double thick frame extension, placed there due to butt joint. The one on the left is self made. The kit was not supposed to have an actual but joint here.

I used Golden Pecan either for the interior or exterior of my PHILADELPHIA. It's a great color...good choice. The nails look good without the pencil dots. Are you staining the interior as well? If so are you using oil based or water based. My concern is for the glu-ability of interior frame extensions and other support lattices.

My decks are wood and I gave them a coat of Wipe On Poly. On my first extension, it stuck to the planks but not the deck. For follow-on extensions, I had to rough up the spot on the deck a little.

For me it is more than 37...or maybe 37 with complications. Since I am having to cut some of the planking pieces and inserting longer planks (see above)(edit...oh wait, this is your log, not mine...see my log for discussion on planks) I need double thick frame extensions at the point where the joint is. So far so good.

An Amati kit with a defect? This is my shocked face. Seriously though, you should be able to repair with a touch of sandpaper. Hopefully you will be painting the hull.

Was that really all that extraordinary? How did the common folk on land 'answer the call of nature'?

Progress on hull planking continues. Pictures on the way. I just wanted to post as potential warning for other builders. Progressing past clinker +6 I am finding that EVERY strake is about a quarter inch too short. I am not sure why because I am hitting all my other reference marks. I fixed the problem by laying the forward most piece (usually 2 planks), cutting the first plank from the aft piece, making a plank to make up the difference in length, lay that, then lay the last section so it ends up where it is supposed to be in the stern. So far so good, but it is annoying.

Ken, Many thanks.

When all is said and done, by the time you get the stain and no pencil dots, the existing 'nails' will be visible but sufficiently subdued so as not to overwhelm the model, like on mine.

As I said, the pointy end looks alot like the round end.

Looking good! Will you pencil dot your nails later or leave them as they are?

At this point I will change focus and move on to the deck. I had problems painting the cardboard deck planks and decided early on to substitute real wood. I used Alaskan Yellow Cedar from SYREN. Deck planks on a cog a different than we normally find on a ship. In this case they run athwartship. See above photo from SHIPYARD. They run in five bands; the center band, which is the same width as the hatch, and two bands on either side. On the model, the planks are represented with two layers of cardboard. First is a thin layer of cardboard used as a false deck (left) and another thin piece which is marked with plank lines and nails. This is painted. The instructions have you completing the stern section in its entirety and the outer bands first, then working your way in. I went the other way. Because the center section is based on the hatch and mast support, I dry fitted it and set the first plank fore and aft. In the above pic you see the basic process, except this was after the deck was fully completed. Once again, my original photo was out of focus. Here we see the hatch/mast support gap with planks fore and aft. I also started on the second bands with the planks 'overlapping' so the joints did not run straight across. The model planks vary in width, for some reason, but I chose to made them uniform (with a few exceptions). The deck beams had a lip that divided them so the planks sit nicely on the shoulder. I continued the deck beams fore and aft using cherry strips. Originally, the plan was to treat each plank with Wipe On Poly, then glue them in place. The placement was uneven so I ended up having to sand the deck down in total. I did worry about forming the edge planks too precisely. I ended sanding the edges smoothly. You can clearly see the hatch/mast support gap. Deck complete with mast support and hatch coaming in place. When I sanded the deck I was concerned it would remove the brown paint from the cardboard deck beams. As it turned out (I had discovered this earlier) the cardboard beams come out a nice brown when treated with Wipe On Poly. The original treating of individual planks, followed by the mass sanding had the effect of making the deck not uniform color. I like. One downside with using the wooden deck is that the cardboard deck had slots to be used when mounting future structures. I'll figure it out.

Thanks Clark.

Despite the lack of instruction, I soldiered (sailored) along. It really is not that big of a deal...stick with the reference lines and the next 2 or 3 strakes are easy. Construction proceeds with clinker strakes 3 and 4. Clinker 3 and 4 complete. They matched up with the stem and stern very nicely. I had issues with earlier strakes where they did not run the whole length. Here we see the bow (or is it the stern) where the strkes did not run the full length. If I had the presence of mind, I would have cut new planks from the cardboards stock at the time of installation. Instead I tried to fix with minor surgery after the fact (see picture strake C-3 and 4 above). If it were wood, I might have better result. My solution will be to put an HO scale girl in a bikini on the top deck to draw attention away from it. Next I make the stem, stern and keel assemblies. These are made by laminating several thick and thin cardboard pieces. Above are the various pieces to the stem. Stem piece, stern piece and keel installed. Clinker +6 and additional appendages.

Agreed. The reference marks on the bow/stern are good, but questionable for the first set of planks. Once you know how correct they are, or how much off they are, you can plan accordingly. I like the reference lines on the stiffeners because that can bring you back into battery if you do manage to get off. Do your clinker planks have reference lines?

"How funky" do you ask? By the time we get to the bottom of page 11, the instructions have us where you see us in the last photo above...3 non clinker strakes + 2 clinker strakes. Jump to the top of page 12 and the photo as +4 clinker strakes and we are adding the stem piece, stern piece and keel. Clare mentioned this in his log as well. This is not a real big deal once you figure out that you didn't skip a page...just a bit disconcerting. The planking process is pretty simple.

At the 1999 NRG Conference in San Diego, I had the opportunity to speak with a bloke who wrote a book on flags. I wish I paid closer attention. IIRC he indicated there was no real standard for flags except the length (fly) of the battle ensign was the same as the molded breadth of the ship. For the next size, the fly was the same length as the hoist of the next larger size. ...or something like that.

It's time to plank. I mentioned earlier, an error in placing the big stiffener would potentially cause problems. As we see, the first set of planking is set into a notch formed by the 2 ended arrow-head thing on the keel. Prior to planking, a false keel is placed so as to be the same thickness as the planking. When I test fitted the plank, I realized I installed the stiffener the wrong way. No worries...I installed the false keel correctly. In the above photo you can see the false keel and difference due to the stiffener being reversed. First planking started. The first plank assembly consists of one plank of the garboard strake, two of the broad strake and the entire third strake. Placing the single plank of the garboard is easy. Where do the ends of the third strake go? Ideally, I would use the tick mark reference lines on the bow and stern to place the plank, but since there may have been some error i placing those pieces, I was not sure. If incorrect there will be a gap in the planking. This pic is a little out of sequence...the original one was way out of focus. The plan was to install the garboard strake, then the broad and finally bring the floating wing into place. The resulting photo did not turn out so well, nor did the planking. Those wings flapping in the breeze kept getting in the way. . Plan B was to install the missing garboard and broad strake first (after carefully measuring where they should start, then install the assembly. This turned out much better. The clinker planking starts on strake 4. The planks are marked where the plank above it should go. As Clare pointed out, it is very important to be right on that line. Being off will affect how high the planking rides. The nail crew on this part of the hull were fired shortly after this picture was taken. Clinker planking begins. This picture looks familiar. Strakes 4 and 5 (clinker 1 and 2) complete. At this point the instructions get a little funky.