mikiek

Hello Mark - thanks for stopping in. This is going to sound strange but similar to what you said - I can feel the brittleness in the sticks. When I'm holding one tight in thumb & forefinger it's real obvious the stress I'm causing applying just a 1/8 rotation twist. With where I am in planking this build I've broken 5 out of 21 sticks. That seems high. Should we keep our wood in a humidor?

Brian, Antony - thanks for the comments. I'm finding that it's not so much bending the sticks as it is twisting them. Mainly when gluing around the curve at the bow or stern. The sticks usually need a bit of a twist so they lay flat on the frames and that is where they are breaking. Of course you can steam a twist into a stick the same as steaming a bend. I'm assuming you let the stick dry out before gluing it?

The wood I am using now is walnut. I can bend it just fine for the most part and if that's all it needs there's usually no problem. But if I'm planking a bow or stern and the stick (bent or unbent) needs some twist to lay flat on the frames, that's where I'm getting the breakage. Popeye's comment reminded me of something. Totally off topic but I was surprised to learn this - aquarists that maintain plant tanks often fasten plants to a piece of wood or a rock. The recommended way to do this is with CA. And the surfaces don't have to be dry for this to work. I was surprised about the dryness thing but it seems to be true. You just have to hold it in place for about a minute. I also would have figured CA to be toxic in an aquarium but apparently it isn't. FWIW.

OK Chris - a couple of follow ups: 1. What style clamps do you use? 2. How do you manage multiple wet strakes? If leaving overnight is required (and I get that) I would definitely want to put down multiple strakes in one sitting. Otherwise it could be 4-6 weeks at one strake per evening.

We all have to bend planks once in a while. While there are several ways to do it the common denominator seems to be adding moisture to the wood. Soaking it, steaming it, whatever. The wood softens up from moisture, we bend it, let it dry out, then glue it. At least that's what I've always done. While this will shape the stick, once it dries you've got a bent stick that is just about as brittle as it was before bending it. If you still have to put a little twist in it while gluing it is about as likely to break as before. Lately I've read a few comments that almost sound like the builder does the soaking and bending and then glues the strake while it is still damp. Am I totally misunderstanding or is this possible? If it is possible what glue is used? I suppose you would now have to wait for the glue and the stick to dry before moving on. How do you manage shrinkage?

The reason I brought it up is you have to paint some very thin strips around the ports. To make it worse the colors you will use have a high contrast so ANY little overage or spot really stands out. I noted to a friend here that the masking (for just one side) is about 90 minutes of work and the painting is about 5 minutes. After a coat or two you'll tear it all off and likely have to mask the painted part so you can paint the rest. Another 90 minutes. When you do mask, be sure to seal the tape edges up with some clear paint. It'll keep the real paint from wicking up under the tape. Tamiya (maybe others) makes some good tape in several different widths. Get some really thin - I think it's 1/8" - some medium and some wide.

I think the worst thing about planking is there seems so little to show for it. Not a lot of bang for the effort - until it is almost done. Then there's the challenge of making the last 2-3 strakes fit in the remaining space. Well I have a way to go for that. I laid the garboards first. Then for some reason kept planking up from the bottom half way finishing the bottom band. Then I realized this band is usually where you fill in those last few strakes. If things get too hosed up at least they're not in plain sight. So I stopped there and started top down. Top band is finished, I'm not overly wild about the outcome. I'm starting to think I don't like planking with walnut. The sticks always look so good in the bundle, fresh from the saw. But after you sand them they lose a lot of the luster. It also seems like they are always on the edge of breaking when they are bent. As a matter of fact in what you see in the pics, I have had 5 break. Here's how she looks right now: As you can see, I'm beginning to get below the 2nd & 3rd filler blocks. Not sure if I'll have to extend them or if the strakes will play nice. One or two more rows and I'll find out.

The purple stuff sands very well and you can even wipe it down with a fairly damp rag to smooth it even after it dries. I really like being able to thin it a little and apply it with a paint brush instead of a knife. If you work at it you can put down a coat that is thin enough to still show some wood grain. You can paint over it just fine. As with any filler be sure you put down at least one coat of primer. I've found it best to match the primer shade with your paint color. Use white for light colors like under the yellow you will be using. Use gray under the green. Use black under browns & blacks. Speaking of yellow & green (your bulwark colors), think about how you are going to paint the bulwarks when you have the 1/32 strips glued in. It's going to take some serious masking to keep the yellow & green off the strips which will be red.

Glad the air brush is working out for you. One suggestion there - get yourself some spare parts. The needles can get bent in a heartbeat and are useless after that. Depending on the brand parts can be a long time coming. Other parts - that little crown looking thing that screws on the tip, a brush cleaning set, inline moisture remover. Don't know if you have had to take it apart yet but when you do, count every screw turn and write it down. Great as they are, they can be very finicky when not adjusted just right.

Floyd I have built the T37, the T24 Tug and I have their T50 Trimaran on the shelf. Looking forward to seeing that one on the water. Rumor has it there is nothing else like it for speed. Will does a great job with his products at Tippiecanoe. I really like the idea of a nice build that you can do something with when you're done.

OK - I like the concept. So I have a laser line on the hull. Then what? Do you still need a stand of some sort to hold a marker to actually draw the line?

Doug - you are correct and I forgot to add my usual disclaimer about the curvature. That's the main reason for using the string to get the initial surface measurement. It will wrap around the curves. When I walked the dividers down the frames today I was left with about 1/16 - 1/32 extra after the last step. That's easily made up when shaping the planks. My dividers have thin metal points on the end. When shaping planks rather than pencil marks I just stab the point into the plank. The hole becomes my mark. My problem is trying to whittle/cut/sand/file the plank edge down to the stab marks. Cutting with a knife (even with a straight edge) is problematic for me. A lot of times I use a mini hand planer to remove material. Other uses? Transferring measurements. I've used them in the opposite way a few times when an inset in a plan was blown up and I needed to shrink to scale.

Shoulda looked at the pic closer. I thought it had something to do with the plastic on the deck. Something new and revolutionary guaranteed to change our hobby for generations to come.

Getting preped for hull planking. I have laid the garboards (well almost) and they seem to have come out OK. It's been a while since I worked with walnut sticks and I forgot they don't like bending & twisting very well. Yeah I know to soak them but they still but up a fight. As I mentioned earlier there is no rabbet in this design so placement of the garboard leaves a little guesswork at both ends of the hull. So I glued a stick to the easy frames in the middle first. Got them situated and let the glue dry overnight before I started wrestling at the bow & stern. Next evening I did the rest. Here's what I got: Like I said these sticks aren't bending well. This one cracked while I was heat bending it. I tried to beef it up with some thin CA but it broke as soon as I tried to twist it at the stern. I hope this replacement piece will hold Next up was marking the plank bands. It's not really stated in the plans to do this but it's what I know. The challenge was to come up with the number of bands for the available space. Trying to figure with the actual measurements wasn't working out. Looks like a case for the dividers! I've preached about them before but never for this step in the process. While trying the actual calculations, 4 bands came the closest to working out so that's what I am going with. To get that marked on the frames here's what I did. Measure the surface length of a frame. I use a piece of string but paper or tape can work too. Set the dividers to 4 (4 bands) Lay the string flat and spread the long end of the dividers across the determined length. The short end now has that measurement evenly divided by 4 so that's the width of the band on that frame. Place the short end on the frame up against the garboard and walk it to the other end of the frame making a mark at each step. And there you have it. As the measurement will be different, do this for each frame. The cool thing about this I don't really care what the actual measurements are. I just know I have some length and I need to divide it by 4 and transfer that result (whatever it is) to the frame. In my Niagara build I show how to actually use the dividers to shape each individual plank to fit within it's band. This method is almost fool proof.

Per - what are the water levelers you mentioned?

Thanks Don - it appears that the bow is a somewhat narrower than midship. I think the strakes at the bow will be pretty narrow so that should make it easier to get them trimmed uniformly. I'm in the middle of laying the garboards now. I glued the sticks to the easy frames last night - waiting for the glue to dry. Tonight I will do the bow & stern. For the rest of the planking I am planning on working with 3-4 plank bands. The proportional dividers should make an easy task of that. I can already see that I "over-faired" some of the frames. I didn't take too much away, but the angle on some of the bow frames I made too sharp. I'll have to see if I need to add some shims to correct this, but I'll do that strake by strake. I've always said don't kill yourself on the first fairing. Wait and do it when you lay each strake. Guess I wasn't listening to myself

Good call on the clamps Doug. I like that idea.

I'm with you on the filler Tom. Our builds are not supposed to be finished like a show car. If you do have to fill: 1. Over paint is fine. Good luck if you plan on staining. It takes stain differently than wood. 2. Just put it where you need it. Not over the whole bulwark. 3. A trick I learned. Using Elmers Purple wood filler (probably others too) you can thin it out with some water. Not runny, more like molasses. Then you can apply it with a paint brush. For me it was easier to get it into the cracks and you can spread it very thin. Of course practice a little first.

One ramification of no rabbet is that it makes the laying of the garboard a challenge. For most of the middle frames a garboard lays nicely and even butts up to the keel OK. But the last bulkhead on either end is going to require a serious twist to the plank so it will lay flat. I've also got a decision to make about how far forward to let the garboard run. Both ends of the stick will require some carving so it ends cleanly and I'll have to make sure the ends are actually glued down. Normally I would just cram the ends of the stick into the rabbet. I think this is going to make planking the entire bow a challenge as there will be nothing to grab and cover the end of the stick.

Tom I use Titebond for Trim & Moulding. It gets tacky and sets a little quicker and it doesn't run even on a vertical surface or upside down. Regarding dividers, yes you can do the entire hull with them. As a matter of fact if you're planning on using them you probably should use them from the start. Get your bands from the hull planking plan and mark the frames. Use only the drawing that shows a half view from the bow and a half view from the stern. The other views distort the distances between bands. I always recommend getting some with thin metal points rather than the thick plastic points. There's some things you can do with the metal points that you can't with thicker points. They need to be able to stick into a plank easily.

Thanks for checking in Doug. Welcome back. I'll do my best to keep her there this time.

Thank you Per. I will be giving it back to the owner. Hopefully it will be another 75 years before it needs help again. I won't be around for that but maybe my first mate will. I will probably make the suggestion to put it under some sort of cover.

Considering it was July when I last posted I feel I owe you guys some explanation. Trajta has been on the shelf after my meager start. I had a lot going on at that time both in regards to builds and personal life. Frankly I was totally exhausted to the point where it was affecting me physically and mentally. I was easily frustrated with a short fuse and given all the questions I was coming up with regarding this build - questions I should have known the answer to - I put the kit away. I had made a commitment to finish Niagara - rigging was all that was left. Something I really don't like to do - more frustration. So here we are now, mid December. Things have improved somewhat, while I am still trying to recover from the exhaustion, I at least now know what was causing most of my problems. The knowledge alone has helped me a great deal. Niagara is finished, I just finished a model restoration and I am ready to take on Trajta once again. In our last episode, I was attempting to add some planking to an inner frame(s). Trajta has a large opening in the deck that exposes the hold and the planking is to dress this up a bit. I've got about half of that completed, but decided to move on to getting frames on the keel. The Marisstella design here is interesting. The notches used to fit frames to keel are fairly shallow compared to a lot of kits. However this is offset by the use of some large dowels that are inserted thru pre drilled holes in the frames. When glued in place the frames are very sturdy and come fairly close to being parallel to each other and perpendicular to the keel. Gluing the frames was uneventful except for being sure which direction the frames planked earlier were facing. The opening I mentioned earlier has a frame in it at the moment but it is lightly glued and has no dowels running thru it. It will be removed down the road. I did some fairing after that, it didn't take too much. Was about to lay the first plank when I realized there was no rabbet. I reviewed the plans and instructions and saw no indication of one. As it turns out this build doesn't use a rabbet. Planks just butt up the the stem and stern post. The garboard is just supposed to be glued where the frames meet the keel. That's going to be interesting. Given this, I am breaking down and making filler blocks. I not a big fan of blocks but it looks like the planks are going to need some help bending to the bow & stern and without a rabbet to hold them in place it looks like they are needed. So that's about where I am right now. Finishing up the blocks (bow & stern) and getting ready to lay some sticks. Here's a few shots.

Hey Don - Thank you. I'm a little nervous about the sails. All of us here know sails are never spotlessly clean so I did my best to dirty them up. Not sure how the owner is going to take that. He did say do what you want. This was a good short project. It's back to Trajta now.

I'm calling this one finished. Pix posted below, but go back to the start of this thread and take a look how it started out so you can see before and after. Restoration is an interesting endeavor. I did my best to keep as much as possible of the original build. That was by far the hardest part of this build. So much I wanted to add or change. The most radical thing I did was change the running rigging from black to tan. Not too big of a sacrilege I hope. Here she is - Hispaniola (II) I posted what I think are some strange but interesting circumstances regarding this effort here.