FriedClams

Regarding the steam engine.
 
 We know it was a non condensing steam engine because we see the exhaust being emitted directly into the atmosphere. We know it was  vertical steam engine and not a horizontal engine.  We know the height was no more than four feet high as the exhaust pipe from the engine can be seen through the engine room window viewed from the bow.
 
 If it was an expansion steam engine the exhaust would be water. The idea of a non condensing expanding engine is not a possibility according to what I've read and I've done a bunch of reading/research over the past two days trying to come up with an engine design I can make. 
 
 The power of a two cylinder expanding engine was only suitable for a launch, so that eliminates a vertical two cylinder non condensing engine because of the lack of power and a vertical three cylinder non condensing engine also sounds like it wouldn't  have also had the power to push barges. I did find a photo of a model of a vertical three cylinder non condensing reversing engine, see photo.
 
 They did make a special marine vertical four cylinder reversing non condensing steam engine but I can't find a model or better yet, historical photo of one.I did find a photo of a vertical four cylinder reciprocating (V-4) but that wouldn't work because there would have two exhaust pipes coming off the engine, not one.
 
 The vertical marine four cylinder reversing non condensing steam engine was powerful and smooth running engine. Because of the length of the drive shaft and the wheels being gear driven, minimizing the amount of vibration would have been a huge factor. 
 
 What's a guy to do? The only thing I know to do is get creative and add a cylinder to the three cylinder engine shown.
 
 "Houston, disregard that last transmission" .... 
 

 
 

Thank you to all for the comments and likes.
 
 Quick update...
 
 The knee braces and winches have been added and that completes the bow face except for the deckhand and he will be the last piece added to the model. 

 
 With the exception of the water and steam pipes the boiler is done and glued in place

 
 Next on the list is the steam engine. 
 
 Thank you for the support and for being part of the journey.
 
   Keith

Thank you guys for your kind and informative comments and the likes. I appreciate your support so very much.
 
 
  The first time i saw the photos of this push boat I was smitten with the ugly, dirty, quirkiness of her but I had serious reservations when I started the build not knowing if I was going to be capable of doing her justice. It's only been in this last week that I've really warmed to the build as the work has finally developed a rhythm and flow and now I'm having a ton of fun, let the devil take the hind quarter. 
 
 
 First off, I want to apologize for the following photos.......bad camera day.    
 
 The steel plate is painted but not yet glued down. I looked at beads and a whole slew of other options for lightbulbs but nothing worked as well as the belaying pins. I did try filing  and sanding the shape from egg to ball, they're now acceptable.  
 
 I added coal to the coal crib and the auto stoker's conveyer belt. Coal has a slight gleam to it so I lightly patted poly on top of the coal to give it just a hint of shine. I also got the conveyer belt tail rigged through the blocks. 

 
 
 The stern maintenance hatch is made and glued in place.

 
 The coal crib and stoker are glued to the steel plate but the boiler is not yet glued to the plate as I have more work to do on it which is next on the list. 
 
 Thank you for following along and being part of the journey.
 
    Keith 

As @mcb noted in post #31 there is evidence of hogging in the original photo. This towboat has 1930's technology so I assume it was built around 1935 but the deckhand is dressed in bluejeans, teeshirt, and baseball cap which didn't come into style until the late 40's early 50's. The quality of the photo and the deckhands dress suggest to me the photo was taken about 1955. That would mean the vessel had been in service for at least 20 years.  

 
In the below photo is what appears to be an anti-hogging system. 
 
 A. Turnbuckle. 
 
 B. Large Clevis joint.
 
 C. Eighteen inch support post were the pipe/rod passed through hole drilled a the top of the post. 
 
 I assume the pipe/rod run below the waterline to the bottom of the hull. 
 
 
 Whether this design was in place when the boat was built or after hogging stated to stop any further hogging is anyone's guess. It's not much of a system compared to the designs we see in other paddlewheel vessels. It's another quirky piece in a likewise quirky boat. 

 
 Any thoughts are appreciated, thank you for following along,
 
   Keith

Thank you to everyone for the comments and likes.
 
 Page #3, post #68 helps to clarify my work in the below photos. 
 
The wheels are now permanently attached. What tedious work it was trying to replicate the piping used to keep the wheel shaft from moving side to side.
I used 24 GA annealed wire to imitate the piping.  
 
 

 
 The white thingies on top of the post are both working lights and stern lights. They're supposed to represent bare lightbulbs. Being fresh out of 1:120 scale lightbulbs I had to use belaying pins and paint accordingly. They are not glued in so I can change them out if I can come up with something that better resembles lightbulbs. It may require a trip to the basement and dig through Maggie's tubs of beads. 

 

 

 
 Work can now start moving forward in earnest.
 
 They used a design to try and prevent hogging. It took me looking at the photos another hundred times () to realize what I was seeing. More on this in the next post.
 
 Thank you so much to everyone for your support.
 
   Keith

I can only sleep in four hour segments. I went to sleep at 8:30 last night and woke up at 12:30 AM. I went upstairs and worked till 3:30 AM, went back to sleep and was up at 7:30 so it was all good. The problem is if I stay up and work until those early morning hours I sleep in late and then I'm unable to take care of Maggie.  

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments and likes. 
 
 What a taffy pull it was getting the wheels built. For as long as it took I should be dancing a jig but alas, that's not the case. 
 
 The wheels are loosely placed as more work in the stern is required before they are glued into place but this little ugly duck now looks the part. 

 
 I poly coated the wheels to represent being wet.

 
 The buckets are 14 inches to scale but could have been a tad bit wider. 

 
 I did a poor job pairing the Amati ships wheels used for the  framework as evidenced by the port side wheels canted bucket. Not all Amati ships wheels are created equal. 
 

 

 
I'm not staying up until the wee hours of the morning working anymore so the pace it's going to be a little slower going.
 
 Thank you guys for your support by following along and being part of the journey.
 
  Keith

Any and everyone. It's merely a statement of non importance on how I feel about trying to build something when lacking what I feel to be adequate information. 

Great story about X, and very nicely handled!
 
John

Good luck with your glazings (window glass) - that is quite the undertaking!

I think it is time for another sea tale! This involves the mess decks on the Cape, so you can refer to the former post for a "map" of the main deck house where the mess decks were located.
 
Ptomaine!
 
Personnel on ships were grouped in Divisions with similar work and responsibilities. For example, I was the Engineering Officer and was in charge of the Engineering Division that maintained the engines and other equipment. The XO was the First Division Officer and they did most of the dirty work topside. A Division Officer's job (junior officer's job) was mostly involved with personnel matters, and sailors often created some interesting challenges.
 
I mentioned earlier that we had two of McNamara's 100,000 in the Cape's crew. They were draftees who failed the Navy's entrance exam. But the Navy was short handed so Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ordered 100,000 of them into the Navy to see if they were smart enough to chip paint. One of these fellows on the Cape was a few cans short of a six pack. I will call him "X" to protect the innocent. He was good at chipping paint and handling mooring lines, while under supervision. But he had some strange habits.
 
He was a momma's boy, and went home every weekend. Apparently his mother had put the fear of food poisoning into his brain, warning him to not trust anything but her cooking, or food she approved of. So when he came back to the ship he always carried a few cases of Coca Cola and canned corn beef hash. I was unaware of this until one of my men, a third class PO named Sylvester, told me about X. All he ate was canned corn beef hash, and all he drank was Coca Cola.
 
During meals on the mess deck X would wander through saying "Ptomaine, ptomaine!" I can still hear his squeaky voice crying "Ptomaine!" The crew took it in stride, recognizing that X wasn't all there.
 
One day while X was sitting in a booth in the mess decks drinking cola I enlisted Sylvester in a scheme to reprogram X. I asked him to join me in the booth next to X and just play along.
 
I told Sylvester about a strange case of vitamin deficiency, speaking loud enough that X could hear. There was a fellow in France who ate only egg whites and drank only white wine. Egg whites contain a substance that binds the vitamin biotin, deactivating it. And white wine contains no biotin. Normally there is enough biotin in a fingerprint to sustain a person for months or years. But after a while this guy flushed all of the biotin out of his system. Sylvester played along, asking questions.
 
The French guy had very peculiar symptoms that took doctors a long time to figure out. His was the first recorded case of biotin deficiency. So the moral of the story was that we need to have a varied diet so we don't come down with a strange illness no one has ever seen before.
 
A couple days later Sylvester came up and said "Mr. Hays, did you know that X was eating the ship's food?"
 
Sure enough, X started dining with the rest of us. I doubt if he told his mother! And he stopped saying "ptomaine" when walking through the mess decks.
 
Dealing with enlisted men's problems is a part of a Junior Officer's job. X was in the XO's First Division, and not my responsibility. But no one was telling the XO much about X's peculiar habits. Sylvester was one of my men, and perhaps X's best friend on the ship. So he talked to me.
 
And X did have other problems! Sylvester said X had athlete's foot on both legs all the way above his ankles, and the enlisted men who lived on board feared they would get it from the common shower. So I told the XO, and he told the Captain.
 
The Captain ordered X to report to the base hospital. Doctors were another of X's hang-ups. Apparently mom had told him only to report to her with medical issues - you couldn't trust doctors. I think she may have been a few cans short too. But X had been programmed in boot camp to follow orders, and the supreme order giver was the Captain. So X reported to the base hospital for treatment. Apparently the Captain outranked mom!
 
I have always found it humorous how the younger enlisted guys, aged 17 to 20 or so, looked up to junior officers as father figures. I was only 24!

Extremely fine work, Paul.  Your model is progressing nicely with each new step so thoughtfully executed. 
 
Gary

Now that the hull is (mostly) finished I can get back to work on the deckhouse. These are the O1 deckhouse sides.
 

 
These are a lot more complex than the main deckhouse parts - mainly because of all the windows. I have installed the window and door frames. These are made of 1/32 x 3/32 (0.8 x 2.4 mm) basswood. (I meant to put a ruler in the photo but forgot). The window and door frames were made of mahogany, but on the Cape all of the exterior surfaces were painted gray. On our sister ship USS Cove MSI-1 the exterior parts of these frames were varnished. I debated whether to make the frames from mahogany and varnish them, but I decided to stay true to the real ship. The windows and interior frames were varnished mahogany and I will finish them that way.
 
The windows will be an experiment. I will try to cut thin glass microscope slide cover slips to size and sandwich them between 1/64 inch (0.4 mm) wooden parts stained mahogany. Wish me luck on this! I could just put the window parts on the outside, but with the two pilot house doors open and seven windows much of the interior will be visible. I have detailed drawings of where all the equipment was located and one good photo of the pilot house interior, so I intend to fit it out with all those things. Here is a plan of the O1 level house and you can see where most of the equipment was placed in the pilot house.
 

 
Behind (left) the pilot house was the radio room and a ladder down to the main deck level. You can get an idea how cramped things were from the size of the Type IV chair and the two foot (0.6 meter) wide door openings. The house was only 9 1/2 feet (2.9 meters) wide inside.
 
Here is a picture of most of the O1 level deckhouse parts in place on the main deckhouse.
 

 
The three pieces on the right with windows are the front of the pilot house. The center piece is cut to size, but the outer two narrower pieces with single windows are extra wide and will be fit in place after the other sides are glued together. Perhaps the trickiest part of making these was cutting the window openings from the 0.0625 inch (1.6 mm) plywood house sides. The spacing between those front three window openings is just 0.040 inch (1 mm), thinner than the plywood sheet. That required some very gentle filing to open up the holes without breaking something!
 
The main deckhouse was where the crew lived (the crews berthing was below decks in the fo'c'sle). Here is the plan for this area.
 

 
Up forward (right) were the officer's quarters. The CO's stateroom (C.O.S.R.) on the starboard side had a single bunk. On the port was the wardroom stateroom (W.R.S.R.) that the XO and I shared. It had two over/under berths one small closet and four drawers that we shared. The room was a little over 10 feet (3 meters) long with a sink up forward. The officers shared a small toilet and shower between the two rooms. Aft of the CO stateroom on the starboard side was the "wardroom" (officer's dining room). It had a small table with benches on two sides. Aft of that was the galley And aft of that were two restaurant style tables and benches that could seat maybe 16 crowded people. The crew was 18 enlisted men so the most senior petty officers (two 1st Class POs) dined in the wardroom with the officers. On the port side behind the officer's stateroom was the crew's head and shower and a ladder down to crew's berthing. The rest of the deckhouse held the engine uptakes, fire fighting equipment and the laundry. I have been on active fast attack nuclear submarines and I think they may have been more crowded that we were, but in either case there was a lot of "togetherness" in the crews. But at least we could go outside for fresh air. Of course, I will not be modelling any of these spaces.

The blueprints mostly show the "as built" configuration. There were a few minor modification to the Cape over the years that are not shown in the blueprints. The searchlights were moved to the O2 level and the ships boat was stowed in a different position.
 
The Cleveland class blueprints show a series of modification while the ships were being built. For the Oklahoma City the problem was MUCH larger. That ship underwent major modifications to lower the center of gravity (make the ship more stable) after the original guided missile conversion in the late 1950s that are not shown in the blueprints. I suppose there must be drawings for these changes, but I guess that stayed at the shipyards where the modifications were made. I found no mention of these in the National Archives.
 
I have photos that I took while aboard both ships that show some changes.

I am using the builder's plans approved by the US Navy Bureau of Ships (BUSHIPS) - microfilm blueprints from the US National Archives. For the MSIs there are 278 "frames" or BUSHIPS numbered drawings on the microfilm. However, some of these drawings have multiple sheets, up to two or three dozen pages. Everything from hull lines to lists of furniture, electrical and plumbing diagrams, door and hatch lists, etc. They even include the calculations for things like wind loading on the masts and the structural design to withstand the maximum expected winds. Very detailed. About 325 to 350 pages in all.
 
They tell almost everything about how the vessel was built - except, of course, the one small detail you really want to know! For example, they tell the dimensions and material of the planks for the outer sheathing, how to apply the sheathing to the hull (screws, adhesives and underlying waterproofing materials) and the width of the gaps between planks, but there are no clues to how the sheathing was arranged on the hull. I guess everyone already knew that when they were drawing up the plans.
 
The MSIs were small and only two were made, so the blueprint set is small. For the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 modified Cleveland class cruiser I modeled (CAD) the index pages alone are a stack 6 inches high (25 to 30 drawings listed per page), with 8971  blueprints for the original Clevelands (27 were built, with many modifications) and another 3023 for the Talos guided missile modifications, plus more for the Terrier modifications. More than 13,000 pages of drawings, lists, calculations, etc.! But only 386 of those pages were useful for modelling the ship.
 
So if you want to build an accurate model of a modern ship you should work from the original blueprints. Unfortunately, some of the original sheets didn't make it into the microfilm sets, so there will still be a little guesswork.
 
Here is a typical example blueprint drawing showing how the forward bulwarks were to be constructed on the MSIs. Note the list of materials (screws, nuts, bolts, metal plates, etc.), quantity and sizes, plus the General Notes giving details about how the parts were to be assembled. A list of references  to other blueprints is given. And of course many detailed drawings. This is a greatly reduced image only 1.6 mbytes and a bit blurry, but the original microfilm scan is 89.5 megabytes, and too large to post here.

Those plans you have must be very detailed, if they tell you how wide the grout is and the precise shade of paint.

Just catching up after being away for a while, Phil. Looking good!
 
John

After the tape is removed there are raised ridges of dry paint that formed along the tape edges. I have dealt with this in several ways.
 
1. I have VERY carefully scraped the raised paint with the tip of a #11 blade. The paint should not be too hard to avoid chipping. You need a steady hand for this!
 
2. On the Cape model I used a small file with a narrow tip. It must be held parallel to the hull surface, and it is best to align the shaft of the file along the paint edge. Using very gentle pressure the high points in the paint are filed off.
 
3. I have sanded the hull after the paint is very dry with very fine grit (#600) paper. Allow at least a week for acrylic paint to harden. Sanding the paint edges is incidental to producing a very smooth surface prior to applying a finishing coat of clear varnish or shellac. I would use this method to produce a glass smooth surface like on the hulls of modern racing yachts, or boats with fiberglass hulls.
 
****
 
I used a clear acrylic sealer (FolkArt all-purpose sealer49909) on all the wood on the hull. Even though the acrylic sealer is water based I didn't notice much raised "fuzz" after the first coat. The hull was sealed and sanded at least three times before the outer layer of sheathing was applied. That was sealed and sanded once (I didn't want to fill the cracks between the sealing planks). The deck was sealed and sanded at least twice. This produced a fairly smooth hull with visible planks like the original ship. It was all finished with #0000 steel wool before painting.
 
I applied water based  FolkArt satin varnish to the deck and then finished it with #0000 steel wool. I plan to apply this varnish to the entire hull to get a uniform satin finish.
 
****
 
Many people avoid steel wool because it can leave tiny metal bits embedded in the paint. These can then rust over time in a humid environment. I always brush off the dust and loose steel wool fibers. Then I scrub with a stiff brush to remove any remaining metal, and wipe the surface several times with a damp rag. After this I rub a strong magnet over the entire surface - it is surprising how much metal "dust" remains. I have been doing this for half a century and have never had a problem with rusty fragments. This is in western Oregon where it rains from October to May. and people consider it a drought if the ground gets dry!

Great job on the hull Phil! I usually seal the wood and spray a thin film of modelling primer on hulls before painting.
I am very close to painting my hull as well. Are you planning to do anything to the raised edges left by the tape? People apparently sand these but I am not sure how this could be done without ruining the whole paint job.
 
Vaddoc

Great method to seal the sides of the masking tape! Thanks!

I have been putting the finishing touches on the hull.
 

 
First off was painting the hull. I used the laser level to mark off the top and bottom of the boot topping (black stripe at the waterline). Then I used yellow-green auto detailing striping tape to mask off the boot topping area. The upper gray part and the lower red parts were then painted.
 
After the paint dried overnight I removed the striping tape. Then more tape was applied over the gray area just above the top of the boot topping. Another strip of tape was placed over the red paint at the bottom of the boot topping. This masked off the areas around the boot topping area.
 
Then I painted along the edges of the boot topping, using gray paint along the upper edge and red paint at the lower edge.
 

 
This paint sealed the edges of the tape. If any paint flowed under the tape it would be the same color as the paint already there.
 
After this paint dried I applied the black paint to the boot topping, flowing over the edges of the tape slightly. It looks pretty sloppy at this point.
 

 
After the black paint dried I removed the striping tape. This left nice clean edges for the boot topping.
 

 
I still need to finish painting the transom. The areas between the guard timbers cannot be masked and must be painted by hand. I will wait until tomorrow morning to do this after a good night's sleep and my first cup of coffee.
 
The blueprints say the gray was Haze Gray formula 5H. I couldn't find any supplier of this color - it has since been discontinued for a different formula. The original haze gray used in WWII was a much darker blue gray. After the war the US Navy changed to a much lighter neutral gray that was called "Ocean Gray" for a while. I think this was what we used on the Cape and the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5. But the name seems to have been changed back to Haze Gray, Then later on yet another Haze Gray formula was created and I think this is what is used today. But there seems to be a lot of confusion as to which "Haze Gray" was used and when. I gave up trying to match the 5H color and used a fairly neutral light gray.
 
The red is supposed to be Anti-Fouling Red formula 121. Again I couldn't find this exact color, so I chose a moderately dark red. The blueprints call for Boot Topping Black formula 3. I just used some black paint I had in my paint box. The paints were all acrylic "craft" paints. They dry quickly and are water washable.
 
DecoArt Slate Gray DAO68
DecoArt Primary Red DA199
craft smart Black 371081
 
These paints coat well and required just two thin layers applied a day apart. The only problem I had came when I removed the striping tape after painting the boot topping. The tape lifted the red and gray paints from the brass stem band. The brass was smooth and shiny, and apparently did not have enough "tooth" (roughness) for the acrylic paints to adhere to. However, the paint had only dried over night, and if I had waited a week or two before applying the tape it might have held up better. But it was easy to touch up the missing paints.
 
With the painting mostly done I could install the propeller and rudder. The Bluejacket Shipcrafters propeller was a bright shiny silvery color, but the blueprints call for a bronze piece. I painted it with FolkArt Brushed Bronze metallic acrylic paint. It dried hard, and I have seen no chipping of the paint with handling.
 

 
I left the sea chests for the propulsion engines and minesweep generator engines bare metal. The "zincs" around the sea chests, propeller and rudder are thin pieces of brass. I painted them with some ancient Chromatone silver enamel paint that I think I have had since 1977!
 
I still need to apply some rub-on numbers for the draft markings at the bow and stern. And there is the hull number to be applied in true Cape fashion. Then I will seal everything with a satin acrylic varnish.

I'm back! I was occupied for about 2 1/2 weeks auditing the books for a non-profit that I am Treasurer for. I was checking every penny coming into and leaving the organization for 13 years, including restricted and unrestricted funds. I found a few errors, and after corrections everything balances for every month of the entire 13 years!
 
Then I finished laying all of the deck planking on the Cape model.
 

 

 
Don't ask how many individual planks there are - I have no idea! But there are a lot!
 

 

 
Just aft of the superstructure are two grouts running perpendicular to the plank lengths. This was a "portable" or lift out deck section directly above the main propulsion engines. This is still a rough planking. I have scraped, filed and sanded a bit, but the final smoothing and finishing is still to do.
 
The planks varied in width and height between 0.052 and 0.072 inch (1.3 and 1.8 mm). I carefully measured distances from centerline to deck edges all along the length of the ship - and they were the same everywhere (I was pretty careful with this when I put the plankshears and nibbing strakes on).  I figured random choices for planks would even out to port and starboard, but it didn't work that way (Murphy again). The starboard side at the stern gained about 1/4 a plank width at the edge of the deck well. From there I used thinner planks on the starboard side and thicker planks to port. The port side came out perfect with a full plank width finishing out the planking along the stern planksheer. But the starboard side was still almost a half plank too wide and had to be cut into the nibbing strake.  But I doubt anyone would notice, and that area will be covered with minesweeping gear anyway.
 
The next time I plank a deck - especially if the planks are so thin that they bend easily - I will draw a series of lines parallel to the centerline and equally spaced on either side. These will serve as references to catch any planking "creep" wider or thinner on one side from the other.
 
The deck planks are about 1/16 x 1/16 inch (1.6 x 1/6 mm) and that is pretty small to be making nibbing. Because the deckhouse sides are not parallel, and the nibbing strake curves along the deck edge, the planking pattern was pretty complex along the sides of the deckhouse. This led to a problem with tapering planks along the deckhouse sides and nibbing planks into the nibbing strake. Bringing the decking from the bow and that from the stern together caused a problem, and this was exacerbated by the varying plank widths. The starboard side came out almost perfect, but I had to do some creative planking on the port side to make things come out right.
 

 
The last plank on the model ended up sandwiched between outboard nibbed planks and inboard tapered planks. It had to fit into a one plank wide groove - and was nibbed into the nibbing strake. And because it was the last plank it had paper grout strips down both sides. I picked a pretty narrow strip (about 0.060 inch or 1.5 mm) but it was a tight fit with the paper grout glued on. This called for some creative widening of the groove between neighboring planks. But it finally dropped into place with a bit of pressure.
 

 

 
 
 
I know some people think the grout between planks on a model should be more imagined than seen. But the Cape's decks were holystoned and bleached, and the grout stood out very visible.
 
The "grout" on the model is black paper 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) thick, and that is 0.24 inch at 1:48 scale. The blueprints say the grout was 1/4 inch wide in the ship's decks.

Phil, great looking planking and nice modification on the #11 blade!

I have been planking the main deck.
 

 
As you look at these photos keep in mind that this is the rough deck. It has not been sanded or sealed.
 

 
The blueprints say plank ends will be spaced at least four frame spaces with three passing strakes between butts in line. The planks should be laid parallel to the centerline "... in as long lengths as practicable ..." How long was "practicable"  when they were building this ship?
 
The planking strips are 24 inches (610 mm) long. I decided to use 5 inch (127 mm) long planks (20 scale feet or 6 scale meters) because that is 16 frame spacings. This way I can use multiples of 4 frame spaces (1.25 inch or 31.75 mm), or planks 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1 plank length long to stagger the plank ends lengthwise. Some of the planks are actually longer that 16 frame spaces at the bow and stern.
 
The blueprints specify deck planks 2 5/8 inch (66.7 mm) square, or 0.055 inch (1.4 mm) at 1:48 scale. The closest commercially available strips were nominally 1/16 x 1/16 inch (0.0625 x 0.0625 inch or 1.6 x 1.6 mm). However they range from 0.055 to 0.075 inch (1.4 to 1.9 mm) and none are actually square in cross section.
 
I cut the strips to the desired plank length and then glue a strip of black paper to one side. I usually place the narrowest dimension of the plank vertically so it will take fewer strips to plank the deck.
 
The paper is about 0.005 inch (0.127 mm) thick, and this is 0.24 inch (6.1 mm) at 1:48 scale. The blueprints call for a 0.25 inch (6.4 mm) grout so the paper and glue are just about the perfect thickness.
 
 

 
The paper strips were cut on an ordinary paper cutter, eyeballing the widths, so they are not uniform. They protrude a bit above the tops of the planks. With handling the tops of the paper strips "fuzz out" and appear wider than the nominal width, making the grout look non-uniform. But after all the planking is done the deck will be scraped, sanded and finished with #0000 steel wool and the grout lines will be much more uniform in width.
 
Nibbing the planks into the nibbing strake along the edge of the deck is much harder that it was on the topsail schooner build - it had 5 mm wide planks. As you can see in this macro photo the nibbing isn't "perfect." It has taken a bit of practice to get it more uniform in appearance, and I screwed up in a few places.
 
 
Fortunately part of the fore deck is covered by a steel chafing plate where the anchor chain runs, and this will cover the worst of the screw-ups! Phil 1, Murphy 0!
 
I soon learned that I could not cut uniform nibs with just a #11 hobby knife blade. The solution was to use an old, dull #11 blade with a broken tip, and shape the tip to make a "nibbing tool."
 
I used a grinding wheel in my motor tool and cut the tip to about 0.030 inch (0.76 mm) wide, with a chisel tip on the end. This is about half a plank width, and that is how wide the nib tip should be. I ground a cutting edge on the end, and then sharpened it on a whet stone.
 
I first use this tool to make the initial cut at the edge of the nibbing strake. Then I cut back from there to where the plank edge meets the edge of the nibbing strip. The plank is then shaped to fit the nib cutout. I usually have to trim the plank a bit narrower at the nib to account for the thickness of the paper grout.
 
 
No two nibs have the same angle cut, and the nibs get longer as the planking progresses toward midships. Some of the planks will have very long tapers, especially along the deck house sides. It is pretty tricky trying to cut long straight tapers into the nibbing strake.

Real good that you can operate your layout and sort out any glitches to your operating scheme. I've operated on several layouts that have some terrain and a few foam block structures. They'll get around to doing structures 'one of these days". And I've been enlisted to build up structures or rolling stock to help owners advance their railroads.