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The second row of this planking belt is developed just like the first row. You can see in the picture below how much curvature is developing in the fore plank. Aft, the run of planking continues to parallel the wale.

It is time to start planking the belts. There is more than one way to determine the shape of the bottom of the next plank. An alternate approach would be to put a length of tape (or a strip of paper secured with tape) above the broad strake and take a compass to draw the shape onto the tape or paper. Do not forget to locate the frame positions on the tape. Cut off the excess tape and finesse the shape against the broad strake. For my convenience, I have drawn a wide line on the dead flat strake. Using the tic strips mark the upper edge of the plank onto the tape and connect the marks with a ship's curve. Leave the tape wide to prevent distortion and then put it on the planking sheet. Cut out the plank, leaving a little excess on both the top and bottom. Trial fit the plank to the hull. When happy, add the caulking lines and glue in place. Do this for all three of the planks in this row. The result is a smooth curve when seen from both the side and below. Take note of the height of the strake as it enters the bow rabbet: no smiley-face.

What about a band saw? There would be less waste cutting billets down to usable thickness than with a table saw.

Same problem. However, simply typing pinnace, the first item is a 28 ft. pinnace and by typing longboat, a 20 ft. longboat is halfway down the page.

And if you are interested in learning how to plank correctly, consider this:

Brian, it is not up on the website yet. Please either call or email the office (both are found here: https://www.thenrg.org/contact-us.php).

Paul, welcome to MSW. This project is designed in such a way that a true novice should not have much problem. The only power tool I used was a Dremel, and even that is not necessary. The following was stolen from Kurt's announcement in the Nautical Research Guild announcement section. We can now take orders for the Half Hull Planking Kit The kit is not yet listed at the NRG Store, and when it is, we will update this, but we can now take orders through the NRG Office. Call the office directly or send an email. See the NRG web site for the phone and email. (Not listed here to thwart robots/spammers) The price is $65.00 for non-NRG members. NRG members get the member’s 20% discount price of $52.00. Prices are plus shipping. US shipping is $15.00. Canada shipping is $20.00. Other non-US shipping is $26.00. Expected shipping is the week of 10-22-19. And if you are lucky, Mary will convince you to join the Guild as well!

In order to keep the planks from becoming to wide aft, a stealer will be required. This extra plank "steals" some wood from one or two adjacent planks, hence the name. There are two types of stealers: half-checked and quarter-checked. With a half-checked stealer a notch one-half the width of the plank is made in the plank below the stealer; in a quarter-checked stealer a notch is made one-quarter the width of the planks above and below the stealer. I hope the drawings clarify this. A big question is where to put the stealer. As a rule, a stealer would be placed where the arc of the run of planking no longer parallels the wale. The fore end of the stealer extends as far as necessary to maintain a smooth run of planking. Look at the picture below. This nothing more than a piece of thread with a knot tied in it and secured to a random frame. The lower leg is along the border between the lower and middle planking belts. The upper leg is paralleling the arc of the wale. On the deadwood, in pencil, are evenly spaced marks for the ends of the planks of the lower and middle belts (four planks in the lower belt and five in the middle because of the stealer). Play around with the fore end of the string (lengthwise and vertically) to decide where the stealer should be located. Now look at the surrounding plank butts and make sure that the tip of the stealer is at least one row away from a plank butt. You will probably find that the tip of your stealer will land between frames. I glued a spacer between Frames F and G for this reason. The following pictures show a quarter-checked stealer drawn onto the spacer with and without the string. My other models were made with a quarter-checked stealer; this one will be made with a half-checked stealer. No reason other than to do it differently. The quarter-checked stealer is actually more difficult to make and the description of making it can be found in the kit manual.

Now that the garboard and broad strakes are completed, it is time to develop the planking belts. I have chosen three belts of four planks each. One could also do two belts of six planks. I simply find the narrower belts easier to work with. The midships area is easy...divide the frame by three. But fore and aft, the relative width of the belts will change. There will be a stealer aft and a dropped plank fore to compensate for this. What is needed now is an aesthetic series of lines for the belts. Play with it until you are happy; again, try and avoid the smiley-face look at the bow. Mark the location of the belts on the frames. On the frames are a series of hash marks on the side of the frames. You can see some of them in the photo above. These represent the locations for the top of the garboard and broad strakes and belt lines on my first build of the kit (this is number 5!). They are a good starting point but I discovered that each build was a little different, depending on the fairing and the actual width of the wider planks. Make a tic strip for each frames. Mark the planking belts and the bottom of the wale on them. Frames C through 2 were identical which is why there are no strips on several of the frames. Remove the tic strips from the frames and divide the lower belt into four equal divisions. Either eyeball it or use a caliper. It is time to figure out the planking scheme. Initially, I spent over an hour to figure this out. Ships were planked in either three-butt shifts or four-butt shifts. This ship will be planked with a four-butt shift. The rules for a four butt shift are as follows: at least three rows of planking between butts on the same frame, a minimum of four feet between butts with one unbroken plank between them and at least five feet between butts on adjacent planks. The distance between frame centers (except at the bow and stern) on this kit is four feet. Take a sheet of paper and line out the frames and twelve rows of planking. Play around with the butt locations. It gets more complicated aft because of the stealer. Eventually, I came up with three possible sequences for the planking. On this ship the butt sequence will be BF3, D1, A4F and C2. As mentioned in the previous post, I realized that the broad strake planking sequence should have been D1 rather than C2. But I did not notice this until the first belt had been completed. And, mea culpa, I decided to leave it alone rather than completely strip the hull except for the garboard strake. Mark the lower belt and the aft part of the middle belt with the butt sequence. I did this in red ink.

The next row of planking, the broad strake, has essentially the same width as the garboard. However...it is no longer a straight line because the width of the garboard changed fore and aft of midships. Mark the frames and deadwood at the sternpost just as you did with the garboard strake, 12" midships and 14" at the sternpost. Run a piece of string or tape to determine the run of planking. The fore plank will end approximately halfway between Frames 5 and 5a and 0.06" below the first waterline. The plank butts on this model landed on Frames C and 2. In retrospect, Frames D and 1 are a better option, as you will see in the next sequence. Take a piece of tape and place it over the garboard, extending onto the frames. Again, mark the location of the sternpost and frames. Take a soft pencil and rub it along the edge of the garboard strake from the sternpost to Frame C. Mark the height of the broad strake on the tape, put it on the planking sheet and cut it out. When cutting out the planks, leave a little meat on the bone for final fitting to the previous row of planking. Sanding blocks and sticks are the best tool I have found for fine-tuning the fit between planks. Gaps are easily seen by holding the hull up to a light. It will be necessary to sand a bevel into the side of the plank to ensure a tight fit. The angle of this bevel will change based on the curvature of the hull... a relatively flat area like over the deadwood will have minimal bevel and sharply curved areas like the turn of the bilge will have significantly more. Hull planks are caulked for water tightness. This is simulated by rubbing a soft pencil lead along one long and one short edge of the plank. Rubbing all four sides will result in a darker line; if that is the effect you are after, fine. I prefer the more subtle look. Repeat for the other two planks.

Some builders like to install the wale before the lower hull planking. I prefer to install it after the lower planking belts have been installed. Either approach will give the same results. Before any planking can be installed, the “median plank width” must be determined. This number represents the typical plank width measured at the dead-flat frame. This width varies by size and type of vessel, as well as by where and when it was built. This mid-18th century American schooner would have had a median plank width between 4-12” depending on the availability of materials. I have chosen a median plank width of 9”. The bottom two rows of planks are wider than the other planks and are the garboard and first broad strakes. These planks have a median plank width 1/3 greater than the other planks, in our case 12”. The length of planking was also determined by the availability of lumber. In this era, a length of 20-25’ would be appropriate. At our scale of 1:48, the median plank width will be 0.18"; the garboard and broad strakes will have a median plank width of 0.25". Going forward, all widths cited will be full-size unless otherwise stated. To get to the kit size, divide by 48. Take a strip of paper (tic strip) and mark off the median width of 12". Put the end of the strip into the depth of the rabbet in the midships area (Frames D through 3) and mark this location on the frames. All planks taper as they approach the bow and widen towards the stern. The garboard and broad strakes are no exception. In this little ship, the garboard widens to 14" at the sternpost and narrows to 6" at the bow. Place a mark on the deadwood at the sternpost 14" above the bottom of the rabbet. Remember that the rabbet transitions to a mortise by Frame F. One of the biggest problems builders have is locating the fore end of the garboard too high up the stem. This gives the planking a "smiley-face" look and makes the fore ends of the regular planks too narrow. Take a look at the photo below. The garboard does not extend beyond the fore end of Frame 5 and has minimal rise. On the plan there are green lines spaced 0.33" apart. This is 15" full-size. These are called waterlines and would be numbered from bottom to top; the numbering was not added to keep the plan less cluttered. The fore end of the garboard on this model ends 0.24" below the first water line. Using tape or a thread, connect the midships with the fore and aft locations of the garboard. When happy with the run of planking, mark the frames and remove the tape. There are several ways to determine the shape of planks. During the project I will show two approaches that work for me. Both approaches utilize templates to determine plank shape. I arbitrarily decided that the garboard will be made up from two planks and the broad strake from three. The planks will end on Frame 3. The garboard is the only strake with a straight edge. Place a piece of tape from Frame A to the stern post and another from Frame A to the stem. I always leave extra tape fore and aft so these two pieces will overlap each other at Frame A. Mark the location of the frames onto the tape; then mark the run of the garboard. Using semi-transparent tape makes this process a lot easier. You can see that I have also marked the rabbet/mortise transition in front of Frame F and the run of the plank at the bow and stern. The aft plank template has been placed on the planking material. The kit provides 1/32" basswood sheets. This material was chosen because it is inexpensive, easily cut with a #11 blade or single-edged razor blade, and readily available at craft and hardware stores if you run out. I have exaggerated the notch by Frame F for purposes of the picture. Remember, this is the transition between the rabbet and the mortise. The wood will dive into the rabbet but will lay flat in the mortise. Make a tiny cut at this spot to allow the wood to bend into the mortise. The notch will be sanded to its final width as the plank is given to the hull. This is how it will look when the garboard planks have been installed.

In order to determine the planking belts, we must first find the top and the bottom of the regular hull planking: the bottom of the wale and the top of the broad strake. The wale is a thicker run of planking that adds strength to the hull. It will be located on the plans of whatever ship you are building. It is marked on this plan with two blue lines. Use a square to locate the top of the wale on the frames. Make sure the line looks fair. Then mark the bottom of the wale on the frames, extending the line to the intersection of Frame H and the counter.

The NRG is now offering the latest in its series of educational tools for the ship modeler: the Half Hull Planking Project. The purpose of this Project is to teach modelers how to plank a hull using spiling techniques. Even a novice should have no trouble learning this technique with the materials and instructions provided. The tools required for completion of this kit are inexpensive; even a Dremel is optional. The price for the kit is $52 for NRG members and $65 for MSW members. The kit will include everything required to build the kit except the building board. The manual will be available as a download. If you are interested , please contact the NRG office at info@thenauticalresearchguild.org. You can follow the construction here:

Work has continued on fairing the hull. The picture show how I determine if the hull is fair. The thicker black line is chart tape. The thinner lines are thread. Bulges and depressions are easily seen this way. The red marks on the frame is where more work is needed. After I am happy with the shape, I take thin battens and lay them across the frames, moving them in different diagonal directions to triple check my work. If you take off too much, simply glue a shim onto the frame, as I did with Frame 5. The fairing is complete except for Frame H. You can see that most of the black lines have been sanded away.

You can see that a lot of the black lines have been sanded away. Time to put it aside for the day.