Jackson7

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind.

The countdown continues. Two left. I will have to sand the planks currently on the hull to make the last two fit at the bow and stern. But that should be relatively easy. Out of an abundance of caution, I will leave that task for tomorrow when I am certain the glue has had a day to set.

At last, I've started putting planks on again. Cutting the final one to shape went perfectly. The trick was not to cut it with the X-Acto knife, but to whittle it up to the line. Cutting it in one stroke has a tendency to split the plank. Everything else should be a matter of gluing and minor sanding to get everything to shape. Hopefully my preparations will be enough to make the process smooth.

I have finished sanding my final spare hull plank to form. If all goes well, I can attach it today, then put on its counterpart on the opposite side. The process over the last few days has been slow, but I think it gives me the best chance of making the bottom hull perfect. In the meantime, I left the plank for the front forecastle in a thermos of boiling water for about two hours, then removed it, bent it, let it dry for a day, then glued it on. It worked very well. It's always tricky to bend that ultra-dramatic curve.

Three of my last four hull planks are now bent to shape. I might have to do one, however. The X-Acto knife slipped, and I've cut a small crack into it. However, I plan to hold back on making that call because I only have one spare plank. If nothing worse happens in my one remaining plank that needs planing into shape, I should be right on track.

I'm starting to wonder if the Greyhound is an intentional attempt to combine the convenience of a kit with the difficulty of a scratch build. Could Corel really have made such a bad instruction book by accident?

This isn't what it looks like. Although I've tacked the plank in the picture to the side of the ship, I haven't glued it on. The plan is to measure what I need to measure while it's on the ship and the proper shape, then use that knowledge to cut my final plank on the port side into the proper shape. After that, I will do the same thing on the other side. Hopefully, that will give me a good fit.

In the last day or so, I've only been sanding. I'm attempting to fit the last 4 planks perfectly to the hull as much as I can before attaching them. This plan will help me glue them without much need for pressure, making it possible for me to do these planks without leaving nail marks. As of now, two seem about right. Of the final two, both are still in need of much more shaping. With a little more work, everything should come together beautifully.

Thanks! That sounds very helpful too.

Thanks, the videos answered my problem. A bunch of the links on planking on the database are defective.

I'm working on the Corel HMS Greyhound. It's also my first real build. At this point, I have done every plank except the two between the garboard and the rest of my work. I've attached pictures below. How do I get the last two on without leaving unsightly nail marks? Is it about making them perfect beforehand? Just using nails and covering up the evidence? Or is there some other way? I have a few theories of my own, but it would be far from wise to take this final leap without expert advice. Thank you all!

Almost done with the hull. Four planks to go. Everything seems to be fitting together well, but the last four will likely be very challenging to put on without inflicting damage. If anyone has some advice on how to attach them without leaving a bunch of nail holes in the second planking, I'd be grateful to hear it.

Today was just a lot of sanding. I didn't get the chance to attach another plank. But I'll go into my sanding process so people can know about it. Before I put on each plank, I sand the facing toward the deck to be thinner. I don't sand it to a point, but rather just enough that it begins to resemble something approximating a blunt chisel. This surface will allow it to fit more closely to the plank immediately above it. After that, I cut the bow tip of the plank to fit smoothly into the main curve of the bow planking. After I get the right angle, I sand the front plank as thin as I can get it so it can fit down onto the bow. While I'm doing these things, I brace the plank against a solid wood surface. After attaching the plank to the ship, I make a mark on the outermost edge of the plank using a ruler to indicate how thin I want it to be. I use an X-Acto knife to carve away wood until it's approximately the right shape there. Then, I use the same knife to cut a smooth line that tapers off roughly four frames along the hull (But this is a very inexact measure. Right now, I'm cutting up to the place where all remaining planks can fit together onto the ship. Finally, I use a thin metal file to sand the plank for precision and smoothness. This method is slow, especially when sanding planks that are already on the ship. But so far it has worked fairly well.

Six more planks to go. I'm so close! The plank I just put on will be my second-to-last 2mm plank in the bow. The next will be 1mm. The final pair will require great care and creativity, however. I shall have to hope I can pull it off.

Today brings with it new choices. At its thickest point, the Greyhound's hull needs 4 planks and about 1 mm on both sides. That 1 mm is a very rough estimate, given that one side is slightly different from the other. To fix the gap, I fitted a pair of shims, glued them on, then sanded them to a perfect fit. The plan had a few hitches, but nothing a little sanding and shimming couldn't fix. Here's the end result. I am now eight planks from completion. Here's the plan. I will sand all four remaining planks into shape to fit the hull and stern perfectly. In the bow, that will require one 1 mm plank, two 2 mm planks, and one carefully sanded plank to try and perfectly fit the last 2ish mm. In the stern, it will require one 3 mm plank, two 2mm planks, and one plank sanded to fit. The middle will either work perfectly or require sanding on the last plank.

Well, at long last misfortune struck. The plank I just put on slightly snapped near the bow. Thankfully, the issue is small enough that no one will be the wiser. At any rate, the speed at which I can put on new planks has much decreased. The sanding and adjustment they require has made things far more difficult.

After considerable thought, I've figured out I need to add in another shim in the middle of the ship after the next pair of planks. All measurements seem to confirm this fact, and it's clear from looking at my previous work that I had to do the same thing in roughly the same spot. I'm very confident in my ability to do so, however, so matters should be straightforward. I'm very confident about the next bit.

Progress continues apace on what is arguably the hardest plank on the ship. The first garboard went on badly in the front and well in the back. The second did quite the reverse. Thankfully, I had a solution. I shaved down a tiny section of plank to be thin on one side. Then, I wedged the thin side into the crack between the keel and the garboard along with a judiciously applied bit of glue. When the glue dried, I shaved off the excess, leaving the crack patched. It worked perfectly. At this point, both garboards are done, and I'm ready to put on the next pair of planks. The end of planking is in sight.

I'm only six planks on each side away from finishing the hull. So far, everything has gone mostly according to plan. Filing down the stern has worked to narrow the end of the ship, but I had to go back and sand more of the hull to give the planks a smooth fit. At this point, I'm planning on overlapping each pair of planks in the rear. The tip of the first one forms a right triangle with the hypotenuse flush with the opposite side of the ship. The second covers the first. On the next pair, I'll make the same shape but in reverse. After I'm done, I'll trim the rear into shape and cover my work with some scrap wood at the very back. My original measurements must have been slightly off, because I've had to trim more from the bow planks than I originally thought and seem to need more planks to fully cover the rear. I'm trying to fix both these problems a little at a time. I'm trimming every forward plank to 2 mm, and measuring the distance to the keep each time I check. At this point, I have room for roughly 12 mm of planking on the bow, and 24 mm of planks to attach, so the math should work out. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. I'm not sure what to do with the stern yet. I think the time has come to take drastic action. Due to the deformation of the Greyhound's hull (Thanks Corel!), the planks aren't going on right. There's a large triangular gap, where the stern planking curves upward, then room for about 16 mm of planks. Right now, the plan is to measure and cut two shims from my spare planks to patch the bad angle, then proceed with the next six planks and trimming each enough so the whole form fits together. My hope is to do a little magic trick with the last three planks. First, I'll put on the garboard plank adjacent to the keel. Then, I'll boil and bend the final onto the ship, but won't glue it. This process will make it the correct shape. Finally, I'll put on the next plank adjacent to the garboard. When I put on the final shape, I can hopefully glue it into place without leaving a single nail mark on it. Of course, this little experiment will require some good measuring and estimation, and space is unsettlingly tight. All I can do is hope for the best and go one step at a time.

I will get the ninth pair of planks done today. The work has been simple and quick so far. I did realize one thing that needed fixing before I went further though. The rudder of the Greyhound goes onto the back of the keel. But the pieces that attach the rudder a few steps from now are too thin to go around both the hull planks and the keel. Therefore, I needed to sand and cut away the back bit of plywood planking so I can cover that area with planks from the hull. I got that done yesterday before putting on more planks. Hopefully, it should all attach smoothly and make aft end of the hull trim and effective.

I've kept going at a fairly swift rate. I'm up to 7 planks down from the gunwhale on the hull. By my measurements from earlier in the process, that means I have 10 planks to go on each side before I finish the hull. My plan is to pad the center's 17 planks with a half-plank somewhere near the widest part. Then, I will trim four planks in the stern to lose 1 mm each, and trim eight planks in the bow to lose 1 mm each. Hopefully, this maneuver will get me enough space to fit all the planks I need on. I trim the planks by cutting them with an Xacto knife and sanding them with a file after gluing them onto the ship. I've already had one slip-up and accidentally cut one bow plank pair to just 2 mm. Thankfully, that's easily remedied. I just need to skip filing down one bow plank somewhere along the line.

Here's the latest. In the last two days, I've put on four planks. Since I last worked on the ship, I've much simplified my process. I used to sand a plank to the proper bevel, soak it in boiling water, bend it on some nails to the approximate right shape, let it dry overnight, then put it in boiling water again before using glue and tacks to attach it to the ship. Now I just sand it, boil it for a few minutes, and attach it immediately. So far it's worked just as well. No breakage, and I can get stuff done without having an absurdly long build-up time. Unlike last time, I'm going to just put on planks starting at the top and working my way down. I have the measurements fairly well-calculated, and the hull should be done in a month or two if I can do one or two planks a day.

Yep, I have returned. I had several projects of a more personal nature to which I gave priority. Now at last I can return to the simple satisfaction of shipbuilding.