Jaager

You did as well as can be had for your species choices. I doubt it will be a practical difference which ever is your choice. I intend to use Holly dyed black where you will use Ebony. I think the old holeystoned white descriptions of decking was poetic license to describe the difference from a deck stained by bare feet covered in tar. Sanding does not change the native color of decking wood. Sun bleaching tends to be grey or silver, not white. I have Holly that is yellow and grey (Blue Mold) and may stand for Pine, or Oak decking, but I think - suspect - that white Holly is more of a modeler's convention than a representation of what was real.

I obsess about the same thing. Best I can come up with is choose a species with low contrast grain to begin with. It is easier for me to just slice my framing stock from 8x4 -the edge grain becoming the face of the frame. The sided face is a continuous curve anyway and you takes your chances on how that looks. For the ends where I need 4 inch stock, I have to flip 90 degrees and I get a plain sawn face - can't help that. For planking, either is equally easy to get, so I look at the surfaces and pick the one I like better. Hard Maple is tricky - the same plank can go from plain to flame as it is cut farther in. What I find to be more distracting is a species of wood with open grain - my imagination sees those pores as being large enough to break a crewman's ankle if it were enlarged from model scale to full size.

That copper is what? newly applied? The new penny color probably will not survive immersion for long. Something less stark would probably be more accurate. With a model, you would almost need to be close enough to touch your nose, to match the photo. Note that even this close, the "nails" do not show and the seams are subtle.

If you are needing the vertical drilling action and any milling is light cuts in model scale wood: Eurotools DRL 300 - an Asian machine sold under many brand names. It should not cost more than $80 US if you shop. I bought mine from Otto Frei . I added an X/Y table - it cost about what the drill did - I doubt that it has ball bearings for the spindle, so much lateral force is not a good idea, blocks and careful cutting of notches in beams for carlings should be OK.

Marquardt specifies a layer of Fur for HMS Beagle. I had seen it before in the plans of another vessel , maybe a whaler. So at least some ships had that. It sure would provide a practical way to copper a clinker hull. But I would find it remarkable if a modeler would go to the additional work of doing clinker planking and then masking it with a smooth copper hull surface. As an aside, I just finished In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown by Nathaniel Philbrick The author makes a point about the English ships being faster because they were now coppered, and the French trying to catch up to the new tech. It gives me an historical point for when a coppered hull became prevalent.

I add some additional speculation: Terredo in larval infectious stage is microscopic and could migrate to a hull by swimming in where the copper plates overlap. Once in a piece of wood, the worm does not leave that piece. Hulls were protected by a layer of Fur or similar species - caulked- between the hull planking and the copper to attract the worm larvae into something that does not affect hull integrity. The Fur may have also been laid on a gooey layer of toxic stuff to further repel the worm. It would have been a bitch to Z bend copper plates as well as labor expensive. If it were me, I would cut the Fur layer in a way that would provide a smooth surface to hold the copper for a clinker hull - if I was compelled to do it.

The contract for the Warren and Falmouth 1826 specifies that deck planking should average 40 feet and not exceed 10 inches width. The ASA 1870 implies that hull planking wider than 15 inches is a special case. The 8-12 inch wide range is probably a good place to live. Given the 3D changes involved in sheathing a hull, I keep that planking in the 20-25 foot length range. Maybe fudge a bit longer if finishing a strake requires too short a piece. Thickness data is easy to find, width depends on the part, length was limited by what the trees provided and the lumber jacks and sawyers could practically handle. It is almost like the authors of the old texts were thinking: "you know what you can get, I don't need to tell you." The 40 foot deck planking was likely from a species of southern Pine that was hardwood hard, straight, and tall, from primeval forest, all cut down and not really replaced, even if 200 years is long enough for them to be what they were then.

Use veneer, cut to plank width to scab the low areas.

I bought the Sea Gull plans for Red Jacket and started the lofting. The plans are 1/8" : 1'. I loft at 1/4", but man! this is a huge ship. The hull at the main deck is close to 250 feet long. I do 1:60 and while anyone mad enough to build her at 1/4" would start with a 5.2 foot long hull less spars, at 1:60 , it is a daunting 4.2 foot beast. Wm Crothers' plans are still available - they are pretty detailed, but since they are drawn to support both solid hull and POF, I would not be surprised if Blue Jacket did not use Crothers as a basis for their plans. Red Jacket has specific entries in his The American-Built Clipper Ship. You will have quite a project there even at 1/8" scale, which is close to being in the miniature realm . Wood Craft has some pretty thin veneer of Maple, Cherry and other species that scale to 1:96 OK, so might consider planking the hull and choosing an anti-fouling paint color wood for the submerged part of the hull. This would add additional time for the build.

1:12 is a fairly large scale, but even so Oak, Ash, Hickory will not scale all that well. And Red Oak is full of open channels, so it would leak. Hard Maple would be an excellent choice for a light color, very similar is Birch and Beech. Black Cherry gives a red color and is also a good choice. Not sure what you have up there, but here it is a light red. Years past, in KY, I got some that was dark enough to stand for true Mahogany - the early 20thC Chris Craft type. Even if you could get it, that Mahogany would not scale well and what stands in for it now is even less suitable. Yellow Poplar would work. Dimension cut wood that you want is pretty much limited to Balsa, which is a very poor choice, and Basswood (a slightly softer brother to Lime in Europe). Now, Bass has the sort of grain that you want and is a light color. It is also a soft wood, easy to dent and difficult to keep sharp edges. Easy to work. Midwest Products is a major producer and a quick search has it at WalMart Canada, who also has Birch plywood in small thicknesses. It is not marine ply, so water will unglue the layers. At 1:12 Bass may do, but inexpensive it is not. But anymore, not much about wood is inexpensive. I you want something other than Basswood Start with a Web search in your area for 1) hardwood lumber mills 2) a local woodworkers guild, or trade school teaching woodworking - because you will want to have use of a band saw and thickness sander.

Your way works. Those who do finishing for a living, do it differently? Sealer was/is less expensive? If you wish to remove the paint, a sealer layer above the wood makes it easier and less damaging to the wood? Paint is difficult to sand, it tends to be a sticky film rather than fine particles, it gums up sand paper?

A safe sealer is shellac. The first coat or two should be half strength. The more purified the shellac flakes, the lower the saturated solution in alcohol. What I mean is = I think orange shellac is 20% at full strength and 10% at half. I prefer super blonde and with it, 10% is full strength and 5% is half. There is a grade more purified than super blonde, but super blonde is close enough to water clear for me. The solvent is alcohol. Methanol (wood alcohol) is the traditional type, not sure how easy it is to get. Ethanol is what is usually available, the main factor with it - the best that can be had is 5% water - ethanol forms a special attraction with water - it requires expensive and energy requiring steps to remove the last 5% and even when done, if the 100% ethanol is exposed to the atmosphere, it pulls in water vapor and quickly becomes 5% water again. That 5% does not seem to make it not suitable for shellac. I had my pharmacy order a gallon tin of 100% isopropyl alcohol, it drys more slowly, so is more forgiving on finish coats, but even then, it was costly, and by working there I got it at cost. The stuff out front in bottles has too much water. I like the 91% iso for removing wood dust from sanded surfaces. The traditional dissolving of shellac flakes in alcohol is "pound cut" - pounds of flakes in a gallon of alcohol. This is not even close to being practical for us. As rough as this is, a little rounding makes it easier. Call a lb = 500 g and a gal = 4000 ml and the math is easy. There are low cost small battery scales - that measure grams - and a graduated cylinder in ml need not cost much. Once mixed, shellac has a limited shelf life, but by using % - any volume can be easily made up. For what you want, premixed orange shellac and a tin of shellac thinner will do. I like shellac as a finish and super blonde does not darken the wood very much. As an undercoat, it is compatible with most everything. I even use half strength as a first coat before applying a 50-50 base coat of Tung oil when I want an oil finish.

I think Linville Falls should be sorta near to you, when I visited years ago was an exquisite jewel. The panorama of the Pisgah National Forest, that Michael Mann did - so spectacular when edited to remove post 1500 "improvements". You live in a special place.

Hey Tar Heel, Where in NC are you? If you venture into scratch building, you may wish you had kept some of your tools. Bad Duke! Bad, bad Duke! 34 points! Bad Duke!

Years ago, the NRJ featured a model where the builder built the whole hull and then used a razor saw to cut the whole thing in half along the waterline. What you want is not nearly as scary as doing that. Spilling? yes, but it should be the same as if you use Pear or Castillo the whole way - except at the LWL. Matching a long diagonal cut may involve a lot of do over to get right.

The polymerization reaction of the oil is exothermic - the oil exposed to oxygen generates heat. On a flat open surface, the relatively low heat dissipates quickly. A ball of rags in a closed space, can retain enough of the generated heat at a central point to cause the combination of air, oil, solvent, and cellulose to generate a chain reaction without a spark. The trick is making sure that the heat dissipates in a room temp environment.

My plan is to do something similar. Finished above the copper and open to framing except the ends where the cants begin for the bottom. In your case, getting a sharp join will be a bit of a challenge. I would probably plank the bottom first - and place a batten at the LWL - its bottom edge on the upper side. It will be like fitting at the stem and stern rabbets or a filling plank the whole way. Chances are, this will involve two or more strakes. Another way = planking the bottom up to the LWL and taking the Castello that goes above the LWL at either end all the way to the stem and stern rabbets. Saw them off above the line and use the cut offs as patterns for the Pear substitutes. But, I wonder if doing card patterns for all of the planks and using those at the LWL as the pattern for both sides would be easier. A disk sander gets a sharper line more easily than a saw and hand filling/sanding.

For that time, I would look up the scantlings in Yedlinsky or the texts that he extracted. For the RN in the last 1/3-1/2 of the 18C R&S of 2' to 2" 2" would be close. The timbers 9.75" to 10". If paired, 20" of wood and 4-6" of space. If unpaired 10" wood and 2-3" of space. If you have the plans, see what the closest combination of the above will fit between the stations. Each station line bisects a bend - if paired frames were used. If singleton frames, the station is likely the aft face in the fore section and fore face in the aft section. Figure the fore section to be about 40% of the whole. It looks to me = the RN seemed to prefer cutters and brigantines to schooners, unlike North America.

The deck should have camber. The actual surface area will be larger than a 2D screen simulation. Why not use a 8x5 index card and get a pattern of the open deck area on it. When you lay it flat, it will include the additional camber area. Try your plank patterns on it directly, or scan it and use a Photo Shop clone or a straight forward drawing program on the scan. Just make sure you know the scale adjustments needed to get a scan to print out a copy that is identical to the original. It seems like scanners are required to alter the scale when doing a direct scan-print copy, so a digital copy is also altered.

Contact cement can be a poor choice. It is messy, difficult to clean up. I use it to adhere cloth backed sanding media to the Maple platten of my thickness sander. I can get it to denature with naptha or mineral spirits, but have yet to find a true solvent for it. It seems to have a limited effective life. I think it oxidizes, becomes brittle over time, and the bond fails. I read of a technique for using PVA as a contact bonding agent. I forget exactly how, but it involves coating both surfaces - a thin even layer - let it dry. and then it is either a third thin layer on one surface, or place the wood in position and iron it to join. There is potential here for a combination of instant grab and normal PVA bonding. It would just involve more pre planing and a longer time than most of us have the patience for. Since CA is activated by water- the reason skin bonds more quickly than wood - it may prove unmanageable but if the wood was slightly damp, the bond may cure more quickly.

Kurt, It was astute of you to have the width of you table short enough to not have to remove the fence. A larger one could be made for longer jobs.

For relatively short pieces being crosscut, a sliding table works for me. A topside hold down can be easily used what with the bottom fence. I had already made my own before Jim provided his Rolls-Royce version. Mine is made up of left over material. It is ripping that I wonder about. Is a GRR Ripper too large to use on a Byrnes saw?

Bummer, You can try it, On the Wood Database - the JPEG reminds me a bit of Oak in that the grain is course and it is open pore. Be mindful of scale - if the grain and pores dominate, you may not wish to use it - but it is about your taste. If you do not paint with natural wood and actually seal and use paint and do not mind it tending to dull steel cutting edges try it. The wood is apparently expensive for most of us, You do not state a preferred scale, at mine (1:60) a 10 inch piece is 50 feet long in scale. This is longer than most any piece of a ship. I will use 6 inch pieces , it is just fiddly milling short stock. If you like it, and have any pack rat tendencies, stock as much as you can store. Situations change and it may not be there for free in the future.

I have never done it myself, but Amazon has this: 3M 420 Fiberglass Resin & Repair Kit, .45 Pint < $ 20 Take a look and see if you can tackle it. I am not sure how fierce the epoxy resin solvent fumes are or what your ventilation safety is but factor that in. A thought = you are covering a wooden surface? Resin strength needing re-enforcement is not a factor. Could you not use actual cotton or linen cloth or even bond paper with the resin, instead of glass fiber or carbon fiber on the outside? Another thought + Use a solvent based varnish and paper or cloth instead of epoy. You have your strength already. All you want is a seamless water proof layer.

It is my impression that Asian Teak has relatively course grain and open pores. With the high silica inclusion, carbide edged saw blades are probably required. If it is Rhodesian Teak - it looks more promising. The pores look smaller and the grain = not so much contrast. It is difficult to beat free, I would try it and see, Twice as hard as Hard Maple, it would be difficult to take too much with a single cut. If you are POF, most any hull component - given that it is strong and likely to hold a crisp edge. You will have to determine if the color , grain contrast are something that you like.