Jaager

George
 
I am glad this subject came back to life as I learned something new today, thus it is a good day.
 
In response to your question, as seems to be the case in so many instances, the type of wood for the decks depended on which era and which deck.  Some decks had two different types of wood and even two different shapes of planks.   The orlop and platforms were  generally made with Deal rather than oak and often made into pallets with battens on their underside as they were not secured permanently to the beams.  Rather, the pallets were held down with battens or rested in mortices that were as deep as the thickness of the planks,  sort of overlapping (overloop from the Dutch)  the beams, thus the name orlop, the slang abbreviation.  (I never knew the origin of the word orlop until today🤪)   In the late 18th century, gun decks sometimes were laid with top and butt or anchor stock planking for two or three outboard most strakes rather then parallel strakes.    As oak became harder to find, elm was used on some gundecks as well.  Elm was strong and  had a great advantage of not splintering when hit with cannon shot, but rather broke into chunks.
 
For the hull planks, whatever floats your boat as the saying goes.  Oak on a ship does not work on a model as it shows grain so much it looks as odd as the walnut found in some kits.   I prefer softer woods if it is going to be painted, otherwise hard woods are my personal favorites.  In my experience I have not found that fruit woods such as apple or pear are any more difficult to work than castello or padauk, all of them being between about 1660 lbft and 1810 lbft on the Janka scale.   Once the plank is cut to the proper shape I have been able to bend all of these with water and heat.    Poplar and basswood  are popular and much easier to work but the softness is troublesome for some people.   I have seen a lot of models planked with yellow cedar in the past couple years that are absolutely gorgeous even though it is soft by comparison (580 lb ft).  
 
Allan

Vaddoc,
 
There is Maple and then there is Maple.  I am guessing that you can source Sycamore Maple - which is J-1000 and Soft Maple (awful stuff) J-700.
Hard Maple is J-1450  but Beech is also J-1450  which makes it pointless for you to pay the extra for Hard Maple.  Over here, it is the opposite.  Hard Maple is reasonable in cost and available in quantity, but Beech is a premium cost and requires effort of find.  Hard Maple also has what may be a distinct characteristic:  a variety of grain presentation.  Fiddleback, flame, birdseye, fleck, clear - all can be had from the same log.  I depends on where along the log, and the orientation of the grain where the slice is taken.  For frame timbers,  getting pieces with compass grain is all but impossible, so a timber at the turn of the bilge gets into end grain and the color gets darker.
 
Mike,
A literal reply to your question would make this a sort of contest with one winner.  There is no "best" wood for exterior planking.  There are excellent species.  Many of them.  There are good enough species,  depending on how finished.  Paint - stain (bad) - dye - natural (paint with wood).   The species supplied with mass market kits all look to me as being not suitable, looked at objectively: inappropriate.  They are however low cost, have a reliable supplier and are available in quantity and are soft enough not to tax the edges of their cutting tools.  The colors are appealing to those whose prior exposure to wood is furniture.  You just have it ignore the course grain, open pores, rolling fibers. and brittle tendency.
( The boutique kit makers, most based here, tend to use excellent wood for their kits. ) 

Sand off the paint that is not right.  Buy a can of shellac (clear or garnet) and one of shellac thinner (likely ethanol).  Make a mixture of thinner and shellac 1:1.  Use a piece of an old T-shirt  to pad it on - just wet no build up.  When dry, dress it with a Scotch Brite pad and tack rag it.  Give a thought to doing another coat of full strength shellac.  A better base for follow-on paint would be difficult to find.  It dries fairly quickly and is not messy.

Michael,
I do not see this at all the way that you do.  There may have been a few exceptions - perhaps fish holds and such, but in general western wooden vessels did not have bulkheads.  Large Chinese sailing vessels had bulkheads.   While not all vessels were framed using bends - a bend is a pair of frames and a strong structure - the timbers of one overlapped the butt join of two of its partner.s timbers. -   a station IS the mid-line of a bend.  As such, it provides the shape not one, but two frames.   If it was all single frames, the station would be one face or the other of a frame.  (#)  The station  was the primary part of a plan, enlarged on a mold loft floor and used to shape the timber patterns.  Richard Endsor describes these station patterns having sirmarks that allowed these same patterns to be used the shape  the frames between and up to the next station.
POB uses molds.  The entire method is an artiface.  The molds can go anywhere,  The method is easier to do if an already existing station pattern is fixed to mold stock  and shaped to make a mold.  For some reason, early Italian kit mfg termed their molds as "bulkheads".  Perhaps the writer of the instructions  was ex navy. In any case no end of misunderstanding has followed.  The station pattern is placed on the mid-line side of the mold. 
As for the deck, the solid line with the deck plank hash lines above it is the top of the beam. Or where the top would be if there was a beam at a station.  Beams followed their own location rules - ignoring station locations.  I am guessing that Boudriot added the beam shape to his station plans so that should a molder build the vessel using POB, the mold made using each could have a pseudo-deck beam as part of the mold and avoid modeling actual beams.  The profile plans provides beam location, the height at the crown of the deck and intermittent marks showing the underside of the deck at the side.  What the solid or dotted lines below the beam camber are intended to show is not obvious to me.  The bevel of a deck goes up, not down.  The thickness of a mold is arbitrary and entirely up to the builder.
 
(#) With traditional POF where a bend is glued up and a pattern applied for shaping, A station is of no use and they tend to ignored.

Michael,
I do not see this at all the way that you do.  There may have been a few exceptions - perhaps fish holds and such, but in general western wooden vessels did not have bulkheads.  Large Chinese sailing vessels had bulkheads.   While not all vessels were framed using bends - a bend is a pair of frames and a strong structure - the timbers of one overlapped the butt join of two of its partner.s timbers. -   a station IS the mid-line of a bend.  As such, it provides the shape not one, but two frames.   If it was all single frames, the station would be one face or the other of a frame.  (#)  The station  was the primary part of a plan, enlarged on a mold loft floor and used to shape the timber patterns.  Richard Endsor describes these station patterns having sirmarks that allowed these same patterns to be used the shape  the frames between and up to the next station.
POB uses molds.  The entire method is an artiface.  The molds can go anywhere,  The method is easier to do if an already existing station pattern is fixed to mold stock  and shaped to make a mold.  For some reason, early Italian kit mfg termed their molds as "bulkheads".  Perhaps the writer of the instructions  was ex navy. In any case no end of misunderstanding has followed.  The station pattern is placed on the mid-line side of the mold. 
As for the deck, the solid line with the deck plank hash lines above it is the top of the beam. Or where the top would be if there was a beam at a station.  Beams followed their own location rules - ignoring station locations.  I am guessing that Boudriot added the beam shape to his station plans so that should a molder build the vessel using POB, the mold made using each could have a pseudo-deck beam as part of the mold and avoid modeling actual beams.  The profile plans provides beam location, the height at the crown of the deck and intermittent marks showing the underside of the deck at the side.  What the solid or dotted lines below the beam camber are intended to show is not obvious to me.  The bevel of a deck goes up, not down.  The thickness of a mold is arbitrary and entirely up to the builder.
 
(#) With traditional POF where a bend is glued up and a pattern applied for shaping, A station is of no use and they tend to ignored.

Vaddoc,
 
There is Maple and then there is Maple.  I am guessing that you can source Sycamore Maple - which is J-1000 and Soft Maple (awful stuff) J-700.
Hard Maple is J-1450  but Beech is also J-1450  which makes it pointless for you to pay the extra for Hard Maple.  Over here, it is the opposite.  Hard Maple is reasonable in cost and available in quantity, but Beech is a premium cost and requires effort of find.  Hard Maple also has what may be a distinct characteristic:  a variety of grain presentation.  Fiddleback, flame, birdseye, fleck, clear - all can be had from the same log.  I depends on where along the log, and the orientation of the grain where the slice is taken.  For frame timbers,  getting pieces with compass grain is all but impossible, so a timber at the turn of the bilge gets into end grain and the color gets darker.
 
Mike,
A literal reply to your question would make this a sort of contest with one winner.  There is no "best" wood for exterior planking.  There are excellent species.  Many of them.  There are good enough species,  depending on how finished.  Paint - stain (bad) - dye - natural (paint with wood).   The species supplied with mass market kits all look to me as being not suitable, looked at objectively: inappropriate.  They are however low cost, have a reliable supplier and are available in quantity and are soft enough not to tax the edges of their cutting tools.  The colors are appealing to those whose prior exposure to wood is furniture.  You just have it ignore the course grain, open pores, rolling fibers. and brittle tendency.
( The boutique kit makers, most based here, tend to use excellent wood for their kits. ) 

Sand off the paint that is not right.  Buy a can of shellac (clear or garnet) and one of shellac thinner (likely ethanol).  Make a mixture of thinner and shellac 1:1.  Use a piece of an old T-shirt  to pad it on - just wet no build up.  When dry, dress it with a Scotch Brite pad and tack rag it.  Give a thought to doing another coat of full strength shellac.  A better base for follow-on paint would be difficult to find.  It dries fairly quickly and is not messy.

Christian,
 
Station intervals  are not always constant.   My current subject is an NMM plan.  The majority of the stations are at 3 bend intervals, but the last one at either end are 2 bend intervals and the dead-flat has a skip to get in step for floor placement by having 2 bends and a single frame.
HIC copied a lot of original plans as drawn and Falmouth has three 8 bend intervals in the middle, then it goes to 4 bend ans a 3 bend at each end.  Stag Hound is majority 4 bend but goes to 2 bend at the ends.  ANCRE plans tend to be constant interval and it can make dealing with the ends interesting when the bevel becomes significant and the reference points are a bit sparse considering the difference.

Sand off the paint that is not right.  Buy a can of shellac (clear or garnet) and one of shellac thinner (likely ethanol).  Make a mixture of thinner and shellac 1:1.  Use a piece of an old T-shirt  to pad it on - just wet no build up.  When dry, dress it with a Scotch Brite pad and tack rag it.  Give a thought to doing another coat of full strength shellac.  A better base for follow-on paint would be difficult to find.  It dries fairly quickly and is not messy.

Vaddoc,
 
There is Maple and then there is Maple.  I am guessing that you can source Sycamore Maple - which is J-1000 and Soft Maple (awful stuff) J-700.
Hard Maple is J-1450  but Beech is also J-1450  which makes it pointless for you to pay the extra for Hard Maple.  Over here, it is the opposite.  Hard Maple is reasonable in cost and available in quantity, but Beech is a premium cost and requires effort of find.  Hard Maple also has what may be a distinct characteristic:  a variety of grain presentation.  Fiddleback, flame, birdseye, fleck, clear - all can be had from the same log.  I depends on where along the log, and the orientation of the grain where the slice is taken.  For frame timbers,  getting pieces with compass grain is all but impossible, so a timber at the turn of the bilge gets into end grain and the color gets darker.
 
Mike,
A literal reply to your question would make this a sort of contest with one winner.  There is no "best" wood for exterior planking.  There are excellent species.  Many of them.  There are good enough species,  depending on how finished.  Paint - stain (bad) - dye - natural (paint with wood).   The species supplied with mass market kits all look to me as being not suitable, looked at objectively: inappropriate.  They are however low cost, have a reliable supplier and are available in quantity and are soft enough not to tax the edges of their cutting tools.  The colors are appealing to those whose prior exposure to wood is furniture.  You just have it ignore the course grain, open pores, rolling fibers. and brittle tendency.
( The boutique kit makers, most based here, tend to use excellent wood for their kits. ) 

Christian,
 
Station intervals  are not always constant.   My current subject is an NMM plan.  The majority of the stations are at 3 bend intervals, but the last one at either end are 2 bend intervals and the dead-flat has a skip to get in step for floor placement by having 2 bends and a single frame.
HIC copied a lot of original plans as drawn and Falmouth has three 8 bend intervals in the middle, then it goes to 4 bend ans a 3 bend at each end.  Stag Hound is majority 4 bend but goes to 2 bend at the ends.  ANCRE plans tend to be constant interval and it can make dealing with the ends interesting when the bevel becomes significant and the reference points are a bit sparse considering the difference.

Tony,
 
You can do larger if you use legal paper  8.5 x 14.
The price difference is out of proportion, but I get more timber patterns on a page and thus fewer pages to lacquer coat.

Tony,
Actually, there is a Body Plan of sorts.  Plan 1  part C   is the Body plan with each station cross section in a separate box.
And if you look - Station 1 and station 11 are also there.  A bonus is that Boudriot has done all the planning and plotting for you for the bow and stern. Cut the pieces using his patterns and assemble.  Would that NMM plans had this feature!
 
Each has a bevel - for the frame on the side away from the mid-line.  This means that if you wish to do the frame lofting  using tradition methods, the outside shape of 9 frames has already been done.
I think the horizontal line at the bottom is the bottom of the rabbet.
This is easier done using a raster based graphics program.
Scan, adjust for scanner scale artifact.  Select the background and CUT. There is now a transparent layer with just the lines on it.
Make a Base grid.  baseline / vertical midline /  vertical buttock line locations / horizontal WL locations.  With this behind each station cross section you can get the desired points.
If you duplicate the base and duplicate a station cross section  pair the two  then collapse to a merged layer  - you can use the rectangle  select tool to get each data point as its own layer - move it where needed - rotate it if it is needed for a 90 degree different perspective.  This removes the human measuring error when setting points to plot.
 
One factor about raster based graphics - these programs do not do smooth curves. Depending on how many points are used to draw a curve, at some magnification it will look faceted - saw tooth -   This is not what is best for laser cutter plot, but if you go from plan to pattern to cutting wood, there is no way that you could replicate a micro facet effect on actual wood when sanding or planning to shape.
 
GIMP is free,  Photo shop is monthly rental,  PaintShop Pro is not expensive,  Painter is expensive.

Hmmm,   I wonder why he would see it this why?   The old guys had to develop a multitude of unique curves and make wooden patterns that defined each one for the frames.
There were many fewer deck beams per deck,  Making an individual camber pattern for each one would have been no problem.  In order to get beams that matched the specifications on the profile plan, i.e.  a constant difference in height at the side and at its crown for each beam,  a unique curve for each is necessary.  As you have shown, a constant camber produces sheer curves for the two locations that converge.
 
Using a CAD program can perhaps get a user into entertaining aspects of design - that is the primary purpose of that software after all.   For historical wooden ships,  the function is to replicate as precisely as is practical.  There is no design involved.  Perhaps using a constant camber may have worked, but available evidence suggests that it did not.  Doing it would have been quicker and less expensive, so I suspect it was tried.  Methods used were a craft secret, and not a university degree learned skill.  It was probably tried more than once.  Having to redo a deck and reshape the beams probably a profound negative lesson for each master shipwright who tried it.

Tony,
 
You can do larger if you use legal paper  8.5 x 14.
The price difference is out of proportion, but I get more timber patterns on a page and thus fewer pages to lacquer coat.

Tony,
Actually, there is a Body Plan of sorts.  Plan 1  part C   is the Body plan with each station cross section in a separate box.
And if you look - Station 1 and station 11 are also there.  A bonus is that Boudriot has done all the planning and plotting for you for the bow and stern. Cut the pieces using his patterns and assemble.  Would that NMM plans had this feature!
 
Each has a bevel - for the frame on the side away from the mid-line.  This means that if you wish to do the frame lofting  using tradition methods, the outside shape of 9 frames has already been done.
I think the horizontal line at the bottom is the bottom of the rabbet.
This is easier done using a raster based graphics program.
Scan, adjust for scanner scale artifact.  Select the background and CUT. There is now a transparent layer with just the lines on it.
Make a Base grid.  baseline / vertical midline /  vertical buttock line locations / horizontal WL locations.  With this behind each station cross section you can get the desired points.
If you duplicate the base and duplicate a station cross section  pair the two  then collapse to a merged layer  - you can use the rectangle  select tool to get each data point as its own layer - move it where needed - rotate it if it is needed for a 90 degree different perspective.  This removes the human measuring error when setting points to plot.
 
One factor about raster based graphics - these programs do not do smooth curves. Depending on how many points are used to draw a curve, at some magnification it will look faceted - saw tooth -   This is not what is best for laser cutter plot, but if you go from plan to pattern to cutting wood, there is no way that you could replicate a micro facet effect on actual wood when sanding or planning to shape.
 
GIMP is free,  Photo shop is monthly rental,  PaintShop Pro is not expensive,  Painter is expensive.

The little version on this would fit what were essentially hypodermic needles - all metal and not stainless steel as a tip for a micro flame.  I think the ones I have are ~12 G. 
Would one of those push fit over one of your tips?  If that worked, it would get you more use from even a low grade tip.
We used 12 G to make up IV solutions in the sterile hood.  I am not sure - it has been a long time, but I think they were all metal.  Heat transfer might make using needles with a plastic hub an interesting experience.

Some ANCRE plans are a bit inconsistent as to which line is used as the baseline from sheet to sheet. All of the lines are where they should be.   You must choose which of the lines will be your baseline.  You use that same line for every sheet and ignore the view selected baseline if it is different from your choice.  Unless the hull has drag, my favorite is the top of the rabbet.  Some plans have the frames go down to the bottom of the rabbet.  I would rather cut the rabbet into the top of the keel.  If the rabbet is part of the frame, it gets fairly thin and is sort of like the frame is balancing on a point.  Also, rather than cut a notch in the keel for the floor timber, add the chock on top of the keel.
 
For me, the worst part of plotting each frame is drawing the curve. Three points define a curve.  You can get a curve for a frame by connecting three or more plotted points.  But that curve is unique. It may or may not be related to its brother curves on the frames before and after it   Getting a fair hull is challenge enough when the curves are related.

Some ANCRE plans are a bit inconsistent as to which line is used as the baseline from sheet to sheet. All of the lines are where they should be.   You must choose which of the lines will be your baseline.  You use that same line for every sheet and ignore the view selected baseline if it is different from your choice.  Unless the hull has drag, my favorite is the top of the rabbet.  Some plans have the frames go down to the bottom of the rabbet.  I would rather cut the rabbet into the top of the keel.  If the rabbet is part of the frame, it gets fairly thin and is sort of like the frame is balancing on a point.  Also, rather than cut a notch in the keel for the floor timber, add the chock on top of the keel.
 
For me, the worst part of plotting each frame is drawing the curve. Three points define a curve.  You can get a curve for a frame by connecting three or more plotted points.  But that curve is unique. It may or may not be related to its brother curves on the frames before and after it   Getting a fair hull is challenge enough when the curves are related.

The little version on this would fit what were essentially hypodermic needles - all metal and not stainless steel as a tip for a micro flame.  I think the ones I have are ~12 G. 
Would one of those push fit over one of your tips?  If that worked, it would get you more use from even a low grade tip.
We used 12 G to make up IV solutions in the sterile hood.  I am not sure - it has been a long time, but I think they were all metal.  Heat transfer might make using needles with a plastic hub an interesting experience.

Terry,
 
No hijack has occurred.  Seminars will drift a bit and as long as it stays reasonably close to the subject, it is what is supposed to happen.   A wide search light is my preference.  I doubt that I am the only one who could use help with this subject.  
Yes.  I have gotten the answer that I was seeking.  I just excavated my Acu-Arc.  The Acu-Arc is essentially a sliding batten.  The plastic is still plastic and the springs still pull.  So doing each beam as a unique individual will be less painful than having to draw a lot of geometric constructs and connecting the dots for each beam.
I have the 14 inch one and I am certain that I did not pay anything like $60 for it.  But I bought it 40 years ago.
 
You might reconsider building a physical model instead of a virtual one.  It is a different sort of reward. 
 
Dean
 

The little version on this would fit what were essentially hypodermic needles - all metal and not stainless steel as a tip for a micro flame.  I think the ones I have are ~12 G. 
Would one of those push fit over one of your tips?  If that worked, it would get you more use from even a low grade tip.
We used 12 G to make up IV solutions in the sterile hood.  I am not sure - it has been a long time, but I think they were all metal.  Heat transfer might make using needles with a plastic hub an interesting experience.

What PietFriet said, but it should probably be bookbinders pH neutral version of PVA.  It is white, dries clear, and does not potentially degrade natural fibers that are vulnerable to acid.  

Phil,
My apology for the confusion in definition of "camber".   The original definition as I understood it turns out to be the correct one - the transverse or cross section curve from side to side.
I have always understood sheer as applying to a profile line from bow to stern.  But from HIC's plans where he names a continuous line at the side of the ship going from bow to stern as "sheer".
The lines that define center of a deck from bow to stern and underside of deck at side from bow to stern - may not have a generally accepted name.  They are usually present on most of the plans that I work with.  I am at present hacking away at HMS Centurion 1732.  These lines are present for all of the decks.  They are also parallel on every deck, except on the two lower full decks where beginning maybe 10 feet from the rabbet of the stem, they start to converge.  I have recently seen plans where close to the hawse holes, some ships had this deck with a sharp dip down.  I see the utility of isolating water coming in with hemp anchor lines in a forward well  for runoff there.
 
If you work the geometry, using the same curve for every beam cannot produce this result.  Up to 1860,  most every ship seems to follow this pattern.   When iron and steel became dominant,  what you describe maybe became the norm.   I see that world undergoing at major change around 1860.  That is why I stop at 1860. 
Perhaps wood and steel have different requirements for economical deck fabrication?   The deck camber may also have been parabolic before 1860 and an arc after.  I think that the sort of work done on deck may have been very different on either side of the tech inflection date.
 
I think this is an a situation of comparing apples and oranges.
 
As an aside, I propose that except for small individual yards, the discipline and methods of wooden shipbuilding gained over several hundred years was lost as the older generation aged out and did not pass it on.   The books that reflect the methods used during the brief resurgence in large wooden hulls around 1900 - 1914-1918 -  appear to me to be a translation of steel methods to wood.  
 

Don't
 
Regards