Der Alte Rentner

Wow, that's an interesting approach. I was wondering why you went to so much detail on the gun deck if most of it would be hidden by the spar deck. Now I understand. You're going to Showcase your work on the gun deck, and I can't wait to see that. Thanks

Geoff, First, I'll say this again. I wish you had posted the early work on the Constitution. I just love the detail you've put into everything I've seen here. The photos below are the only ones I found providing a decent view of your spar deck planking. I'm trying to decide whether to taper the planks ala Hunt practicum, or not. Did you taper? and did you scribe the butt joints? If not, how did you manager the the plank ends that hovered over empty space between bulkheads? As an aside: As I study the half dozen or so other builds I consult for tips and direction, I can't help but be impressed by the subtle differences in approaches. Paint the coamings and hatches? Stain them? Leave them alone? Likewise the decisions on how to tackle the deck. Rivets on the bulwarks? .. to name a few. Lastly, If you ever compile your notes on masts and rigging and publish them, I'm a buyer of the Matson practicum! I'm at least a year from having to deal with any of that, so you've got time. If not, I'll be visiting this build log day and night when I get to that point. Thanks for posting your outstanding build. Peter

red sweat? oh my!

Nice work, I wish I'd done a better job on mine. But looking at mine without magnifying glass on my nose, I can live with it. ... and I have to ask, what's your plan for the spar deck planking? Tapering as you work aft? Scribed butt joints or short planks?

I hope those red flecks aren't drops of blood! 😁

I have tried this, but if I'm going to thin the paint and apply multiple coats, especially at the waterway and bulwarks (assuming I'm going to paint at all - the decision point rapidly drawing near 🙁), I'd rather mask and spray. So, I'll be checking into that Iwata RG-3L mini gun. Thanks again Peter

Thanks for the notes on the airbrush and techniques. I've been perusing your build intently today in my research preparatory to planking the spar deck any further. On the matter of tapering the planks, I think I can safely conclude that you were not in that camp. However, how did you manage your butt joint plan? Did you go the Hunt route and scribe these in after the fact? Also, it's hard to tell from this picture, but did you put support pieces under the areas where the planks butted up against one another? Thanks again, Best Peter

Mustafa, I'm beginning the process of planking the spar deck, and am researching how other builders have tackled this. I took note of your methodology on planking the gun deck, where you cut planks short instead of cutting long strips and scribing in butt joints. (I saw the reference marks on your carrier deck for the butt joints.) However, I did notice that you did not taper the planks there. What's your plan for the spar deck? Will you be tapering the planks as you work your way aft? Thanks in advance. Peter

Little progress today. Part of the reason for this is that, once again, I didn't look far enough ahead a year ago. This business of adding filler pieces between the bulkheads to have some material below the plank butt joints is driving me batty. Looking back at XKen's build, he employed a "deck carrier" to facilitate planking the spar deck off the hull. Now, as I recall, he didn't mention that he had to shave a 64th off the top of the bulkheads to account for the additional thickness of the deck carrier until later in the build when someone else asked him about it. But with the benefit of 2020 hindsight, and multiple passes of studying his build, I think that was the right way to approach this deck planking. Especially if you want to stick with some kind of planking scheme where you're not faking butt joints. For what it's worth now, I think I'll be embracing this false butt joint approach to get me past this stage. By the way, I thought planking the hull was tedious. If I stick with Hunt's notion of tapering the planks, this will be much worse than the work on the hull. Having taken a close look at the deck of the Niagara build that's been featured in the two most recent issues of Nautical Research Journal, I may opt out of this tapering the entire plank strategy, choosing instead to keep the planks parallel and have a few sharper tapers where the plank butts meet the waterways. I did take Cookster's approach and assembled small sections of the planking off the hull. When edge gluing the planks, I do so on top of a piece of wax paper so that the squeeze out doesn't stick to my fixture. It remains to be seen if this process will be helpful on longer sections. I suspect it will be useless if employing the tapered plank approach. Again, not much to show for four hours at the shipyard today, but such is life. Funny thing about this particular section of planking.. It's the section between the forward hatch and the galley stack hatch. The reason I chose to do this off the hull is that I thought it would be easier to locate and cut out the whole for the foremast. Guess what I forgot to do before I glued the section in? I'll never tell. 🤐 Note the filler blocks between bulkheads C and D. If you look closely, you'll see the butt joints just aft of the foremast that would otherwise be hanging over empty space. Once again, my trusty Proxxon mill proved indispensable in carving out the notch for the galley stack hatch.

Looking good. Keep up the good work.

Mine too. 😁

Filler blocks made to span the gap from bulkhead A to the waterway at the bow. They are actually tall enough that they're glued onto the bow filler blocks a little more than an inch below. I tapered the top faces to facilitate the rise from bulkhead A to the waterway. Then I began planking. In my case, given the number of planks between the edges of the bowsprit and forward hatches, the pattern between butt joints will be symmetrical about the centerline of the deck. The most useful tool in my arsenal is the Proxxon mill. Using two vices, I had no problem dialing in the exact depth of the cutouts on the planks that wrap around the hatches. To Jon's point earlier, I don't know how anyone can do this kind of fabrication well without the proper tools and techniques. I have noticed that the spacing according to the plans will result in my having to put more filler pieces into the framework to provide real estate for planks and hatches to find a home. That will be next on the list. Hey hey! Studying Cookster's build log because he had some really detailed process on planking the spar deck. And, what do you know, he too used filler blocks at the bow to accommodate deck planks. Drat, I should have jotted down is post number.. I think this came from page 5 of his Constitution build.

I was going to refer you to XKen's build, where I believe he made his galley stack from scratch. But then I caught the limiter in your comment - "with my skill and tools". That man had a lot of specialized skills and tools.

As I just learned in my experimentation on the Constitution. I simulated afixing channels onto a sample board that had been prepped with four coats of polycrylic. I also attached one of those eyebrows that goes over the gun ports. The channel popped off without much encouragement. Ironically, the eyebrow hung on tenaciously. No polycrylic for me until at least the channels have been properly secured. Thanks

I hope that's what I just did by updating my post 14, Jon. So as to avoid sending you back there to see what I'm referring to, I'll recap here. I just started planking the spar deck and immediately became aware of several missteps early on in the build, that have compounded to give me grief now. When I constructed the bow framing, way back in Hunt's Chapter 2, I did not understand that spar deck planking needed to rest on the spar deck framing piece. Compounding that with my error in not constructing the waterway to plan, I am now faced with the need to construct a pair of filler blocks to make up for both the height difference and the loss of deck planking real estate at the bow. In retrospect, I think the spar deck frame pieces should have been made differently, sparing me the rework now. These photos should make clear the hole I dug for myself: 1. The problem today, showing the misshapen waterway, which resulted in the lost ledge to support the spar deck planks. 2. Clear 20/20 hindsight illustrated. Photo P 2.4.1-10 3. Photo 4.4.1-1 from Hunt's Chapter 4. 4. How maybe the spar deck frame could have been constructed to avoid the whole issue? Plan A (in red) gives you much more real estate for planking and to glue on the bowsprit hatch. Plan B (black dots) would probably have been sufficient, but perhaps there's something I don't know now about why Hunt added the undocumented framing pieces that magically appear in Chapter 4.

Not being familiar with this particular model, I must ask, what is a pole holder? I'll pour myself a Manhattan while I await your reply. Cheers!

So yes. he mixed his own Jon, you are the MAN. Thank you.

In reviewing XKen's build log, I read that he used "black glue" to simulate caulking between deck planks on the spar deck. I can't believe he would have used CA glue, which is all I can find online on a search. Does anyone know of a regular wood glue in black? Or did he just add black dye to something like Elmer's glue or Titebond? Thoughts?

i would not want to get stain on the spar deck planking. Even the gel stain, which can be applied very accurately with a brush, needs to be wiped off. I'm not sure this can be done with enough care to avoid smearing. I'll add that to my list of experiments after 😁. Thanks.

That post was 8 years ago. If you're still checking in, what happened? Once I stumbled on your build log, I became enamored and would love to see you finish the San Francisco.

Today I started work on planking the spar deck. As usual, reality didn't quite jive with the Hunt practicum. I double and triple checked the width of the bowsprit hatch and, just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I tried a little Photoshop experiment to see if I could spot the root cause of my problem. (Hunt hatch on left and superimposed over mine on the right. Nothing obvious. What is the problem, you ask? I used the 1/16” x 3/32” stock, as specified on page 50 of the practicum and confirmed by the plans. Yet, there seems to be a difference in the number of planks spanning the width of my hatches vs Hunt's. Seven planks (precisely cut by Modeller's Sawmill) don't quite span the width. I suspect that Hunt's stock may have been of the ilk as the typically off-sized material that came with my kit. (Yes, Mustafa, I learned my lesson! Next time I'll build from scratch.) Solution? It might simply be to shave a small fraction from the sides of hatches so the bordering planks sit flush. Whittling down matching carve-outs from the bordering planks would seem to be a waste of time. I'll go one thought further. I'm asking myself, Self, why not plank first and cut out openings for hatches and masts afterwards? (Actually, I may have an answer to that question. It might be easier to position the cutouts for the masts by planking to them vs. trying to find the exact locations to drill(?) holes to accommodate them later.) Another thought. Should I stain, at the very least, the bulwarks and waterways before doing ANY planking? I suppose I can postpone that decision a while longer, because the first round of planking won't approach the waterways anyway. By the way, I opted to use the side of a pencil lead to mimic the caulking used between the planks. I could probably even skip that if I used Titebond no. 2 or 3. This leaves behind a brownish seam which may suffice. I'll experiment with that the next time I'm in the shipyard, which won't be tomorrow, since I'll be having a crown fitted over the root canal I had done on Tuesday. Fun times.. 😁 (note the perfect teeth..)

In my experimentation with Acrylic paint, even un-thinned paint does not cover well in a single coat. When thinned to minimize brush marks when dry, no less than three coats were required to get a clean, smooth and uniform finish. When you mention surface prep, are you talking about readying the surface for gluing on additional pieces? or for the initial coat of paint? I'm concerned with the former, given the numerous features that will be affixed to the hull after painting. Thoughts? Advice?

thus my reluctance to paint my Conny at all.. I'm about to embark on planking the spar deck but have been stalling while I consider finishing options. Hunt applies multiple coats of clear polyacrylic before he then covers that with multiple coats of paint, which he thins and applies with a brush. I experimented with stains, gel stains, and dyes as well as paint. After seeing how nicely black gel stain covered bare basswood, I had hoped I could use this over stained wood - the idea being, I would try some variant of brown stain on the hull and if I didn't like the result, I would cover the mess with black stain. Sadly, once the wood has taken a couple of coats of stain, the black gel doesn't cover well. So, if I decide I don't like the look of the brown stain, I will likely resort to - ugh! paint.. I have received advice to go with pinstripe tape masking and to use an air brush to get a better outcome with paint. Having seen so many spectacular close ups of brushed-on paint jobs, if I do paint, I'll be investing in yet another tool and accessories. Fun times ahead. 🤣 By the way, I still haven't tried gluing stuff to the experimental tiles I've prepared with poly and stain finishes. There are many items that need to be tacked on to the hull. How well does Super Glue stick to Hunt's 6 to 8 coat poly/paint finish on the hull? Upon further review: I was also asked why I don't cover the basswood hull planking with a different second layer, as if the norm for European kits. I do have the planking material from the Constructo kit, and I might achieve the natural wood finish I desire, but I'm not sure I'm up to the rigors of a second round of planking. 😒 Though, this would cover some of the flubs made on the first round. 🤔 Stalling, stalling, stalling... 😁 Nice work Gregg. As for the close up photos, I suspect that most viewers of your completed Bluenose won't be looking at her with magnifiers. It's amazing how little detail one's Mach 1 eyeballs pick up.

I'll add to the list of constructive criticism for the practicum. It would really be nice to see photographs of Hunt's completed Constitution. Or even an uncompleted version with masts and bowsprit attached. If these exist, they are absent from my copy of the practicum. Has anyone got photos of the finished product?

I chime in with Gregg in recommending Modeler's Sawmill. I just received my third batch of wood from him, and I'm very pleased with the quality of the milling. Dimensions are spot on. As mentioned in my own build log, I wish I'd known (or even had an inkling) about replacing the subpar materials supplied with the kit when I started. Coulda, woulda, shoulda..