Der Alte Rentner

Having strolled down memory lane (or relived the nightmare?) just now to review my adventures/misadventures in stern transom frame installation, I think I need to point out that the gap at the bottom of the outer frame piece is a smidge larger than the 1/16" that Bob suggests you'll have there. In Chapter 2.2.2, refer to photo P2.2.2-1. For comparison, I checked my own photo archive and saw that my filler piece was pretty close to that thickness. Also note in his photo the relatively smooth transitions between the outer frame, counter, transom and bulkhead R. You may be doing some fine tuning in this region. I bring it up because this will rear it's ugly little head when you start planking that area. Also take a look at the early part of chapter 6. P6.1.1-7 eg. I guess it doesn't matter when you do it, but you will be doing some tweaking. Having said all that, the planks themselves do hide quite a few imperfections.

After extensive research, I ended up with MicroMark (last image below) at well over $100. The cheaper ones available elsewhere seemed clunky or flimsy. Until just now, I completely forgot that I even tried this pair from Amazon first. They are useless for close work given the thickness of the points - especially on the small end of the tool. I suggest you pass on this one, unless you want to try machining the points to something less fat. These are cheap, but I was turned off by the fact they're plastic. Who knows, maybe a $10 investment may prove worthwhile. This is where I ended up. I think it was a clever stroke of marketing to show the dividers with the points looking straight. Notice the curved points on the replacement kit photo at the bottom of the ad. It took a little getting used to this, but they work. A caveat! I did not find these very useful for making tick marks on the bulkheads (5 marks per zone). If you press hard enough to get marks on the bulkhead, you're likely to nudge the dividers out of position. I do find them easier to use than my old drafting set of dividers to check spacing between marks I already made when marking out the zones. I didn't want to risk really torquing down that knob, but perhaps that's the way to use them to set the tick marks within a zone. Good luck

The proportional dividers are not perfect. You can't really tighten up the nut enough to keep the tool rigidly locked. I often accidentally move the tips merely by putting the tool down. I haven't wanted to use a pair of pliers on that locking nut for fear of stripping a thread. Also, you will need to do some experimenting to find the true index number to use to get the proportion you need. To get a 5 to 1 proportion, I needed to line the tool up to the number 6 on the index. Still, it's a lot better than any of the sketchy ones available at that mass online retailer.

I would guess that you're in the minority with that mindset. Several build logs have run into issues with the Stern Transom - mine included. But I love your optimism! P.S. Love that you're using Lego blocks...

glad you got that tenon into the bowsprit end. My guess is, you didn't make the mis-step in the Practicum.

Not at all, I've done the same thing with other build logs. I was hoping to be able to quote Mustafa when I did the same thing at his build log, but couldn't find the post. (I'm sure Jon will chime in with the particulars, however. I believe he and I were having an exchange of thoughts in Mustafa's build log). The gist of it was this, that's what these build logs and this website is for (IMHO). As to your earlier comment on the Hunt WTF moment. I can't find this either, but I posted pretty much the exact same comment about that reference to the 1/8" addition to the transom frames. Deja vous all over again.. I am finding a use for the proportional dividers after all. With every new strake, I double check the math on that spreadsheet. It's an easy tool to use to mark the distance between tick mark on the bulkhead and the last strake. I put the pointy ends on a metric ruler to get the measurement and divide that measurement by the number of remaining strakes in the zone. Turns out, there are quite a few on the fly changes. One other tool I use a LOT is a 3/8" chisel. I keep a very sharp edge on it and use it to trim the newly added strake. It really saves a lot of sanding time. You've got lots of fun stuff to look forward to. 😁

Tell me about it. I probably spend more time researching, thinking and prepping than actually working on Conny. Take your sweet time and enjoy the hobby. If you're getting stressed out, go swimming! The digital vernier caliper is a must have. I did by the proportional dividers but have found I don't really use them. But I'm a firm believer in, better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. But I also have more cents than sense. 😉

My first jog 4 zones done. 12 to go. crud, I just noted the lack of symmetry! Gotta fix that with the next strake..

There's a spar deck port there, and if memory serves, these ports are all 9/16" wide. For a spar deck opening, I too doubt that double decimal precision is necessary here. But then again, I'm someone who built a spreadsheet with plank width dimensions down to 1/100 of a mm. 😉

Being unfamiliar with the kit, I must ask, are those winch parts included with Lady Isabella? or did you build the winch from scratch?

Seeing as how I'm at that phase of my build, planking over the filler blocks, I can assure you that no matter how well you think you faired the blocks, and bulkheads A and R, you will be shaving and shaping with every plank that covers those areas. Ditto for the bulkheads themselves. Don't sweat in too much now. Getting close will save time later. If you are going to test fit planks now, prepare them as if you were going to affix them. Good luck. And again, I'm impressed with what you're doing with a small set of hand tools. Since I redid one set of filler blocks three times, I'm glad to have had a band saw and spindle drum sander. For what it's worth, once you get past the filler blocks, there won't be much need for fancy power tools.

Amen to that! (Yesterday could have been that motorcycle day. Almost got it down from the jack stand, where I keep it for the winter. What a difference a day makes! 72 yesterday, 22 this morning)

Hey, I'm getting the hang of this planking thing! It's time consuming getting everything set up before gluing a plank segment, but done right, the seams are really tight and there's very little trimming required afterwards. Nuff said.. (well, except for figuring out how the new phone camera works. I swear these photos looked a log lighter on the phone. Oh well.)

I thought I was posting this to my build log. After I saw it ended up here, I copied it and posted to my own. I'll delete the post above. Sorry. I still don't fully know my way around this website.

This quote ended up several pages from where you made the comment, so it may seem out of context given where you are in the build log now, but, I will adopt this as my motto going forward. (I was reviewing your work on hull planking today. I said it then, but will repeat it now, Excellent work!)

Your build log was my second stop this afternoon. I was considering doing as you did, start planking wale to keel for a few zones, then switching to keel up and meeting in the middle. You noted that Bob Hunt did the planking from wale to keel, but in the Practicum he applied his tick marks first - and that was done with a top to middle, bottom to middle methodology. Just having completed zone 1 on both sides, I'm already veering off course with the ever so meticulously applied and mathematically calculated tick marks (well, at least at the extreme ends). I am pouring over build logs to find the best way to deal with these tick marks - especially at the stem. Measure six or seven times, cut once... To the point about this taking a while? It doesn't help when one breaks a plank (or two or three) in a zone. Yeech! (methodology modified to hopefully prevent this going forward) 😉

I can't believe how long it's taking per strake on the remaining planking. Yesterday I was at the shop for 6 hours of uninterrupted work, and I only got two strakes on the port side done. With the one I did a few days earlier, I have 77 more to go. At 3 hours per strake, I've got 231 hours to go before the hull is finished. I had hoped to get into a groove, but found that there was more prep work involved before adding a strake, and more finishing work required after a strake was in. The prep work was mostly tweaking the bulkheads, which I thought I had faired so well (evidently NOT), and making adjustments to my math to keep the strake line clean - no more dips or fat spots. In retrospect, Bob Hunt's slight shortcut of using 1/8" planks for the central sections of the hull would have saved me some time. But, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm losing a bit of time shaving a fraction of a mm off of each plank there. But the milling machine makes that fairly easy. Also, I found it easier to work with a revised spreadsheet. Since each zone has slightly different widths at the bow and stern, I didn't find the one I started with (above) that useful. See below for the work in progress. I've got a page for every zone - port and starboard. Strake 1 on port side: Strakes 2 and 3: I don't think I'll be back until I've completed all of the planking - assuming I alternate zones port to starboard, or after I complete the port side, assuming I don't alternate. See you in late March or early April?

Your instincts are spot on. Look at post 13 of my build log for a technique that worked well for me, I'm embarrassed to admit I couldn't figure out how to supply you a link. Post 13 is about half way down on the first page of my build log here.

Aha! That explains everything... Lesson learned. No more working on Conny on Manhattan Club nights. Impressive that you're accomplishing so much with a minimal set of tools. Keep up the good work.

It's a pleasure following along with your build. Excellent workmanship as usual.

I plan to use the math to shape the planks as well. That's why I went to the trouble of creating that first spreadsheet. I am developing a second one that tells me what the width of a plank segment should be at each bulkhead. Since there will be tapering at the stem and stern, I'll have to make some adjustments to the sheet - Starboard side calcs shown below. The tick marks are there as a double check. Recall the issue I just corrected at bulkhead D (post 127 above)? I want to avoid a repeat of that and I think these tick marks will alert me to anything going awry.

I'm back at work in the shipyard. Though I enjoyed my time on Lido Key visiting my brothers, I was stunned to see that I had put on eight pounds. Silly me, I though I was keeping up with the diet and exercise and would come home perhaps a pound or two lighter. Ugh! Back to my routine. But first: I had to get rid of that dip in the wale at bulkhead D. So, I opted for demolition and re construction: Before: The remodeling: Note the plank temporarily in place to mark the new lower edge of the wale. (upper edge in this bottom up photo) After: Not perfect, but much less annoying. The rest of the day was spent revisiting my measurements and marking the bulkheads with tick marks to indicate the 8 zones I intend to plank. I opted out of using proportional dividers and the start-in-the-middle-with-1/8"-strips as advocated by Bob Hunt. Instead I'm going for a more mathematical approach, which I've seen others at the site use as well. I double checked the numbers bulkhead by bulkhead and made sure my spreadsheet was correct. Here's the paper strip I used to measure distance from bottom of wale to rabbet on port side bulkhead J. The numbers on the spreadsheet check out. In later steps, I'll be using the individual plank dimensions to shape the planks. Using a tool I've kept since my high school drafting class, the small divider, I set the width for the zone to 14.84 mm (1/8 of 118.68mm) using my vernier caliper. This was a little fiddly but close enough. I walked the divider up the bulkhead making little holes that I marked with pencil. Rinse and repeat for all bulkheads on both sides. I tapered the lines at the stern, keeping an eye out for symmetry between port and starboard. That's enough for one day. Time to update the build logs (this one and the king-sized Word document on my home PC). Next up will be to do the tapering at the bow and finally start making small pieces of planking out of larger ones..

I'm glad I stumbled upon this post. That was Dec 5, 2023. As of Fed 3, 2024, still have not received replacement stock for the USS Constitution from Model Expo. (In case someone from Model Expo is checking in to MSW, see Ticket #22286.) I've moved on on my own. Very disappointing experience...

Hey Rich, After you provided feedback to my comments in SUBaron's Conny build log, I dove back into your log. Having just finished the wales and about to embark on planking down to the keel, I took particular note of these sections of your log. In the photos above (post 60), I noticed that the first two gun ports on the portside are lower by a plank or two from those on the starboard side. Fearing I screwed up yet again, I consulted the Practicum and confirmed that his build has symmetry between port and starboard sides. Did I miss yet another detail? (Let's call that a rhetorical question. Too late for me if I did). It's been a while since I've looked at your build log. Coming at it with the benefit of hindsight, I'm even more impressed at the level of detail you provided. Lastly, that's quite the collection of future builds you have there... Best Peter