Der Alte Rentner

Evidently, I missed that step, and dealt with it by trimming the excess off the bottoms of the transom frames. Man, that seems like a lifetime ago... Looking at SUBaron's photos above, I'm left to wonder if that 11/32" trimming of the counter led to its being too high when mounted to Bulkhead R, resulting in the necessity of adding the shim. In my own build log, I noticed that I only had to trim about 3/64" off the bottoms of the transom frames to correct the oversight - not 11/32", which I would have expected. I think the important thing is for the top of the frames to be flush with the bulkheads for the deck planking that will follow. Also, like Jon, I don't see how the hole for the rudder post ended up where it did. The setup looks correct. I compared her photos to those in my build log and the location of the center point for the hole seems correctly placed. Interesting. My takeaway from all this is that SUBaron did a much better job of reading the Practicum than I did. I must have just looked at Hunt's pictures and missed that little detail. Thanks to you both, Jon and Rich, for chiming in. I'll be digging deeper into your build logs trying to avoid as many pitfalls as possible. And to SUBaron, hang in there. These things happen to everyone here. Nice job so far. Keep up the good work.

your cup runneth over with good ideas

Well that's a good news and a bad news situation. The good news is I'm not losing my mind after checking my post 12 and seeing no references to the counter there. The bad news is, nowhere in my build log do I mention that I reduced the thickness of the counter. Can't wait to get back to the shipyard to measure. If that's a step I missed, I'll have to figure out how to fix it. Thank you for providing the practicum reference. I do have the practicum with me on my laptop and I just checked to see if anything jogged my memory. Sadly not, but I'm pretty sure I missed that Practicum note. When will this come back to bite me in the backside?

Jon, This is news to me (I think), did I miss something? Peter

As soon as I saw the glue over run on the rudder, my first thought was how do you clean that up. You addressed that, but as I contemplate all the small item gluing I'll be doing on Conny, the bigger question is, how do you avoid over run in the first place? Further, since Super Glue sets so quickly, how do you accurately position these small pieces in the first place? Any ideas?

I'm soooooo glad I asked. I will drill these holes before I plank the deck! Thank you Mustafa

I noticed that between posts 111 and 117 that the holes in the bulwarks for the eye bolts for the cannons appeared. I assume this was part of the necessary drilling you mentioned in post 117. Pardon a newbie question, but what tool did you use to drill the holes in the bulwarks?

Ha! Somehow I doubt that. But thank you for the encouraging words.

Man-oh-man, The hull is gorgeous. Maybe I'll rethink this painting thing after all. (Will you be taking the Summer off again, so I have the hope of maybe catching up? 😁)

not very likely. 😁

I can't speak for any of the Captains of the Constitution in its prime, but I have spent quite a bit of time aboard tall ships as voyage crew for ocean passages. Every Captain I sailed under insisted on a neat and orderly deck. Of course none of them had gun decks, but all lines on the decks were neatly coiled. P.S. What song are you working on?

I started using Gorilla brand super glue pen in the gel formulation. Also got a box of those super thin extension tip. The combination of those two nets some very consistent and predictable glue flow. This should solve your problem.

I like that approach myself now. When making the strake segments, I'll see if I can double up the planks in the milling process. From the numbers I've seen in my most recent spreadsheet (yes, I took the laptop to the shipyard and went digital), the dimensions port and starboard are pretty much the same. So, I might be able to save some time. P.S. I may regret this later, but because the wale on one side had such a deep divot in it, I actually pulled segments off of three strakes near the bow and am patching that area with slightly convex(?)/curved segments. From what I saw after replacing one of the first segment, I will have fairly well evened out the offending area. Since I'm editing this reply, rather than posting a new log entry, probably no one will see these pre-travel Post Script comments. As always, thanks for your time and attention Jon. Peter

May 08, 2024 Note from my future self: Now that I've completed planking, I am sharing notes and observations of lessons learned in the process that I wish I'd thought about earlier in the build. 1. Don't sweat scale. Much is made of this business of scale. Unless you're building from scratch using original plans, you will not actually be doing much 'to scale'. And! Since most will likely be painting over the planking, there's no reason to be so darned fussy. You may want to observe some planking pattern that alternates over say four rows of planking so the butt joints are not on top of each other. Go with whatever length and thickness of plank that is convenient to work with. e.g. Mustafa (mtbediz) used planks twice the width recommended in the Hunt Practicum and saved himself about half the time it takes to plank the hull. Frankly, if you're going to cover the lower hull with copper sheeting, there's no reason to do much more than cover that area with more than the basics. 2. If you prefer a natural finish, choose different materials for planking than provided in the kit. The Constructo kit provides contrasting woods for hull planking, the deck, gun port strip, rails, etc. (Sapelly, Ayous, Manzonia, Mukaly and Anatolia). Using anything other than the materials provided in your kit will probably net you a nicer result than staining basswood. 3. Stick with the same planking pattern from the rails to the keel. Either I missed it, or the Practicum doesn't address this, but If consistency on planking pattern is important to you, then adapt one from the onset. I lost track of this somewhere along the line and reverted to the Hunt pattern (more or less) below the wales. Again, don't bother with this below the area you plan to apply copper sheeting. 4. Use filler blocks between Bulkheads A and B - possibly all the way to C, Likewise, use more at the stern, perhaps extending as far forward as bulkhead P. Fairing the bulkheads themselves only gets you so far when planking at the stem and stern. Unless you really take care forming the correct bend in the planks, especially in the gaps between Bulkheads A and B, those sections could end up looking flat. I think it would be easier to fair the hull with more filler blocks and the end result will be a more consistent hull shape in these areas. 5. Do the math! and use tick marks. Regardless of the width of the planking materials you choose to use, you will be tapering planks at the stem and stern. To get a consistent lines, for and aft, especially in the wales, use tick marks. The more the better. I used them to define the zones of five strakes suggested in the practicum, and wish I'd paid closer attention to the slight variances I introduced in each strake within a zone. This isn't easy, but take your time, do the math, build a spreadsheet of plank thicknesses at each bulkhead - port and starboard, and mark the bulkhead as best you can for each strake. Again, if you're going to paint, maybe this is overkill anywhere other than the wales, where carelessness is most likely to be noticed. 6. Pay attention to where the bulkheads meet the bearding line and rabbets. I thought I did such a great job shaping the bulkheads, until I got to the planking the last few strakes near the false keel. Before you plank, you may want to see how well planks butt against the false keel and how they fit into the rabbets. I needed to do a lot of tweaking at the end. I feel much of this could have been avoided had been more careful in "fairing the hull" early on. This is also why adding a few more filler blocks may assist in visualizing how planks will sit when you get that far. 7. Super Glue as clamps. As useless as the instructions that came with the Constitution kit are, they did contain a very useful nugget of advice. Use white glue on the edges of the planking in general, but use a drop of Super Glue at the bulkheads. The latter sets quickly, so, if you work carefully, you can forget about using clamps for the bulk of the planking. I began the planking at the spar deck using Titebond (yellow wood glue) and the seams between strakes all showed a dark cured glue. Once I switched to plain old Elmer's white glue, I got clean nearly invisible seams. The Super Glue itself also shows a browning color at the butt joints if you're not careful, so, use is sparingly. 8. Get a good brush to apply the white wood glue. Don't even think about squeezing glue out of the Elmer's glue container. Use a good fairly stiff brush to apply this to the edges of the planking. I used a Master's Touch paint brush (700 B-8 Bright) from Hobby Lobby. Keep a cup of water and paper towels handy to clean the brush after each application of glue. 9. Do use needle tips and gel version of Super Glue. These long thin applicator tubes (aka needle tips) that you can attach to the Super Glue dispenser really aid in precision application of adhesive. They also seem to prevent the glue from drying in the tube. I found that the Gorilla Brand has containers that have micro precise dispensers that are so much easier to work with than the standard tubes. 10. Magnifying glasses are a must. Maybe in my 20s and 30s, I could have gotten by with my version 1.0 eyeballs, but the over 40 disease has wreaked havock with my close vision and made working without magnifiers virtually impossible. 11. Work in metric. All my life I've worked in standard US fractions for woodworking, but I learned very early on in this project that it is so much easier to work in metric. The math is so much easier. (enough for today. back later to finish..) Original January 22, 2024 post begins here: I was at the shipyard yesterday starting the "Hull Analysis" as per chapter 6 in the Hunt Practicum. This was a very enlightening process. I think I'll be doing more tweaking on the bulkheads - especially as they approach the rabbet at the keel. Somewhere along the line, I lost track of the planking scheme Hunt outlined on page 28, when I did the wales. For some reason, I used a three strake pattern there vs Hunt's four strake pattern from the plank sheer to the top of the gunports. Worse, I noticed that I didn't use the same pattern on the port side as I did the starboard. My notes do not indicate why I changed up the planking scheme for the wales. So, for the remaining 40 strakes (8 zones of 5 planks each as suggested by Hunt), I will go back to the 4 strake formula. My thoughts on that are that Hunt should have/could have suggested continuing the planking pattern when he started his discussion on the wales. For those of you just getting to that part of the build. Take note.. After marking the zone ticks on each bulkhead, I fabricated one strake segment (stem to bulkhead D) to get an idea of how long it would take. This was without the bending, shaping and gluing that will yet need to be done. It took 10 minutes to do the one piece. Let's do the math: 40 strakes per side 5 segments per strake 2 sides 10 minutes per segment 40 x 5 x 2 x 10 = 4,000 minutes or 67 hours just to fabricate the segments. Eeek! I won't chime back in until I've planked to the keel. So, factoring in my time away from the shipyard for that trip down South, see you sometime in (early?) March. Best to all.

I'm pretty sure from one of your build logs that you too know your way around Photoshop. My philosophy is everyone deserves a good picture.. Thank you. Best Peter

Thanks for the link Jon. Man oh man, what a splendid build. I almost can't wait to get to the rigging now!

Jon, Without yours, Ken's, Geoff's, Mustafa's, and all the other wonderful builds at MSW to draw energy and inspiration from, I'd never have gotten this far. I'm delighted to be past these "gallery drops" (thanks Rick). I have about a week to make a dent in the rest of the hull's planking before I take off for warmer climes for a few weeks. Thanks Peter

Thank you Geoff. Your kind words are greatly appreciated.

Thank you Rick. I looked up your Essex build and am likewise impressed with your finished product. I will be referring to that build when/if I do the copper plating. I wish you had included more detail on the processes, especially the gallery window build. Beautiful. Thanks again. Peter

I can't believe how much effort it took to plank these gallery bottoms. Six hours at the shipyard yesterday to do the port side. And I had to find another way to get the last 4 planks in. Sadly, the results are not as clean as Xken's. But again, once Conny is right side up, the compromises won't be noticeable. On the starboard side, I actually formed these shapes with 3/32 x 3/64 stock. That was painful. This wasn't perfect, but it worked. Comparing the sides of the hull, I have much work to do to cleanup the starboard side planking so far. A lot of chisel and sandpaper work ahead of me there. Then I can finally get the rest of the planking underway.

Looking at these pictures, I am reminded that I did actually attempt a wooden model ship a number of decades ago. I can't remember the name of the boat, but it was a two hull planking project like this. My results were similar to yours, but then I got busy with work and never got to the second hull. Nice thing about this scheme is that you don't have to be terribly exacting on the first round of planking. I wonder what happened to that kit? I had a tool that made pushing those pins in fairly easy. It was a spring loaded gizmo that you loaded a pin into and pushed the handle to drive home the pin. It was a low tech nail gun, if you will. No air needed, just elbow grease. I don't know how tough the wood in your kit is, and you're done with this phase anyway, so it's academic now. Looking forward to good things from you sir. Best Peter

Thank you Jon, Frankly, I couldn't quite figure out the three dimensional scheme either - hence my two dimensional approach. Having spent 6 hours at the shipyard today planking just the starboard side gallery bottom, I'm not sure I'm learning the right lessons. Seems to me that wood putty and paint could end up saving me a lot of time and effort. Had I not seen the Xken photos we recently discussed, I may not have planked at all. While not entirely happy with the results, I console myself with the notion that once Conny is right side up, the flaws will be less noticeable. For what it's worth, I have a smidge more to show for today's effort. I do have two planks installed on the port side.

Thanks, I've been watching your progress on Lady Isabelle and am thinking about my next one - in 2026? I added some photos to the above. After posting, I returned to the shipyard to do the port side. Once I had the technique down, I only needed a couple hours to repeat the process. I think I'll follow XKen's lead and plank the gallery bottom before I plank to the keel on the rest of the hull.

2024 Jan 14, I figured out an easier(?) method for fabrication the lower gallery. Using a bevel gauge, contour gauge, scroll saw, 1/16" basswood, chisel and sanding sticks, I made three thin layers to affix to the counter extension - adjusting the shape after the addition of each layer. I left room for planking later. Looks good as far as I can tell. Some shape tweaking may be required when I get to the planking.

I'll chime in with the other rave reviews with a single word, Magnificent! Curious, where do you store all your finished projects?