Jim M

Thank you @damaartenman. I am just a newb at this and this is a complete learning process.

Very nice and well done.

Good morning, and major update. Yesterday (Sunday) I removed the clamps from Saturday's work and I noticed that the I made a some major calculation errors at the bow. The plank ends are to large for the belts. My bow was well into the third planking belt, after finishing the first row of the second belt. You can see there is about 3 planks before I hit the whale. So I decided to remove the three bow planks as indicated with an X How ever I really was unhappy with shape of the bow, the curve should be more smoother. This led to me removing all my planks, and then re-faring the model. After removing the planks you can see some dips in the bow that need to be sorted. After an hour or so of hand sanding I was able to smooth out the hull, and also remove any on the bulkheads. I am much happier with the outcome this time around. One lesson I learned, is that be diligent with faring of the hull. Also, step away and then double check everything and only when happy with the job, proceed. The bow after faring. You can see all bulkheads are even. And the stern. If you notice the notch is bigger, this is because when I removed the garboard, the isopropanol did not release the join correctly and chipped caused a small error. I will fix this with the garboard, and extend that notch. However, my calculations will remain to the original placing of the notch. I had to clean up the notch with a chisel to make it smoot. Another view of the fully fared hull. Here I am dry fitting the stern garboard. I did use a little water to help with the curve int the stern. Next I am dry fitting the bow garboard, again I used some water to help with the curve into the bow. Both boards now being glued into place. Finally yesterday, I was able to create the template for the first strake. Although this was a setback, I am really happy I made this decision. The foundational planks fit much better which should make a better model. Cheers...

Saturday I was able to make some progress with the planking tutorial. My template process is as follows: First I created the templates for all three planks. Then I fitted stern plank. Then I transcribe the templates to the board. Finally I fit the planks after cutting them out. Here is the stern plank. Next the bow plank Notice the odd dips and odd shape on the planks below. Finally I glue in the planks The bow plank And finally all planks in the gluing stage.

@Knocklouder thank you. I could not work in the imperial system very well, so I ended up converting to metric (I grew up in Canada) that is more familiar. In the future though I think I will create a spreadsheet to keep track of the rows etc.

@JacquesCousteau thank you. I spent 3 days thinking how I was going to add the stealer, and having the template, that I made i will make the fitting of row 5 easier.

Good afternoon, Yesterday I was able to get back to the project, and I focused on getting a stealer in. I decided to place the stealer between the first two belts, so I had to remove the stern plank on row 4 from the first belt. Then I recut the plank and glued in a filler between G and F bulkheads. Next I created my stealer using my card stalk. I ended up dry fitting the stealer where I wanted it got get an approximate size, but I still left a little at the stern to be trimmed. Next I took the stealer mapped out the cut for the plank, and I cut the plank followed then glueing the plank in. After fitting, I cut the stealer out of the wood. Here I am dry fitting the stealer. I did soak the plank and stealer to dry in place to get a pre-bend. Next I glued in the stealer. Final result.

@palmerit I agree, I plan on doing both on my project. I think I have removed more planks than I have put on. I have a lot of planks that i cut and did not like either....

Good evening A little update from today. I was finally able to get the first belt done. I am debating adding the steeler between rows 5 and six so that i can get a nicer mount point on a bulkhead. I will make that decision tomorrow. Cheers

thanks. you need to prebend the planks as the material is thin.

Good evening, a quick update on this project. Monday I tried creating the second bow plank, and it was an absolute failure. After three hours, and at least five attempts I put up this project. I was using a french curve, and i think it is just to aggressive. So I decided to whip out my amazon account and order some ship curves. At the same time I ordered some card stock. I decided to switch tactics, and use the scribing method, but then transferring to the card stock. This allows me to create the plank and pre fit it better than trying to do it after cutting the plank. Once I felt it was ready then I cut the plank and did some final fitting. Not I also pre bent the curve using my plank bender and water. The benefit of using the card stock I found I can get the plank the correct length. This was one of the challenges I was facing on Monday along with the plank breaking. Next I tackled the third row, and I scribed the two long planks. I had previously cut the plank so you can see that is matching the scribe. Also I used my new ships curve to flatten the curve into a smoother curve. Below I am trying to make the next curve much more uniform than the previous plank. After drawing the curve it is definitely better, but the join at A will need to be addressed on the forth plank. Next I cut the plank and did a dry fit. I followed the same procedure as before, but I was to aggressive with sanding the tip of the plank, so I recut it using my template as a guide. Below all planks are now gluing in place. I had to much a gap at the F between the stern plank and its adjacent plank, so I recut it so I can fit it better, and then re glued it in place. Finally created the templates for the bow and middle plank on row 4 before being called to make lemon bars, and beef stroganoff for the family dinner. Will continue tomorrow with the stern plank and then start figuring out the steeler. It looks like I will need at least one or two drop planks too, as I am starting to get the smily face. Cheers

Good morning, Yesterday, I made some progress with the planking of the third row yet, at the same time I also took two steps backwards. First I scribed and cut the planks for the row. Notice I made them a little long, so that I can make the join match nicely. Next I bent the bow so that I would not break the plank. Next I cut the joins using my cutter The fit came out nice. I then glued on the bow plank Next the stern plank. Next I dry fitted the plank that joins to the stern plank and I realized that I missed a plank (facepalm). I also notice the second plank on row two did not fit just right so I removed it and placed in a new plank. Further inspection I noticed that the first and second bow plans broke at the bow, so I decided to redo these planks, marked with the x. Before placing the planks down I did some more faring to smooth out the joins better. After that I glued in a new row one plank. Next the bow plank for row 2. Yet another step back this morning, I removed the clamps for row 2 and I the bow plank broke again. I will need to remove it and redo that plank.

Good morning, on the 22nd I was able to complete the second row of belt 1. This time I worked on each plank and fitted them before gluing. Here I am dry fitting the plank closest to the stern. Next I fitted and glued in the bow plank. At the same time I glued in the stern plank. Finally the middle plank.

Good morning, Yesterday I was able to make some more progress. First I started with marking the joins for the planks using the 4 shift pattern. They are marked in green. Next I marked out the steeler, to get some visualization, of approximation. From what I gather there 8 planks that will hit the stern post, as the last belt meets up with the counter. I decided to try the compass method for scribing the hull line. I must admit I really like this process that the tracing method as presented for the garboard and first strake. After cutting the plank, the dry fit looks good. After trimming the joins, I then glued the plank. Note, I changed glues from Tightbond, to Gorrilla glue. I am liking the Gorrilla glue better, and it dries clear, and is a little more tacky. I continued with the other two planks. The final three planks looks as follows: One thing I did notice with the other two planks it was a little cumbersome doing the scribing after mounting the first plank. So in the future I am going to template the planks and cut them out first, then dry fit before glueing them in place.

@palmerit ohh those quad hands look good. By the way have you found any more quality issues?

Good evening, and Happy New Year. The weekend prior to the Christmas holiday I was able to get some work done on the pram, covering steps 7 and 8. First I cut out the two bottom planks, and then soaked them in some hot water so that I can get a nice curve on the planks. Similarly I added the third plank and was able to get a nice curve. As a side note I did help the curve along using my plank bender after mounting the planks onto the jig. After I was satisfied with the bend I then glued everything together. If you notice that the stern post holder is broken. The tension shattered my piece so I ended up tacking the transom into the jig with some pva, and I pinned it to hold it in place. I will need to use isopropyl to break the bond. I am really frustrated with these Model Expo kits, and the quality. The bow is lined up nicely with the center of the bow transom. A side view of the clamps to hold the boards together. A view of the stern and pin. Notice that the centre board is lined up with the center of the transom. Finally after the glue had a chance to set, I removed the clamps. Again with the quality issues, notice that one of the side boards is not even in width. I spent a lot of time getting the boards tight onto the jig, however the jig is not correct. Have a good night

Good evening, and Happy New Year!! After the hectic holiday and minor illness I am able to get back to my planking project. Tonights objective was to get the planks marked on the bulk heads. I ended up taking the measurements from the first strake to to the bottom of the whale, as I noticed that my belts where not as even as I would like. Secondly I really struggles with the obsolete imperial measurement system so I had to make some calculations. So going back to the document we know we want our plank width at B, A, and DF to be 9 inches. So we know that 1 inch = 25.4 mm. So our width would be 9 * 25.4 mm = 228.6 mm. Now we need to adjust for the scale, so we need to divide by 48. Thus 228.6 mm / 48 = 4.76 mm as our maximum width. Similarly for the the maximum width at the stern post to be 11 inches (279.4 mm) our value is 5.82 millimeters. Thus for my DF bulk head it measured 54 mm which works out to 54 / 12 = 4.4 mm per plank. Now B and A came to 56 mm each so the width is 4.7 mm or ~ 9 inches. Below is the marking of A and DF after doing my calculations. This is an example of the transfer of planks to the tick sheets. The red on the tick sheets is my marks from my plank belts. These we transferred prior to splitting out the planks. Though I do like the concept of planking belts, it is obvious I could not get them even and you can see the challenges on the next photo after completing the planks marking. I plan on adding a steeler between plank 4 and 5. For the bow, my plank width is 2.0 mm. This is less thank half of 4.7 mm which is 2.35mm, so I will need to plan at least three drop planks. Have a good evening

yikes. hopefully when i get there it will not break

Your paint job looks good. Did you airbrush?

Happy New Year @BMT i have not started yet. still working on two projects at the moment. the holiday season has been hectic.

i use titebond for gluing and i avoid ca as much as possible. i will give wipe on polly a try. i however do have a collection of airbrushes so what do you recommend for spraying?

thanks the knees are square to the transoms though the pictures are off they at quite loose in the frame and i may add another support to keep square

@GGibson Greg what do you use for stain?

Good evening. I made an adjustment to the planking belts. I am going to sleep on the change before making the final commitment. Cheers

Good evening, I spent some time today determining the planking bands. I was a little confused on the the counter, but after re-reading the instructions a few times, I noticed that I should keep 4 planks at 9" for the upper band, so I added a mark there. For the bow, again it was a little confusing, but I ended up using the distance from the first broad strake, to the whale using bulkhead 5a, and there i created the marks for the bands there. On the stern, I did not calculate the split, but after rethinking it, I decided the stern plank should be 11", and I set the second band 1/2 way between the first strake, and the third belt. The plank count turns out to be 4.5 per band, so I will create a steeler between first and second bands. After correcting for 11 inch planks at the stern, the curve for the third band will need some adjustment tomorrow from left of B. Cheers jim