Stuka

Hello again Now after a long time Im finiushed with the second layer of plank. I had work and other things in the way so it took longer than I thought. The second planking was in a way much more tricky than the first layer atleast to my first impression since this is my first ever model. Since I didnt have any way to press the plank down if I was going to use PVA glue I choosed to go with CA glue. And It went alright apart from my fingers becoming stuck and some other mishaps here and there. But its all apart of learning and next model I will try get hold of more gel/thicker CA glue so it doest run everywhere. Tapering could again have been better at the end cause the last plank on each side I had to sand for so long until they would fit. Had I tapered and had a bit more patience I could have made it so 3 heavily tapered planks could run the final area instead of me having to to a custom made plank where I had to sand and dryfit until it made the fit. Some mishaps happend like when I used a piece of wood to hold a plank at the stern waiting for the CA to dry. After waiting 1 minute the plank had attached itself to my planking and when I tried getting it off it of course took some plank with it.....Learn from your mistakes as they say. I used probably to much woodfiller but the sanding im going to be doing will tell. Since this is my first model I have no way yet as of telling if im overdoing something so I will just have to find out. All in all, Happy to progress having made some mistakes but most importantly all this gives me experience with modelling and thats worth gold 🙂

Hello So 2nd plank layer, I looked around on the forum and elsewhere to see how people attached the planks if they used PVA glue. And since I dont own any good pins for that I ultimately decided to go full CA glue. Starting from the bow adding some glue then pressing the plank until the glue has taken its grip and thereafter moving towards the stern. However with the first set of planks I thought for some reason that the planks where going to end right before the stern planking patterns (part 60 R/L) . I realized this mistake and tried correcting it with the 2nd pair of planks. Its not a big deal I think we are talking about 1 mm of plank. Also wont this area be covered with the waterline "plank" the one I see painted black in the pictures anyways not a big deal I think ultimately, moving on. With the tapering like the manual suggests I only tapered my planks by the bow down to 3mm from the 2nd bulkhead and im quite happy with the result. Working with CA glue is not ideal cause several times my fingers get stuck and leave these ugly marks on the planks so im lucky this will be sanded down and painted over. I can imagine why people would rather use PVA glue especially if the hull is not going to be painted.

Its looking really good!

Welcome Nick! Quite a daunting task ahead I can imagine but I will eagerly watch it. And good luck for you will surely need it 🙂

Thanks for the tips, Ill take a look around and see if I find anything 👍

I did see it being mentioned before. I just gotta find out where I can get some of it in my town.

Thanks for the tip Chris, I hope I will do your model justice 😆

Hello Andrew, I did sand some corners here and there and felt it with my hand several times so now It feels very smooth so hopefully all goes well. I might had used to much wood filler though

Hello Chris, I was actually considering buying one, any recommendations of a particular one?

Hello Craig I ended up sanding the hull for a little bit more and I drew my fingers across to planks to feel for bumps or sudden deppressions and I didnt find any so fingers crossed now

Amazing scenery!! quite jealous of your trip Jon

So I spent around 1.5 Hour sanding and it feels very smooth now all around so I think this good enough. Hopefully my 2nd plank layer will sit flush against each other now . or should I sand off more wood filler?

Oh dont worry Craig haha, I wasnt going to use pins for the 2nd planking I already have scrolled through here and read the manual to know that only glue is used. Now Im wondering how to clamp down these planks if im going to use PVA glue, Cause CA glue settles way to fast and is unforgiving

Thanks Craig for the encouragement 🙂 feels very relieving to be over the first plank layer as it took me a long time to get this finished. As you are saying my plan now is to use woodfiller and start sanding the hull to get it smooth. And Im trying to be patient cause I want to start adding the other parts and paint her. I did actually buy that one but because I saw so many people use pliers and once I tried using the pliers it just stuck with me. But next planking Ill try to use the pin pusher to see if its easier/ more convenient. Afterall I spent money on it so hopefully will get some use of it.

I bought the Vanguard one and its my first ever build. And Im very statisfied with everything from the good instructions to the material and parts. It feels very beginner friendly so I would put my vote on it.

Hello So first planking ever done looks okay I think. Some gaps here and there though mostly by the bow are cause of the oversanded bulkheads 1-2. However I did the first couple of planks very tapered by the bow and some tapering around the stern. But as I kept going I thought that unless I wanted to use alot of stealers in the stern I should start to attempt to use as much full plank width there as I can. So thats what I did and I stopped tapering the stern area as I kept going. Only tapering if the plank would curve to much in a to tight space (Like where the last bulkhead meets the stern). I eyeballed the tapering alot over here and im not sure it was the right decision but I ended up with only 1 stealer on the stern. As for the bow I tapered pretty much all the planks there to some extent. Only tapered the top planks from bulkhead 5 however as I progressed down I started only doing it from the 4th or 3rd bulkhead. In the end I used 2 stealers per side, one by the bow and one by the stern. The bow one I had to do due to the last slot being only around 2.5mm wide. But I think the result from using the stealers was pretty good so Im happy with it. Also when doing the Garboard plank to get the right curvature I just clamped it together with the prow piece and drew a line that way I got a good curve on the plank and it matched nicely. Now I used pliers for driving in the brass nails but the pliers I had though small where not good enough. They were to wide so just a tiny bit of the nail was outside of the plier. Therefore when driving it in I had to take several new grips which often resulted in a kinked nail. And the needle nose plier I have even though it was small enough had the problem of having a ribbed grip. That meant that I often found my nails just going freely between the ribbed area. Going through some hardware stores in my town in search of a new plier with a smooth grip I came across this one. Very very tiny grip and I could drive in the nails in one go from all angles so this little tool helped alot. Other techniques I used was edge bending with a traveling iron like Chuck Passaro which worked like a charm. And after that I would set the inwards bending with the electric bending iron. Alot of tools but they made all this easier for me as a novice. All in all I am happy with the first planking though alot of things could have been done different, like sanding the bulkheads better, better tapering and better bevelling of the planks. I am a person that usually learns things the hard way so to speak so hopefully I learned something from this for future endevours.

Nice workshop Henke, Ser fint ut (Looks nice)

Hello Just a quick update, Im currently cracking on with the planking and its going okay. Im going to back on my statement about the reason for the gaps in my planks. I think actually I oversanded bulkhead 1-2 and didnt even out the rest of the bulkheads to match thats why I had a huge gap over those two. But I tried to fix this by gluing on some wood pieces and it helped to some extent. I will have to learn from this and hopefully not repeat it in the future. Anyway got 4 planks down aswell as the garboard ones so soon halfway as for the tapering. Before I tapered from bulkhead 5 to the stem but I tried with the latest plank to taper it from the 4th bulkhead and no taper in the stern. My tapering skills are very novice so not the best. However I still have gaps between my planks on the bow which Im going to sand down and use wood filler to hopefully rid of those gaps. Afterall this area is to be covered in a 2nd layer aswell as a white paint so im optimistic...for now 😆

So in looking at my error the fault might actually not be cause of over sanded bulkheads. But more so to me not properly beveling the planks so they start to twist inward. On one side I managed to carefully knife through the glue and realign the plank somewhat. Time will tell if this side worked . On the other side I didnt manage to get it off so I instead took some wood bits of tapering leftovers and put two of those pieces on there. Hopfully to rest the plank halfwidht on it to create a twist without any gaps in my planks. Hopefully this trial and error will get me somewhere with a planked hull someday hopefully.

Another problem I encountered yesterday was that at bulkhead 2-3 I might have bevelled to much so the planks make contact to far in. Meaning that a gap will appear between the upper plank. I looked at some threads and I think im going to attempt to use a small piece of wood to even out the bulkheads more so my planks run flush. This is a rollercoaster build

Thanks Craig. Yea many of these english terms are a first time encounter for me. But I will follow your advice with tapering the first set of 4-5 planks on each side. Should the gap get to big around the stern I will throw in a stealer to even the area for edge bending.

Hi Craig Thank you for the guidance I looked at the images and I can see the planks thinning out along the sternpost until they just stop. I guess this is what you mean by top feathering that they just gradually become thinner and thinner until the planks stop? Also Is it a good idea to perhaps taper less on the planks by the stern as I have more area around the sternpost to plank than what I mistankenly accounted for? But since the planks have to run around the bulkhead 17 down to the sternpost. I might not be able to have full width planks here right now. Therefore I might go for tapering just 1/4 of the planks around the stern while continuing normally on the bow hopefully that will yield a nice result. Any opinion is welcome thanks!

Its not much, And its slow progress but it looks good so far I think. Though I might have miscalculated the area around the stern. because I made it so that 12 planks would fit on the very last bulkhead but after looking at the pictures I see the planks going down on the stern until they meet the keel. I think im in the deep here, and maybe I should only taper in the bow area ?

I noticed that too, Though I can get around that easily since im using an electric plank bender. What tools are you using Dan for the planking? Also slight update I got my first plank down yesterday and it looks very good, I edge bent it with a travel iron and then I bent the inward curve with the electric bender. Hopefully I can get some more planks down and then show a picture

You mean the highest point of the edgebend?