SkerryAmp

Thanks for the likes, guys.
 
Planking continues and is getting closer to being finished. I marked off the ends of the planks in belt B on the transom filler block, because it was the only way I could figure out what the widths should be here. I first marked off the plank widths on the last bulkhead, then drew a line across the gap closer to the keel and divided it by the same number of planks. I then drew lines between the two marks and extended them all the way to the keel to get the shapes and widths at the keel:
 

 
I found that if I fold the handles down on the binder clips, I can piggy back them to do two planks at once:
 

 
Here is the sweet spot - one clamp holds two planks at once:
 

 
The gap is getting pretty small, so other clamping methods need to be employed:
 

 
This weekend I also finished assembling the ME rope walk I bought in their the 40% off sale. I always wanted to try rope making and this was a low cost way to do that. I twisted up three strands of 0.012" diameter nylon thread and its produced a very nice rope, which is 0.025" diameter.
 

 

 
This just happens to correspond to 6 1/2" real world diameter at the Connie scale, so it is the perfect size for the cannon breech lines. I can untwist the rope slightly and fit it over the cassabel on the end of the cannon, instead of wrapping the whole rope around the casabel:
 

 
I also gave the cannon carriages a dry rub of raw sienna paint, which toned down the red a bit.
 

 
As always, thanks for looking in and please let me know if I can improve on any of these ideas. I really appreciate any advice or criticism.
 
 

I have finished planking belts A and C, and have taken the measurements of the gaps in belt B. Before taking these pictures, I gave the planks a preliminary sanding, mostly to take down the high spots and fill in some of the larger gaps with saw dust  .
 
Starboard side:
 

 

 
Port side:
 

 

 
A few thoughts on the planking so far. Some of the things I like about it:
 
No major clinkering of the planks. These planks are pretty narrow, so they edge bent easily. I did not have to spile these to get them to curve around the bow. When I planked the Beagle, I had some planks sanded so thin to remove the clikering, I thought I would go all the way through them.
 
Not too many gaps between planks. I was able to get a pretty good fit with the basswood since they were easy to sand.
 
Some of the things I don't like / would do differently:
 
The wales came too far down in the bow. I should have reduced the width of these planks more in the bow so that the gap would have been wider for belt A. I had to add a lot of drop planks to get these to fit.
 
Some slight clinkering between planks - I am pretty sure this is due to the glue build up of the previous plank, leaving the next plank raised slightly at the join. I will try to eliminate this in belt B by sanding down the bulkheads next to the previous plank before adding the next plank. In any case, this was pretty easy to sand off.
 
The thickness of the planks was a bit inconsistent, so I have some planks that are a bit below their neighbors. This requires the neighbors to be sanded down a lot, but I am able to use wood filler to fill these voids and avoid some of the sanding. Thankfully, the hull will be painted and coppered.
 
The width of the planks was just a little wider than shown on the plans, so I was not able to use the planking plan from the plans. The plans show no dropped planks, so I should have paid more attention to it. If I had run all the planking through a sanding drum to get them a little narrower I may have been able to use the plans.
 
I should have added some of the drop planks more toward the center of the hull, not just on the ends. This would have left the planks a bit wider toward the ends and reduced the number of drop planks. I am going to do this on belt B, so it will be interesting to see the difference.
 
Toward the end of belts A and C, I started marking the actual plank widths on the bulkheads, so I could see much better where the drop planks should go. I will also be doing this in belt B.
 
I should have added filler blocks between bulkheads B and C. The planks wanted to flatten between these bulkheads instead of curving nicely.
 
I also continue to work on the gun deck gun carriages. Here they are painted with the painted trucks in place. In most of these, the trucks are just pressed on. I will be adding the eyebolts and rings for the tackles and breech ropes next.
 

 
I will be glad when this planking is over, but I am enjoying it so far.

Planking continues within the two planking belts on each side. I did remeasure each belt after putting in about half the planks and adjusted the plan. I could have used wider planks in Belt A (below the wales) if I had added more drop planks towards the middle of the hull, but it is not enough of a difference now to start over. I ended up with one less plank in Belt C (next to the keel), but I am happy with the way this belt came out.
 

 

 
While waiting for planks to dry, I have been doing some painting of the gun parts for the gun deck. I used weathered black paint for the gun barrels and here is how they came out.
 

 
I also painted the trucks for the gun carriages black. I was going to hold them with toothpicks while painting them, but I found all these pointed pieces of wood in the trash pile from the tapering of the planks, and these worked great:
 

 
 
 
 
 

As promised, some shots of where I am with the planking. It is a bit rough but overall I think it is coming out OK.
 

 

 
Slowly but surely the openings are being closed.

Got some more planking done over the last couple of days. It takes me about 2 hours to cut and install 4 planks, which is about the time I have each evening during the week. I have just enough binder clip clamps to install 4 planks.
 

 

 
These screw in clamps really help at the ends where the filler blocks are, especially since this is where the planks are the most curved.
 

 
You can see the start of one of the drop planks at the bow in this photo:
 

 

I finished the transom planking but failed to take a picture of it before removing the hull from the building board and turning it upside down for the rest of the planking. Here it is upside down, though:
 

 
I could not fit the upside down hull into the keel clamper because the clamps are in line with the keel and the gun deck is in the way. Oh well, the last time I planked a hull I used this method, which is to place the hull on a couple of socks filled with rice. I also placed some foam under the stem and stern to protect those areas. It is easy to turn the hull around this way so I can plank both sides simultaneously.
 
I used two battens per side to define the planking belts. I first started to use the measurements of the planking belts on the plans, but I did not like the way those battens were running. I am going to use just three bands between the keel and the wales instead of the four shown on the plans.
 
I cut the garboard planks in two pieces for each side. Since most of the remaining planking will be covered by copper plates, I am not going to use short pieces, but will use longer pieces that are easier to work with. I will still keep track of the butt ends of the planks just so I don't get them too close to each other. For instance, the garboard strake joints on each side of the keel are staggered. I found these planks very easy to make for this model, where in the past I have had problems with these. From the plans, it looks like these end at bulkhead B, so I used a piece of Scotch tape on the rabbet from bulkhead C to B and traced the outside edge of the rabbet. I then transferred the tape to a 1/4" by 1/8" plank and cut the curve out through the tape. The rest of the plank was straight, which is what made this easy. For the stern pieces, I just traced the curve of the rabbet to another piece of 1/4" by 1/8" plank and cut and sanded it to shape. After soaking these four pieces, I clamped them in place to dry, making sure the edge of the planks fit into the rabbet along the keel. Here is what that looks like:
 

 
The curve at bulkhead B:
 

 
The curve at the stern:
 

 
Tonight I will trim and glue these in place. In the mean time, I measured the gap from the bottom of the wales to the first batten to determine the number of planks to run in Band A and the widths of these at each bulkhead. I am definitely going to need to drop a bunch of planks at the stem and a few at the stern in this band. That should be fun.

Tim, I am glad to hear I am not the only one that this doesn't work for.
 
I started planking the transom by adding the planks above and below the windows, leaving a 1/32" rebate around the windows.
 

 

 
I then added the planks above and below these, and along the outsides of the outer windows, again leaving a 1/32" rebate. This shot looks like Connie is having a bad hair day:
 

 
For the counter planks, I first filed the ends of the wale planks so the counter planks would fit inside of them. I didn't cut in the airing ports, as I am just going to make thin covers for these later and place them over the planks.
 
Here the last two transom planks are being glued on, after some preliminary sanding. These need to be trimmed for length after they dry. I used vertical pieces of planking between the windows, which worked out to be just the right size. When I build the window frames later they will fit into the rebates and be sanded flush with the planking. I am glad those gallery pieces are now secured with planks instead of just being edge glued on. I figured I was going to knock at least one of them off.
 

 
I will give these planks some more sanding, then it is on to planking the hull below the wales. I will probably start with the garboard planks and work up for the first band, but we will see. I have to figure out how to secure this beast when it is out of the build board and upside down. I have a keel clamp that might work or I may just put some padding on the workbench and hold it that way. We shall see...

Over the weekend, I was finally able to experiment a bit with blackening the britannia metal, using two of the extra dummy cannon barrels that came with the kit. I first soaked the two barrels in white vinegar to clean them, rinsed them, them put one in a cup of Blacken-It solution (left) and one in a cup of Casey Brass Black (right), both at full strength. As you can see, the Blacken-It went to town and after a few seconds was all brown and cloudy. The Casey solution just sat there, doing nothing.
 

 
After 10 minutes in the solutions, I pulled them out and rinsed them off again. Here are the results:
 

 
The Casey's did almost nothing and as an aside I then threw a few copper eyebolts into it and they turned black almost instantly, so it works well on copper, just not on white metal. The Blacken It did make the barrel darker, but it was uneven and not very black, and it seemed to deplete a lot of solution for this one barrel. To do all the barrels would take quite a bit of the solution, I think.
 
So, I am going to stick with my usual approach for white metal - clean in white vinegar, prime with Bulls Eye primer, and paint with Floquil engine black paint. Here are the dummy barrels after that procedure:
 

 
I may spray these with some Matte Finish to protect them when they are dry.

I turned the hull around and used the same technique on the starboard side:
 

 

 

 
One nice thing about having the plans scanned into the computer was that was able to flip the image in the computer and print out the three pages for this side, so I didn't have to work through the back of the plans.
 
Now that this little task is complete, I will be focusing my attention to planking the transom and counter, then finish the rest of the hull planking.
 

I haven't had a chance to test blackening the britannia metal yet, but I have been working on the hull. As I mentioned last time, I wanted to drill all the holes in the wales for the air ports and scupper covers now, just in case I messed them up. So, to start, I scanned the side view from the plans into the computer and used an image processing program to align the three page size pieces. I had to scan the plans in pieces as I only have a letter size scanner. To check the alignment, I exported the full image to a vector graphics program and drew a straight line on top of the reference line along the bottom of the plans. I would them go back and rotate the pieces again, then check the reference line. It took about three iterations to get the three pieces aligned nicely.
 
One thing that bothered me from the plans was that the scuppers, which are on the bottom of the gun deck, and the air ports, which are in the top of the berth deck, looked too much in line. When looking at images of the Constitution, like this one:
 

 
it looks like the air ports are a little lower than shown on the plans. So, since I had the plans now in the graphics program, I made up little symbols to help drill the holes and positioned them just a little lower at each air port location. I then printed the plans out with the symbols as three sheets, like this one:
 

 
I was going to cut and tape these piece together to make one long template, but found that I could use them separately and tape them to the hull as separate templates. I cut them out so that I had the locations of the gun ports for horizontal alignment, as well as the top of the wales for vertical alignment. I taped all three templates to the hull and lined them up where they overlapped:
 

 

 

 
I then drilled pilot holes through the templates, which you might be able to see on this image:
 

 
Then enlarged the holes using very sharp bits in a pin vice and this drill bit holder that I found somewhere online:
 

 
To clean up the holes after drilling, I first sanded them flat, then used the back of the drill bit to clean out the hole:
 

 
I used the air port and scupper cover fittings to check the holes and here are the results:
 

 

 
There sure are a lot of holes in the wales now, but they came out nicely without any tearing around them, which is what I was mostly afraid was going to happen. While testing the scupper covers to figure out what drill bit size to use for them, I found that the posts on the back of them were oblong, not round, so I filed them a little smaller and round so I could use a smaller drill size. Even so, the top of the hole can still be seen when a few of these are in place, but I can use a bit of filler later to hide them.

First of all, thanks for all the likes. It sure makes this hobby more fun to have folks like you looking in on the progress and the encouragement. Criticism and suggestions are more than welcome too.
 
I finished up the starboard side wale last night. Here are the wale planks before sanding:
 

 

 
This side came out much better than the port side before sanding. I guess I took my time more the second time since I knew how much work it was to get it to look good on the other side. Here it is after sanding, with no filler added:
 

 

 

 
I did end up adding a little filler along the stem and near the stern, but that was it. I will try to be more patient with the rest of the planking to cut down on the sanding and filling.
 
I have been working to clean up some of the metal fittings that came with the kit. I drilled out the bores of the dummy cannon barrels that came with the kit and the "real" cannon barrels that came with the extra cannons that I bought. I used a drill press to clean up the initial hole in the barrels, which were too small and not very circular. I then used a slightly larger drill bit in a pin vise to make the final hole. These are just a tad bit over 2mm in size. I then used a small file to clean up the rest of the outside of the barrels, mostly removing lines from the casting process. I want to drill the holes for the berth deck air ports and the scuppers now, so in case I mess any of them up I can replace that section of wale if I need to. I was not sure about the supplied metal fittings for these, but after I examined them I was pleasantly surprised how detailed they are. Now I just need to be able to paint them without hiding that detail. I am going to paint these black unless some one knows better what color they should be. I had to remove a little flash on some of these, but mostly they were in good shape. I used some scrap planking to test the drill bit sizes for these and found that the posts on the back of the scuppers are oblong, not round, so the hole was not hidden completely by the scupper. I fixed this by filing each of the posts down on them to make them rounder and thinner.
 

 

 
OK, here is a question for you historians out there. Were the berth deck air ports just a hole through the hull or was there some sort of glass inside them? I found on the Constitution CD a drawing of a cover that went on the inside of these, which leads me to believe that they were just open in the 1812 era, but if anyone has any other information please let me know.
 
I have made up some templates to help locate and drill the holes for these, which I will show in the next instalment.
 
 

Thanks Tim. PVC pipe does make great wood storage too. That was my first thought until I saw how much pipe I would have to buy.
 
As promised, here is a picture of the cannon balls. I took this picture 24 hours after blackening them. They were much blacker when I first took them out of the solution. I think they rusted a bit, as some are now a little red. Any suggestions on how to get them black again? Maybe put them back into the solution and dry them off when I pull them out? The problem is they are so small and light I am afraid I would loose too many in the drying process. Were the real cannon balls made of iron and if so would they rust too? Maybe I can just leave them like this? What do people think?
 

 
And here is a progress shot of the starboard side wales going in. The strip clamped around the bow has been soaked and is drying into the rough shape for the next wale plank at the stem.
 

 
Tim, I am heading up your way this afternoon to get some stuff out of my father's house in Henrietta. Then its off to LI to drop them off to him tomorrow, and back to Boston on Sunday. I am calling it the New York tour, but at least my daughter volunteered to come with me to help with the driving.

Thanks George. Yes, walking away sometimes is the right thing to do and I don't stay away for long.
 
I finished sanding the starboard planks above the wales for now. These will get a final sanding when the whole hull is preped for painting.
 

 

 
I then started adding the wale planks. The first thing I did was measure the wales on the port side at each bulkhead using a tick strip, then transferred those measurements to the starboard side bulkheads. I also entered them into my spreadsheet to get the widths of the planks at each bulkhead, and I used a planking fan to mark these widths onto the bulkheads too. You can see these marks on the bulkheads in the above pictures.
 
I had also bought some of the 2mm ball bearings to use as cannon balls, so I spent a little time last night blackening them. Since these are stainless steel, I first heated them with a micro torch. I held them in a metal pipe cap on top of a few ceramic tiles. The first few I heated to red hot, but the rest I just heated them until they were hot. I then placed these into white vinegar to clean and pickle them, then into straight Blacken It solution for a minute or so. I took them out of the blackening solution and placed them on a paper towel to dry. They came out nice and black and it doesn’t seem to want to rub off. I'll take some pictures of these for the next instalment.

OK, the other side project is more directly related to the build. To rig the guns on the gun and spar decks, I need small single and double blocks. I could have ordered really nice blocks from a few suppliers like Syren, whose blocks I will admit are works of art in themselves, and I haven't ruled these out for the spar deck, but the gun deck will be fairly hidden, so I decided to go with a more economical approach.
 
The smallest single blocks I could get in bulk from Model Expo were 2.5mm which will work fine, but the smallest double blocks are 3mm, which are too large for me. So I came up with this process for making the 3mm blocks closer to 2.5mm, while at the same time making them less boxy. I use a hemostat to hold the block while I work on it, but you have to be careful closing them so as not to crush the block:
 

 
I then sand the end away from the holes on a piece of rough sandpaper until the length is close to 2.5mm, then use a small file to round off the two edges on this side so the side profile will look rounder. 
 

 

 
I flip the block around in the hemostat and file the other two edges so the whole side profile is now rounder. I then use a small drill bit to open up the holes in case they closed from the hemostat.
 

 
I then use the side edge of a small file to make the groove below the holes more pronounced.
 

 
At this point the blocks looked pretty good to me and I was going to stop there. But, a few years ago I had purchased the Model Expo block tumbler, but was not very impressed with the results. Recently, in another build log, Chuck Pasaro showed his modification to the tumbler, so I thought I'd give it a try. I removed the hard wood paddles and replaced them with three pieces of 220 grit sandpaper at each of the four sides of the center spindle. I put these modified blocks in this new tumbler and ran it for only 45 seconds. I was amazed at the results, which looked so much better than what went in.
 

 
Here is a shot of how the blocks look after each step, from left to right, and the completed set of double blocks for the gun deck guns, plus some extras:
 

 

 
I admit they are not the same quality as the blocks I could have bought, especially since they only have one hole per sieve, but I am happy with them and I actually enjoyed modifying them. There are not too many jobs where I can pack all the tools and supplies in a plastic bag and take them with me to work on wherever I am, but this is one of them.

No worries, Tim. I am glad to host this kind of discussion and information sharing, which makes this site so valuable.
 
Some obligatory progress photos. I got the two rows of planks on below the gun port sills, so I can now start on the wale planks for this side. I apparently had not finished sanding the upper planks on this side before I turned the hull around to plank the port side wales, so I spent the last couple of days filling and sanding these upper planks. I still have to sand the two rows of planks I just put on before starting the wales.
 

 

 
While I have been waiting for planks to dry, I have been working a couple of side projects, which I will show in the next couple of posts.

Wow, I guess I haven't updated this in a while. I gave the port side wale planks an initial sanding before moving onto the starboard side. I thinned down the bottom three wale planks so the wales will flow into the rest of the hull planking. I also thinned the wale planks at the stem to be flush with the planks above. I will sand these all some more when I do the final sanding of the whole hull before painting and coppering.
 

 

 
I turned the hull around and started adding the two remaining planks between the gun ports and the wales on this side. It took me over a month to get the port side where it is from this point, but hopefully I will have more time to work the starboard side so it won't take as long. We will see...

There she blows - the waling (whaling, wailing) continues...
 
Here are some shots after a few of the wale planks were added to the port side. I started from the stern and worked my way forward. These first few planks were not too difficult, with just some tapering to do near the ends.
 

 

 

 
At the bow, I just had to soak and bend the planks to the hull. Here are two planks being bent at the same time. I found that if I bent these just to the bulkheads, I was getting a flat spot right after the bow filler piece, so I wrapped these around the wale above to get continuous support along the length of the plank.
 

 
Now things are getting more wonky. The rest of the stern wale planks bend up under the counter. I trimmed the ends of the stern planks so I could see what I was doing, then bent the next one under.
 

 

 
I am going to need some filler here, don't you think. I have no idea how you guys that single plank and leave your wood natural do it. Someday, someday...
 
And here are some of the center planks being glued in. I used the larger clamps to butt the new planks up against the previous planks. These wale planks are pretty thick, so I also beveled the back edges to get a better fit along the front edges.
 

 
In that last picture you can see the Excel spreadsheet I made up to calculate and keep track of the plank widths at each bulkhead for each belt. I also made this jig to hep hold the planks while tapering them, out of some aluminum angle:
 

 
I should be able to finish this side in a few days and give it an initial sanding. I'll have more pictures then.

I made some more progress this week on the planking.
 
In preparation for adding the thicker wale planks, I measured the locations of the top and bottom of the wales at each bulkhead off the plans and used a tick strip to transfer that measurement to the bulkheads. I used the plank under the gun ports as the reference, since I could lay the tick strip up against it on the hull.
 

 

 
I then placed a batten on these lines and made sure it ran true, and extended the lines to the stem and transom.
 

 

 
After I marked the wale locations, I added the remaining two thin planks that go under the gun ports above the wales. Since the wale planks will be thicker than the planks I already have done, I wanted to get the existing planks sanded pretty well so I don't mess up the wale planks later. I gave them an initial sanding then used some wood filler to fill gaps and low areas. I am using a Latex wood filler that is very creamy and sands very well. Here I am about half way through sanding the filler off. I just keep sanding until I can see the plank edges and there are no edges of filler present. I do put the filler on pretty thick at first, but it sands off easily.
 

 
I used a fairly course sand paper to remove most of the filler, than a finer piece to get pretty close to the finish I want. In this picture, most looks good but I did put more filler on the bottom planks towards the stern.
 

 
While waiting for the filler to dry in the bow area, I started cutting and shaping the first row of wale planks at the stern. I created a spreadsheet which uses the width of the wales divided by the number of planks to give me the dimensions of each wale plank at each bulkhead. I use these measurements to trim the planks in width. At the bow and stern, the wale planks taper down to the same thickness as the planks already installed (1/16"), so for that I used a sanding block. Here is the first wale plank at the stern, which is tapered in two dimensions - width and thickness
 

 
And here it is installed with the plank in front of it. This picture also gives a good indication of the sanded upper planks at this point. I will give everything a finer sanding before I paint the hull, too.
 

 
Of course, this is just on the port side, and all has to be repeated on the starboard side, which I will do after completing the wales on this side.
 

A milestone of sorts...
 
The last two planks framing the gun ports have been installed.
 

 
I also gave the planks behind these a preliminary sanding.
 

 
I am going to have to use some filler as the faces of some of the planks are not level with each other and too far off to just sand. I didn't see any springy planks on this side like I did on the port side. I think I paid more attention to this as I was planking the starboard side. There are some gaps between planks that need some filling, though. Overall, I think they came out OK. I was really worried about the planks along the edges of the gun ports, but I was able to clean these up with a riffler file that I could run along the inside edges of the gun ports. The building jig I am using doesn't let me get a good view of the bow straight on, so I made sure to take the hull out of the jig to check the run of planks on both sides at the bow before filling in the area between the stem and the first gun port. Sure enough, I had to adjust the starboard plank under the gun ports at the stem to line up with the same plank on the port side.
 
Next up is the planking below the gun ports and the wales. I will mark off the locations of the top and bottom of the wales and check the fairness with some battens before adding more planks.

Thanks Pete and Tim.
 
I sanded the port side some but the final sanding will be done after all the planks are on.
 

 

 
The starboard side planking is well under way.
 

 

So, there has been some planking progress lately, although a lot of life has gotten in the way.
 
I continued planking the port side around the gun ports, working toward the bow. I filled the gap between the top of the gun deck gun ports and the spar deck gun ports.
 

 
Then filled in the areas around the forward gun ports. Here I have soaked three planks and clamped them in place to dry.
 

 
And finally added the last two planks between the forward gun port and the stem.
 

 
Now I will give this side a first sanding and repeat on the starboard side.

OK, more planking "progress", but in this case it is really taking a step back. I started by adding a plank above the gun deck gun ports and planking down from the plank sheer. As that gap closed, I was having to cut thinner and thinner planks, and it got to a point that the planks were getting too thin and didn't look good to me. Of course, I could have avoided all this if I had worked out a planking plan from the beginning as I should have, instead of just winging it like I did. I have to complain a bit about the instructions at this point too, because the plan sheet I was using had the planks between the plank sheer and the gun ports the same width as the plank sheer, but on the next sheet, they are the next width up, so the really thin planks I started with for this area were too thin to begin with. The planks on the bulwarks are also too thin according to this second plan sheet, but I am going to leave these as is and will have to repeat it on the starboard side too.
 
Here is the area I didn't like, where the planks were getting to be less than 2mm wide. You can see the big difference between these thin planks and the plank above the gun ports.
 

 
So, I used the trusty Isoproyl alcohol to loosen the glue, then gently (well, mostly gently) pried them up using a dental pick and a micro chisel. I did not have too much collateral damage, just a few places where a couple of upper planks needed to be reglued at the ends, and one of the dummy gun port sides had to be reinstalled.
 

 

 
Here is a shot with some of the planks removed (I had originally planned to only pull out three planks, but I ended up pulling out four). I cleaned up the areas under the pulled up planks with some riffler files, to make sure they were flat again.
 

 
I could now replank in the new gap using three wider planks instead of four planks, and I am planking them in groups of three so that I can thin them down to the same widths before gluing them in. To me this is looking much better.
 

 
I love planking...I really do
 
 
 

OK, I had to show some planking progress. I am taking my time as best as I can and have gone back and removed some planks I didn't like, but progress is being made. These are all raw planking - no sanding or filler (yet). I started by planking the rows above and below the gun deck gun ports, so that these would be full width planks and have been filling in between the upper gun port plank and the plank sheer, and between the gun ports. Most of the work has been in the stern but I am also soaking and bending the curved planks in the bow, but can only do a few a night in the bow. Those short planks between the gun ports take a lot of time because there is a 1/32" gap between their ends and the sides of the gun ports, which means I can't sand them to length in place, so they have to be exactly the same to line up vertically for the edges of the gun ports. I will be glad when they are done. I could add a couple more rows of planks under the gun ports, but I may wait until after the other side is planked like this side, so that I can use those two rows to adjust the height of the wales between the two sides, if I need to.
 

 

 

 

 
I am having 10 yards of top soil delivered to the house today that my son and I will be spreading in the circle where the pool was that I took down earlier in the spring, so there won't be too much progress this weekend.

As promised, pictures of the completed outer bulwarks. The inside planking for these will come later.
 

 

 

 
Here is a view of the reworked spar deck water ways and plank sheer.
 

 
So now I have started planking around the gun deck gun ports. I first calculated how many planks would fit below the plank sheer to the plank above the gun ports, leaving a 1/32" space all the way around them. If I use all 3/32" wide planks, I will have about a half plank above the gun ports, but if I use 1/8" wide planks for two of them and sand them down to about 7/64", they will fit nicely and still look about even. So with that figured out, I was able to add a plank above some of the central gun ports. I found a group where I could place a plank of a good length without having the ends right at a gun port, which wouldn't seem right to me.
 

 
I made a little tool to help get the gaps consistent, which is just a piece of wood that fits into the gun port with a piece of 1/32" wood glued to it.
 

 
I measure one gun port at a time, starting in the center and work my way to the ends. As I measure each port, I clamp the plank at that port, then go back and check that the plank didn't move after all the clamps are on. I also made sure the ends were at the correct height so that the adjacent planks can line up with the adjacent gun ports with a smooth run of the planks.
 
After the two upper planks were added, I added two planks below the gun ports, using the same method, just different style clamps.
 

 

 

 
The planking material for this hull is so narrow, it is going to take a long time to plank it. I'll try not to bore you all with too many updates once I get into the more routine planking, if there is such a thing.
 

More pictures of clothes pin clamps doing their thing.
 
As I was planking the starboard outer bulwarks, I also started making and installing the inner plank sheer pieces, first on the port side, then on the starboard side. The starboard bulwark planking was done exactly like the port side and the two sides are coming out pretty similar, especially around the fixtures like the through hull sieves. I'll have pictures of the finished bulwarks later.
 
I soaked and heat bent two pieces of square basswood for the inner plank sheer across the bow. Here I am gluing in the port side piece and the starboard side piece is clamped in place wet to dry. You can see a piece of wood I clamped at the very bow so the ends of the two pieces made that last bit of curve. Before gluing these in place, I sanded the inside edge to match the angle of the bulwarks in the bow.
 

 
Here is the port stern plank sheer piece glued in place. I placed scarf joints at the ends of all the inner plank sheer pieces, except right at the bow. These pieces will either be cut away at the bow or covered by the bow sprit.
 

 
The clamps at the stern are holding the last layer of planks on the starboard bulwarks.
 

 
After I installed the plank sheer pieces across the bow, I thought the waterways underneath them were too wide. I made the water way pieces from sheet stock and was not sure how much the plank sheer would cover them once installed at the angle of the bulwarks at the bow. I summoned up the courage to take a sanding disk on a Dremel extension to the sides of the water ways while in place to make them narrower. I first sanded them down, then cleaned up the sides with an X-Acto knife, riffler files, and a sanding stick. When I was happy with the width and sides, I filed the bevel back into the top and side using a riffler file. Here is how they came out, which you can compare to the first photo in this post.
 

 
As I was checking the sides using some deck planks, I saw that the forward ends of the planks would be unsupported behind the first bulkhead. There are pieces between the first bulkhead and the bow that the ends of the planks can rest on, but not along the sides behind it. I didn't see anything in the instructions to add supports for the plank ends, but I think I better add some. What have other builders of this kit done in this area of the deck?
 
Here is the plank sheer across the open waist on the port side. I had to make a decision here how to cover the top of the hull planking in this area. I had a couple of options that came to mind. One was to make the plank sheer wider in this area to cover the opening with one piece. I was going to go this way, but then thought about the color scheme in this area, The plank sheer will be the green color like the rest of the inner bulwarks, but the outer section i thought would look funny if it was green too. I think the outer section will be better black, as the rest of the hull, with a groove cut into the outer edge. So, I decided to make these as two pieces so I can paint them separately. I won't be adding the outer piece until after the outer hull is planked and faired, as it will be proud of the hull by a bit. If anyone has an idea of how this area might have looked in the 1812 era, please let me know. The only other reference I have is the AOS book on one of the cross sections in the waist area, but that looks more like a trim piece than a waterway and plank sheer.
 

 
In between this planking and other work on the hull I have been making gun carriages for the gun deck cannons. I have all but one of them made to a point that they are roughly in shape, but need some clean up and painting. Here is the jig I use to assemble them, which basically holds the sides in place on the rectangular axles. I add the end and inner pieces while the glue is still wet on the sides, then remove it from the jig before the glue totally dries so I don't glue it into the jig. When the glue is completely dry, I file the ends of the axles that stick out from the frame round for the wheels. The wheels are just pushed on for now and not glued on yet, and the axles still need to be trimmed once the wheels are in place.
 

 
Here are the carriages made so far.
 

 
I am finished with the bulwarks planking and will now start planking down to and around the gun deck gun ports.