vaddoc

I must admit I very much like beech. It is a very hard wood but it bends beautifully. It holds an edge, glues well, cuts well, sands well. Does not splinter. It is readily available, cheap and available in all sizes with very clean sheets - no knots or blemishes. However, it swells a lot with changes in humidity and has a very distinctive grain. I like the grain for modelling but I think I am the only one... In any case, I ve used beech extensively so far but never for planking. This time, I decided to plank the 2 boats I am currently building in beech. In 1:10 scale, they are quite large. Now, one hull is ready and the other is being planked so I ve been thinking how to finish the thing. I was planning to paint the hulls but it was suggested that it would be a shame to hide the planking so now some kind of clear finish is needed. And here lies the rub. Both the pear and beech wood I ve used are steamed and have a pink hue. The hull is sanded to 400 grit and it really cries for some colour enhancing and finish. The second photo shows the hull against coloured wood - it needs something doing. Beech wood is notorious for resisting any finish. The wood has areas with very large open pores and others that are quite the opposite. Any staining attempt will result in ugly blotchiness. I tried to simply use Tung oil but the results were not good. The photo shows how non-uniformally the oil has coloured the wood - it is the segment on the left, Tung oil straight on raw sanded wood Now, treating the wood with sanding sealer dramatically improves things. I know most people use Shellac, I personally never liked it - I find methylated spirits too toxic. I ve been using a water based sanding sealer which I think is excellent (Decoart-Americana multi purpose sealer). The bottom wood sample was sanded to 400 grit, had a coat of sealer, sanded with 400 grit and then had Tung oil. Much better colour uniformity. So Tung oil needs sealing first. What about changing the colour though? I decided to try Van Dyke crystals. I ve never used the stuff. I applied it directly to sanded wood. Fantastic colour but also dramatic grain inversion, the growth rings really stand out. Now, the next photo is really interesting. The two upper strips have been coated in different strengths dye. The third was first sealed with sanding sealer, then dyed. Fantastic result! The last is just plain beech wood. This was the only time I succeeded dyeing beech wood. All my subsequent attempts were disastrous. Did not matter how many coats of sealer, what grit of sand paper, every time was a massive failure. Photos bellow There is no room for error finishing a hull, especially with a dye which cannot be sanded off. So Van Dyke crystals cannot be considered due to poor reliability and repeatability. Next I tried stains. I had some left over samples of Osmo stains. I had found out from previous experience, that straight onto wood results are not good. However, applied on sanded and sealed wood, results were excellent. In the next photo, sealed wood is on top right (3 different stains), raw wood on the bottom. Very nice, very uniform colour. Perhaps a second coat would enhance it more. However, these stains on the pear wood keel did not look good at all and I did not wanted to treat the 2 woods separately - Too much trouble and room for error. So stains are out for this project but in general: Sand the wood to 320 grit, seal the wood with decoart water based sanding sealer, sand to no more than 320 grit and use Osmo stains. You ll have a good result on this very stubborn wood. So, we are back to Tung oil. I experimented using 2 coats vs 1 coat of sanding sealer and sanding to 320 vs 400 grit. The best outcome was with using one coat of sealer and sanding to 320 grit. 400 grit seamed to seal the wood too much. Even if something goes wrong, this thick Tung oil does not soak deep onto sealed wood and can be sanded off or stained over. In due course I ll seal the hull, Tung oil it and see what happens. I l try to post a photo in this thread. I hope this will be of some help to others, especially as there is very little info on this subject on the net. Best wishes Vaddoc

Very interesting Egilman. Even with a complete table of offsets, drafting a hull is a big job. I am taking a sit in the back, curious to see how you ll fill the gaps between the different views you ve included in your 3D box.

Kev, just get a few pieces of wood and a few products and try. There will be some cost involved as Tung oil, Shellac, methylated spirits, sanding sealers, WOP, varnishes, sprays, brushes etc may not be prohibitely expensive but they do add up. However, experimenting will be the only way to find out what you like and how things work. Also, not all woods work the same with the same finish so check the wood you are actually using. For example, pear wood works great with Tung oil, the beech I am currently using seems it does not. All part of the same journey. Vaddoc

+1 for all the above. Especially compass and calliper are in constant use. However, I do love my 1 m long steel ruler!

Try 3M 618 sand paper. Amazing stuff, I only use this for many years now. It is silicon carbide (not aluminum oxide), has some anticlog technology that works very well and it is very robust. It is not cheap and needs a bit of googling. Typical 3M high quality. 120 removes wood in a controlled way, 180, 240, 320 and 400 leave the wood so smooth that it reflects light. I cut sheets of all grades into thin strips and use them with a solid flat backing, or sometimes a flexible one - as needed

Getting a straight line with a V chisel is to my experience very difficult. It will end up wavy-especially in large scales. Repeated cuts with a very sharp chisel, up to 6 mm for straight, 3 mm for curves, then deepening the grove without touching the edge of the rabet, works much better for me.

Dear all It has been 2 months since my last post, I have not had the time to work on the boat or even to catch up with your logs. I will try to though, in the meantime I do hope that you are doing well! Today though I did visit the shipyard and did some work-and had a nasty surprise. I am still not certain how I will secure the planks, whether I ll use threaded brass wire, treenails or bras pins. I experimented with 0.55 mm brass pins, nailed against a steel surface. The tips bend exactly as they should and hold the planks very securely. I think however the pin heads are out of scale. I finished the starboard garboard, the planks are secured with brass pins 0.6 mm through 0,5 mm pilot holes. The scarf is glued for now but some form of reinforcement nailing or screwing will go on. As I am not sure what I will use to fasten the planks to the ribs, I just cut the pins leaving a length so I can pull them out later as these are the temporary frames. Then I started work on the port side. Disaster... A few days ago, I needed a small piece of wood so I just broke a segment from a scrap piece I found on the bench. yep, that was the plank! I used the broken pieces to recreate the plank and thankfully, with a bit of sanding it came out fine. Then, I secured it in place The ends at the bow will need to be trimmed, I think I ve put the nails very close to the trimming line-we ll see. Till next time vaddoc

Get well soon Michael, all the best. Very good to hear all went well Vaddoc

Very nice Bill! Seems you had fun and learnt a lot. Good luck with your next project.

System 3 brushes. Fantastic results with acrylic and enamel.

Elmers colour changing filler is very good, my preferred filler. I tried osmo filler as well-very good, more liquid, dries much faster and comes in various colours.

All done Mark! But the lines are on the other side of the boat. The final fairing will be done while cutting the actual planks Today I nipped over to the shipyard, just for a few minutes. I put the planks to the steamer and then straight on the boat. Beech responds great to steaming, the planks immediately twisted to shape. Actually, the garboards look reasonable The problem with planking without a complete stem is that it is difficult to get the planks to end up at the same level on both sides. The excess wood at the plank edges will be trimmed away when the false stem is installed. The scarf joint needs a bit of tinkering. Or maybe I just need to push the half a bit forward. Best wishes to all Vaddoc

Many thanks to all for your comments and likes! Bedford, that was great. Unfortunately I do not own a quality plane that can reliably do the job. However, your suggestions were very helpful and I think I did find a solution. Also, I decided that the planking will be carvel. I will in the future make a large scale lapstrake boat but I will choose an easier boat. It will be lots of fun but needs to wait. I first made the port garboard in two halves. It took very many tries, I kept getting it wrong but finally I got it right. The planks are sanded to shape so the edges are much smoother compared to the Launch, which were cut with a knife. This is the overlap for the scarf joint The twist in the garboard is significant, almost 90 degrees. Planks will easily take a bend but will resist a lot to be twisted. Note the gap between plank and keel-it disappears with the plank in place. Another area that needed attention was the stem. The edges have to be trimmed to accept the plank ends. After planking, the excess plank material will be trimmed off so that the false stem will sit flush. Or so is the plan... Next, I tackled the scarfing. After a bid of thinking and testing, taking on board Bedford's suggestions, I find a solution. Since the planks are 2 mm thick, I went for a 25 mm scarf joint. Basically, I just used the belt sander bellow to create the bevels. This worked fine with no dramas. The edges will stand a bit proud but nothing a bit of sanding will not fix. I ll probably try and thin the edges a bit more. Now, much more care has gone into this boat, compared to the Launch. The CAD drawings are much more accurate, the frames were cut with much greater care and generally, it was put together better. With this in mind, I decided to make a set of identical garboard halves for the starboard side. Test fitting: They fit! So now I have both garboards. They need to be steamed and secured into place, this will also make the whole structure much more rigid. Another issue that needs to be dealt with is how to secure the planks to the frames. I was thinking of using threaded brass wire but now I am not so sure. This was the plan for the lapstrake. With carvel planking, sanding of the hull will be needed and the brass will complicate things. Maybe tree nails will be a better choice. Regards Vaddoc

I very much like the Humbrol spray primer. Goes on thin, sandable, dries quickly, does not smell. Comes in white, red and grey (most versatile). It will cover everything and solves adhesion issues.

Dear friends Due to increasing life commitments it's been almost a month since my last post. Unfortunately, I also did not have any time and more importantly peace of mind to visit the various very interesting logs I 've been following - I will try and catch up. However, I found some scraps of time to visit the shipyard and made a bit of progress. In the last post, I had divided the hull to three zones. Excluding the very curved bow, this hull seems to be much easier to plan that the Launch. I simply used the planking fan diagram to divide the zones into plank widths at every station. I used a baten to figure out the plan ends at the bow and stern. I have decided to scarf the planks so I do not care how much spilling will be needed and how curved they 'll end up to be. The final fairing of the planks will be done during the actual planking but I hope my lines are not far off. It is very difficult to capture the run of the planks right side up, due to the size of the boat but they look ok But now it is clear that this boat will be very difficult to do lapstrake. I am concerned that this curved bow will cost me my sanity. I wonder whether it would be better to do a carvel planking and leave the lapstrake for a future boat with a more friendly bow. Decisions-decisions... For now, I started making the first template, for the garboard plank. Initially I thought to do it in 3 pieces but then realised it makes no sense to have so many scarfs - one is plenty, giving a length of 3 to 3.5 m per plank. The last photo shows the pieces for the aft segment of the garboard-they still need to be connected. I have the feeling that the garboard should be a bit wider but I am not going back, it will be fine. Also, I need to figure out a way to scarf the planks. It needs to be reproducible and reasonably easy. Also, for this boat I will sand the planks to shape, and will put more effort to have minimal gaps. Regards Vaddoc

Personally, I try to avoid fruit woods for planking. They are a bit too hard to work with and a bit reluctant to bend, especially along the axis of the plank. I find maple and beech much nicer. Beech is much harder than maple and has a huge distinctive grain, both hold an edge very well. Walnut is terrible. Maple hull, later painted. The stains were caused by aliphatic glue that I did not bother cleaning... Beech hull, fate yet unknown.

Congratulations Mark! The stainless steel really worked very well.

Dear all Many thanks for your likes, comments and encouragement! I have not worked on either boat for the last 3 weeks, since my last post on the Yawl log. I now work pretty much 7 days a week and life has gone into hyperdrive-it is what it is and we must do what we need to do! The little spare time I have I ve decided to invest in working out to get back into shape. Today though I popped to the garage to do a bit of testing with stains. I made a grove in a piece of beech, filled it with filler and sanded to 120 grit. I ordered a number of stains, different colours and compositions-some "wax stains", "some oil stains" and some "something else". The next photo shows 5, supposingly completely different colour stains. They came out almost identical! The one on the right is walnut, the middle one is pine. There is however a bit of difference in the blotchiness, I think the middle one is a bit better. The pear wood is very dark because it was not sanded, it looks much lighter and uniform in sanded pieces. The small piece has clear sealer on the left, Tung oil on the right I expected much bigger differences in colour and better coverage of the filler. Maybe when the piece dries, the colours might change. As it is though, I quite like the middle one. But I have a few more stains to try. A word about stains: I now know why they are called "stains". The mess they created was unbelievable-pretty much everything got stained! Vaddoc

Congratulations GL, fantastic work. This last plank on the starboard side, this was no easy task. It is much easier to fit planks as you go with no limitation on the one edge rather than making a plank to fit a gap. Very well done!

Thanks Hakan, that was indeed the question Now I ve never thought about it but I think you are right, unless the plank is perfectly cut, with time it will warp back and no rivet will hold it. Much more difficult to perfectly cut a very long plank than a short one.

Many thanks for your likes and comments! Dowmer, I ll be using 2 mm thick planks, probably 8 to 12 mm wide. Unfortunately, the only edge bending it will tolerate is a little nudge to fit into place! However, I have many lovely maple strips which I d love to use, I ll give it a try and see whether Chuck's method will work. Thanks for the tip Druxey. In the past I had used very thick black fishing line. The problem is that due to the shape of the bow, the perspective is easily lost and I cannot eyeball a fair shape. This is why I need a very wide baten, to make sure there is no edge bending and the lines are fair. But even with this, bending the baten around the curve at the bow, pulls the baten up midships. A very stubborn hull. Bedford, you answered a few queries I had but now I have another for you. Planking the launch, I had noticed that at the bow some planks had a funny S shape. Initially I tried to simplify it but then I realised that this would be wrong and I had to trust my markings. The bow of the launch is very sharp, so probably this is why this S shape was less pronounced-it is much more visible in your boat and I expect even more on the yawl. Now, the planks in your photo are half planks-or plank thirds. I assume many adjacent planks would need scarfing. Here is the question: Does it matter if the scarfing is done at the same point mid ships or would builders spread the joints at different frames? Wonderful plywood by the way! Regards Vaddoc

This is lightning fast progress GL! The planking seems to be going very well. Are your planks straight strips sanded more narrow near the edges or have you done any spilling?

Seriously nice model Bolin. The colour really lifts it a lot.

Do a search, many discussions and lots of good info on painting. With modern paints and thinners and good brushes, you can get fantastic results hand painting. But I assume that consistency is much easier with spraying.

Dear all With the hull of the fishing launch completed (but still not finished), I decided to start working on the Yawl. The initial intention was to build two hulls back to back, one carvel and the other lapstrake, as a learning exercise as well as building two boats I like. The two hulls are very different and my initial impression is that planking the Yawl will be much more difficult. The first challenge came when I tried to deploy a baten. My usual 2 x 4 mm strip cannot negotiate the curve at the bow, it will break. How do you plank a boat without batens? I tried a slightly wider one-no go. I used a 2 x 2 mm pear strip that looked bendy and starting playing with the hull. My initial intention was to divide the hull into three areas. To do this, 2 lines are needed. One going through the point where the transom and sternpost join, and another one halfway from that point to the sheer. In lapstrake, the planks should have equal widths but to the eye, only the planks at the sides being vertical will show their true width. The planks bellow the turn of the bilge being at an angle will appear more narrow. So, in reality, only the planks in each zone need to have the same width. I tried to eyeball the run of the strip, to make sure it is fair but that was impossible. A square sectioned baten will happily bend in all directions. Again, the very curved bow made it very difficult to arrange a fair run. I tried many times but afterwards, eyeballing the hull, it was obviously wrong. I did manage though to define the sheer using my CAD markings-I hope these are accurate. However, all of the above attempts were wrong. The run of the 2 dividing lines is far from fair-it is all over the place. It is impossible to do this without a baten. So I use two maple strips, 1x8 mm (or something like that) as batens, They are very straight, very bendy and do not permanently deform and of course they will not tolerate any edge bending. After many failed attempts, I think I got my 3 zones kind of close. Now, the following photos show how difficult this hull is and how the bow messes up the perspective. In the first photo, the lower baten seems wrong and the one near the sheer appears fair. In the second photo, it is the other way around. In the third photo, both look ok. I marked the lines and removed the batens This would be a very difficult boat to plank as carvel. Lapstrake, even more. I have no idea what kind of spilling will be needed. Judging by the lift of the batens though, I expect the planks will have significant curves. Considering how long they will be, I think all of the planks, except perhaps the garboard, will need scarfing. I had decided on this boat to hold all planks with threaded brass wire. This would mean drilling 0.5 mm holes, using brass pins to hold the planks to the temporary frames, then re-drill to 0.6 mm when the steam bend frames are installed and screwing everything together. Have I bitten more than I can chew? Quite possibly!