Bob Cleek

I don't have the plans available to me, so I can't be positive, but I believe they are referring to the "rolling" bevel of the lapstrake plank "lands." (The plank "lands" are the "faying surfaces" or faces where two adjacent lapped planks touch and, when wet, swell to make the hull watertight. For this reason, they must be very accurately fitted against one another without gaps... in real boat construction, at least.) By "the gain seating nicely" they probably mean that the plank bevels fit perfectly against each other to form their "lands" against each other. The term "gain" is not used in the instructions you quote as I've heard it (properly) used before, but it seems they are using it to refer to the plank lap bevels generally. If so, this wouldn't be the first time model kit instructions exhibited a certain lack of nautical illiteracy. Properly, a lapstrake plank "gain" is a rabbet of progressive inclining depth cut at the hood end or ends of a run of lapped plank so that the hood edge of the plank overlap is progressively reduced so that it no longer stands proud at the hood end(s.) (Always on a "sharp" bow and sometimes on a transom stern.) On this model, from the pictures I've seen, at least, since it has a transom bow and stern, the gains are omitted at both the bow and stern transoms which may have been an attempt to simplify construction for modeling purposes at the expense of a more elegant, and actually less complicated, construction detail. Perhaps somebody who's built this model and is familiar with the instructions will chime in and give you a more certain answer. Maybe they instruct the builder to just run the plank ends to the transom edges, cut them flush, and fill the voids between the plank lands and the transom edges with putty or something. Laying out the bevels in the transom edges to accommodate the lapped planks without gains would seem to me to be a lot more work and difficulty. Lapstrake planking showing riveted laps and plank lands. Note that only one plank per overlap is beveled. Here's a picture of a lapstrake plank with what is properly called a "gain" cut at the hood end (on the right hand edge below) to reduce the plank overlap edges (and on the left hand side is a regular land bevel.) The gains are cut in both plank faces to a maximum depth at the end of the bevel equal to one half the plank thickness so that when the two planks are fastened at the lap with the gains the planks total only the thickness of one plank . A couple of photos of correctly planked sharp-bowed lapstrake planked boats. Note how the gains (which are relatively short in one instance and long in the other) cause the lap edges to progressively reduce to nothing at the hood ends in the stem rabbet. It's a subtle, but essential, detail in sharp-bowed clinker-built boats. Now, this YouTube video on lapstrake planking is probably going to cause you to glaze over, or become completely intimidated, but to the degree you can wrap your head around it you will find planking your model much less difficult. There are many shortcuts between building a full-sized boat and a model and putty and sandpaper can cover a multitude of fitting errors, but to the extent these can be minimized, your model will benefit. See: Ep 18 - Planking (part 2): Bevels + Gains - Bing video Yes, that's exactly what it means. If your plank land bevels aren't accurate, the planks are going to have that much more width to the total overlap and they are going to spread amidships. This means also that as the overall length of the curve segment of the hull is thereby lengthened, the presumably correctly shaped laser-cut kit planks are going to be too short to span the entire length of the boat (unless they left you some extra length at either end to cut flush to the transom faces.) Building a lapstrake planked model at 1:12 scale well demands good accuracy in cutting all the bevels. Moreover, errors in shape and bevel of parts tend to be cumulative and only more bedeviling as the build progresses. One maxim in modeling, as in real boatbuilding, is that it is always better to rip it apart and do it over again correctly than it is to try to ignore measurement and fitting errors. In the case of a kit build, it should be no problem to go to the hobby or craft store and buy a piece of thin sheet stock and cut a new plank that will fit correctly and well worth the investment in time. If parts aren't fitting, and particularly so with planking, you have to ascertain the cause of the problem, be it errors in lofting or in fitting the parts that have been done before. When working in smaller scales, it is possible to slap on a lot of putty, spackle, or plastic wood and sand a hull fair and when it's painted up well, nobody will be the wiser, but at 1:12, particularly with a "clinker-built" (lapstrake) hull, such errors are much harder to cover up. For planing beveled lands and for many other modeling tasks, you will find a small plane of great value. If you are really flush and want to treat yoursef, you can buy the top-of-the-line Lie Nielsen #101 bronze violin maker's plane, which is their version of the old Stanley #101 "modelmaker's plane" for $125.00 (Lie-Nielsen No. 101 Bronze Violin Maker's Plane (highlandwoodworking.com) Or you can buy an original cast iron Stanley #101 on eBay if you can find one for not too much money. (They are now collectables but can be had for $20.00 to or $30.00.) There are also decent copies of the cast iron Stanley #101 made by Kunz for around $29.00: Amazon.com: KUNZ POCKET PLANE COMPACT BLOCK PLANE WOOD CARVING WORKING No.101 by Kunz : Tools & Home Improvement and even a Kunz copy of the otherwise super-rare old Stanley #100 "Squirrel tail pocket plane" that is the #101 with a handle which permits pushing the plane with the palm of hand for $26.00. (I have no idea why it costs less than the "tail-less" model! I love mine.) (Amazon.com: ROBERT LARSON 580-2200 Kunz Pocket Plane Raised Handle : Everything Else) If not that, the current Stanley sheet metal framed model #12-101 "trimming plane" can be had retail on Amazon for $12.00 and on eBay for $5.00. (stanley 12-101 plane - Bing - Shopping and Vintage STANLEY 12-101 Trimming Plane New Old Stock - Original Package | eBay)' This all may be more than you ever wanted to know about planking or planing, but, if so, perhaps it may be of interest to some other novices who come across it. Have fun with your build!

Nicely done and in record time! Now on to the next one... a scratch-build? Something from one of John Gardner's small craft building books? It's just my opinion, I think there is an overabundance of large Seventeenth and Eighteenth century ships of the line models and a dearth of simple small working craft models in this world. The small craft models look a lot better on a home bookshelf, as well. You will build better models in the future as your skills develop, as have we all to one degree or another, but this one will always have a special place in your heart, I'm sure.

I second Druxey's suggestion. There's never any certainty with any of this, so experiments off the model are recommended, as always. Natural cordage shrinks when it gets wet because the moisture causes the natural fibers to swell which tightens the lay. The line becomes slack after being wet because the moisture causes the rope to tighten and stretch. Afterwards, it stays stretched until re-wetted. You should test a section of your laid up rigging line to see if simply applying the shellac before trying to first soak the line in hot water will alone shrink it sufficiently. The shellac soaking into the twisted line may be tighten the line sufficiently on its own and, if so, when the alcohol evaporates, whether the shellac will have sealed your rigging from further moisture and will have cemented the twisted fibers tightly together and sealed out further moisture being absorbed. If that doesn't cause the line to shrink sufficiently, I'd test it with an application of boiling hot water and see if that shrinks the cordage tighter. If so, I'd put the model somewhere the humidity was low for a day or three and then apply a generous amount of boiling hot water and let it soak into the rigging. Cotton should shrink in hot water, even if the cotton has been "pre-shrunk." Your twisting up the rope should cause it to tighten in any event because as the cotton fibers soak up the water, they will expand and your twist will tighten as the fibers become larger. Let the water dry (a hair dryer should speed things up if you are careful) and then apply thinned clear ("white") shellac (most canned shellac can be applied right out of the can.) The shellac should soak into the rigging and "set" the cordage, also sealing it so it will not absorb moisture in the future. The shellac should not change the color any nor should it be visible when dry. When attempting to shrink rigging, and particularly standing rigging, work on each side alternately rather than both sides simultaneously. This will permit one side's taking up before the other and should prevent a sudden over-shortening on both sides that could cause the rigging to over-tighten and pull loose or break if too tight. And again, experiment with these techniques before you attack the model's finished work with any of them. We're just making it up as we go and free advice on the internet is often worth less than what you pay for it. Let us know how it works!

That's not at all surprising. You've definitely got what Jaager calls "a serious model scroll saw!" The DeWalt DW788 has consistently been ranked a "best buy" in the annual tool reviews. I'd say it's at "the bottom of the top" in quality and features and "at the top of the bottom" in price. In other words, it's a fairly priced tool that does what it's supposed to do. It's definitely a quality tool. Nobody that I know of makes a less expensive double parallel-link arm scroll saw. I've never read a complaint about it in the reviews. That said, it retails for close to $400, so I wouldn't put it at all in the same class as the $100 to $200 "Big Box Store Specials" from the Bejing Patriotic Peoples' Export Power Tool Collective. DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com

Excellent point and I think an important one to emphasize. Many of the lower-end scroll saws are lightly built low-powered models designed for the "crafters' market" and aren't intended to hog through thick sections of hardwood. When selecting a scroll saw, I think it's important to spend a lot of time reading the reviews and being aware that there are definitely two distinct ends of the quality spectrum when it comes to scroll saws. If one is choosing a scroll saw model on the basis of price alone, you may well be buying an expensive door-stop.

"Old 'arn?" Are you talking about the early 1950's cast iron King Seeley-built Craftsman "jigsaws" that ran off of a stock Craftsman cast iron capacitor-starting 1/2 or 3/4 HP motor? (This was in the days when these machines were called "jigsaws" and the hand-held gizmos were called "saber saws.") Definitely built to "take a lickin' and keep on tickin". I inherited one of these beasts from the original owner, my father, and I'd say they are quite workable for relatively heavy work, but are definitely "bucking broncos" that have to be seriously secured or they'll bounce all over the place. I bolt the stand of mine to a heavy solidly secured workbench and now only use it for detail work on a scale somewhere between my 14" Delta bandsaw clone and my 14" Sakura which had a list price of around $600 and I was able to purchase barely used from a fellow for $100. Note that ~75 year old cast iron Craftsman has a mechanism unseen in today's scroll saws. The blades' vertical movement is driven by a transmission below while the top of the blade is tensioned by an air piston spring-dampening mechanism to which the top of the blade is attached. The upper arm can be easily removed by unscrewing the crown nut at the rear of the upper arm. This then permits a single ended saber saw blade to be attached to the lower drive mechanism and the saw to be operated as a stationary saber saw.

Bare wood, especially softer woods like basswood, should be sealed before applying any other coating and particularly so when using water-based coatings which will raise the grain of the wood. The easiest sealer to use on models is plain old clear (sometimes called "white") shellac thinned to around a "two pound cut," (Which is the consistency of Zinsser's "Bullseye" brand canned shellac.) This dries very quickly, won't raise the grain, and sands easily. (It will eliminate the "fuzzies" that occur when trying to sand soft woods.) If painting, for minor imperfections and filling pores, use any good "sanding primer." As mentioned, there are several major brands. Interlux is a high-quality marine paint line with which I am quite familiar but there are other sanding primers on the market. This sanding primer, "basecoat," or "sealer, depending upon the manufacturer's nomenclature, contains additives which make sanding easy. The additive can be anything from "whiting" (chalk or talcum) to microspheres. ("micro-balloons.") (If you have microballoons on hand for mixing epoxy fairing compound, you might want to experiment with adding them to regular paint or shellac and see if that works for you. Always test any coating system on scrap wood before applying to finished work to make sure it will provide the results sought.) I have found using water-based acrylics are not as suitable for fine finishes because the water can raise the grain and the softer synthetic coatings are more difficult to sand. If one is seeking a matte clear wood finish, I'd simply use clear shellac which will fill fairly well if applied in multiple coats. A thick shellac coating will end up glossy, but the gloss will easily sand off in the end to as fine a finish as one might require using fine sandpaper (300 grit or finer) and/or hand-rubbing with rottenstone and pumice. https://www.bottompaintstore.com/interlux-prekote-quart-p-33277.html?campaignid=283850993&adgroupid=1258941293687119&creative=&matchtype=e&network=o&device=c&keyword=&msclkid=ac4ac711ef191c683eefa323e6f0a1be&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Google Shopping 2020 January- Bing&utm_term=4582283435435465&utm_content=Shopping-Catch ALL If you have some serious divots, surfacing putty is the necessary coating. It is a paste about the consistency of toothpaste that is thinned with acetone. It can be applied with a putty knife and can be thinned to a desired consistency. (It will harden in the can quickly if the lid is left off the can for appreciable periods. Adding a small amount of acetone to the can after use and storing the well-closed can upside down overnight will reconstitute the paste to a softer consistency without a lot of stirring. This material is sort of like drywall "mud." It hardens very quickly and can be sanded easily in a half hour or so. If a surfacing putty is used, the surfacing putty should be overcoated with the primer after it's been used. It's somewhat porous and if a gloss finish is applied directly over it, there is the tendency to create a 'flat spot" where the gloss topcoat was unevenly absorbed by the surfacing putty. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=interlux+surfacing+putty&adgrpid=1342504259915083&hvadid=83906731284955&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=43893&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-83906856471787%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=4123_13164389&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_6qak90lgdy_e

Oh yes, a "surface height gauge," as it seems to be called here on our side of the Pond, is a very handy thing to have, as your post has very well illustrated. In recent times, the simple "manual comparitor" models seems to have become less common. Most marketed now have the capacity to measure with a digital readout to a high level of tolerance and some even have provision for a cable connection for a CNC input. These guys cost two or three grand! The simple model you have is one of those things I'd love to snag at a garage sale, but I haven't seen one in a long time. Alternately, I use my dial indicator stand with a sharpened rod inserted in the hole for mounting the "clock" or I just take a suitably-sized block of wood and shim a sharp pencil on top of the block to the desired height and slap a piece of tape over it. Not what you'd call "highly accurate," but, as they say, "close enough for government work." (Beautiful photos on your post, by the way! I'm sure a lot of the newer modelers will find your information very helpful!

Very nice model and a very appropriate setting for it! Let's hope they get her in a case and out of that sunny window soon! (UV can fade paint and cause deterioration.) By the way, there isn't any type of membership charge for the Model Ship World forum. Welcome! Given the quality of the Fitzgerald model, I'm sure a lot of people here would be interested in seeing photos of your brother's other models. He was obviously a very skilled craftsman.

Growing up a kid's bike ride from Gjoa when she sat in her dry berth at San Francisco's Ocean Beach in Golden Gate Park, as shown in the postcard above, and with a father who worked in the maritime industry as an accountant for Dollar Steamship and American President Lines, I was quite familiar with her and her history and never passed up a chance to check her out up close. Even in the mid-fifties, she was sadly neglected and pretty well stripped bare, although they did get around to building a cast iron fence around her. As you know, when she reached San Francisco, the local Norwegian community, which was strongly connected with the sea (and known locally on the waterfront as "squareheads,") acquired her and dragged her up on the beach. This was in late 1906 and the devastated San Francisco was in the midst of rebuilding after the Earthquake and Fire in April of 1906, so that was quite a remarkable feat in terms of economic priorities. At that time, the area was sparsely populated sand dunes running a few miles inland. There she sat ashore, facing the setting sun and the Pacific Ocean a few dozen yards from the breakers. That exposed location was hard on the wooden boat and she got little care, but it seems they threw a coat of paint on her every so often, at least. Money was short and, as time passed, Amundsen's accomplishment came to be underappreciated. I'm sure that her boats were gone in a flash. They certainly weren't around when I was a kid, although I read somewhere that after the War in 1949, the year I was born, they'd done some major work on her. They'd built an iron fence around her, but the high school kids used to jump the fence and climb aboard with a few six packs, break in, and party on her, at least until the cops got wise to it and started chasing them off! I was out of town when they hauled her off to Norway in the early seventies, so I missed watching them move her. I was glad she was brought home to where she and her crew would be more appreciated. It seems they've done a complete restoration on her, as she certainly deserved. It looks like you have a good handle on modeling her. I look forward to following your scratch build!

Traditional scale model ship building using traditional materials, primarily wood, scale rigging cordage, and non-ferrous metal fittings is an artistic discipline in and of itself which goes back at least as far as the Pharaohs. Those traditional materials have archival qualities that enable them to last for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Few of us will ever build a model that will survive that long, but as a goal, it's something to strive for. Styrene and most other plastics, on the other hand, often deteriorate in a matter of decades, at best. Building a plastic kit model yields a model that will be virtually identical to how many others there are in the same production run, save for the painting and weathering skills of the modeler. A scratch-built model is unique and can be the only model ever built of a particular vessel, thereby having the potential to be valued as a three-dimensional historical record of that particular vessel. Many find particular satisfaction in scratch-building for that reason. If one enjoys building models of any material or type they should pursue that hobby as long as it entertains them. It's really a matter of taste that dictates how any ship modeler choses to pursue the hobby.

I consider safety protocols to be a matter of scale and commonsense. When I spend all day sanding the topsides of a yacht, I wear a common dust mask and if I'm spray painting one, I also wear a mask. (Were I spraying LPU, I'd be wearing a hazmat suit and a positive air supply system.) If I'm sanding a model I don't wear a mask at all. (I do relatively little sanding in model making without a vacuum hooked up to the sander.) If I'm spraying or airbrushing, I don't wear anything, but I always work in a well-ventilated space with a fan circulating the ambient air out a nearby window or open door. When modeling, the exposure to particulate pollution is so limited that I find it to be of little or no concern. This is not to suggest that safety protocols should be ignored, but only that there's no need to overdo it. Commonsense should be your guide. I've been doing this for over fifty years with no ill effects, but others' mileage may vary.

While curves can be cut on a bandsaw, of course, I do think a good scroll saw is a much more versatile sawing tool for fine work such as is encountered in modeling. A scroll saw will permit you to stop the forward progress of a cut, rotate the workpiece without limitation, and start off in another direction without ever having to turn the saw off. Similarly, a scroll saw can cut a circle or any other shape inside the perimeter of a workpiece which is simply not possible with a bandsaw. The scroll saw will also accept a far wider variety of cutting blades including omnidirectional ones which, again, are simply not possible with a bandsaw. If you do decide on a bandsaw, and you have the room in your shop, you'd do well to get a standard Delta 14" bandsaw or one of the many Asian clones (I'm sure any patents expired ages ago.) (Jet and Grizzly are reliable retailers of these and there are many available on the used market.) Buyers have to be careful buying scroll saws. There is a very wide range of price and corresponding quality in scroll saws and you definitely get what you pay for. One should do a fair amount of online research before "pulling the pin" to avoid disappointment and a waste of money. (Small "mini scroll saws" sold in most of the ship modeling catalogs, e.g. Dremel, Proxxon, and MicroMark, are generally underpowered and overpriced in my opinion.) Scroll saws are a "gateway" power tool with a wide market base of hobbyists. A lot of them are bought by entry level hobbyists who later find themselves no longer interested in their hobby and little-used scroll saws can be found on the used market quite easily. This is great if you find one of the $750 to $2,000 top of the line scroll saws for $100, and not so great if you pay $100 for a scroll saw that was junk the day it rolled off the assembly line. At the bottom of the heap in the "big box" stores, Wen and DeWalt "swing arm" models in the $150 to $300 range often get reasonably good reviews but they are not even in the same zip code with the "parallel arm" models made by Hegner, Sakura, Excalibur, and King Industrial. The major price difference is between "swing arm" and "parallel link arm" scroll saws. The latter move the blade in an up and down motion perpendicular to the table (if the table is set flat) while the former "swing" the blade in an arc when sawing. The primary quality distinctions in scroll saws are 1. Type of arm, swing or parallel link, 2. motor power, and perhaps most importantly, 3. lack of vibration, all of which are directly related to the accuracy the saw is capable of delivering. At the inexpensive end of the scale are tools which vibrate so much, even when bolted down to a solid surface, that they are near useless for doing fine work. This isn't to say that one has to spend $750 and up to acquire a decent scroll saw. Even if one "pays retail" for a new saw, good work can be done with DeWalt's parallel link arm 20" scroll saw. DEWALT Scroll Saw, Variable-Speed, 1.3 Amp (DW788), Yellow, 20-Inch - Power Table Saws - Amazon.com It really isn't an "either or" question. If you want to cut pieces for built-up hull framing, a good scroll saw is the tool for the job. If you want to resaw billets for model work, a bandsaw is the tool for the job. You can use a bandsaw with a narrow blade to roughly cut curves within the limits of your blade's width and then "sand to the line," to achieve a sufficiently accurate result, but that's not really what the bandsaw is made for. You can also us a scroll saw to cut thick billets within the limits of its throat opening, but that's not what it's made for, either, and you'll probably break a lot of blades trying. So, as Mr. Natural says,

Yes, you are correct! I wasn't absolutely sure and it niggled at me, so I checked myself as well and corrected that in my post. I was thinking of a cotton-wrapped polyester blend I'd read about when I first wrote that and then realized that might not have been Gutermann Mara. Mara is different from regular polyester thread, though. Its fibers are uniquely made "core spun microfilament polyester." (Whatever that means!) I expect this is what distinguishes it from the ordinary polyester thread on the market. It doesn't seem to have any of the shortcomings the others do. It's not "plastic-y" at all. At any rate, the stuff works very well.

Reading between the lines will get you in trouble quickly and on the internet, even reading the lines themselves is not to be trusted! The "finestkind" standard material for scale model rigging cordage used to be linen thread, but it's gotten practically unobtainable at this point, being replaced by various synthetics. The synthetics don't take dye as well, nor, being inherently slippery, are they very amenable to holding a knot. Chuck Passaro has done a lot of research on thread for use as rigging. He related that the conservators in a highly respected museums now specify an advanced polyester thread as a replacement for linen. Their decision was reportedly based on considerations of its archival properties and appearance. (Chuck has further perfected a method of "proofing" polyester scale rope after it's made by briefly heating it with a hair dryer. This causes the polyester fibers to take a set and prevents unraveling.) I believe the general consensus at present is that the preferred material for rigging is Gutermann's Mara polyester thread. It should be kept in mind that cotton fibers swell when wet with water and polyester fibers don't. Some have reported poor results trying to secure polyester rope knots with thinned PVA which contains water, as might be expected. Polyester scale cordage is probably best secured with shellac which is dissolved in alcohol. It may turn out that using a lacquer or nitrocellulose adhesive won't work so well if their acetone solvent dissolves the polyester thread. (I don't know if it will, but I do know what happens when you pour acetone into a syrofoam cup!) See: I have not noticed any issues with "fuzzies" in the use of Gutermann's Mara thread for scale model rigging. Should such arise, the cure is simply to "flame" the thread, by quickly passing the line over a flame (a laboratory alcohol lamp works well for this) and letting the flame singe the fuzz off.

Looks great! It also looks like you've moved ashore. I sure hope you still have your Buzzards Bay 25! Is she an original or a recent build? She's sure an eye-popper. How did a BB25 end up sailing upside down in New Zealand? Now that you're living on the hard and presumably have some space, and you've built the model, don't you think it's getting to be about time to start thinking about building a full-size "Buzzards Bay Boy's Boat" for that young man? If you get cracking on that, he should be just about ready to skipper his own boat when you get her built!

Mahl sticks are routinely used by sign painters. A skilled sign painter uses his mahl stick not only as a secure rest for the painter's hand, but also as a guide for the brush. By resting the heel of the brush hand on the mahl stick and moving the end of the stick in an arc, a true curve can be quickly and very accurately made. Similarly, the stick can be held in position and the brush in hand, or resting on the stick, can be moved across the painting using the mahl stick to yield a perfectly straight line. Actually, I've never seen a mahl stick used such that it rested on the painted surface of the piece. The padded end of the stick could smear the work unless one waited weeks, if not months, for the oil paint to solidify. I've only ever seen the padded end of the stick placed on the working surface at the edge or margin of the work surface. (Some mahl sticks have a "hook" at one end so it can be hooked over the top edge or side edge of the canvas.) On a larger painting, the sticks can get pretty long to accomplish their use without placing the end in wet paint. Some fancy ones are even telescoping for ease of storage.

Navy vessels make poor yachts. The Navy never has to worry much about fuel costs! Then again, neither does Elon Musk.

I've always envied the doll house miniatures modelers. They seem to have a strong market for their finished models. Unfortunately, with ship models, not so much. We used to have one of the largest "brick and mortar" doll house miniatures stores (with a big mail order business, as well,) in the town where I lived. I used to get a lot of ship modeling "miniature lumber" there. Sadly, they didn't survive the Pandemic and went out of business.

It looks like they have much "hihger" demands for their modeling than they do for proofreading their advertising copy! An interesting line of modeling tools, DSPIAE, appears to be a subsidiary of Meng, a relatively new Chinese plastic model kit company. See:; DSPIAE.

There isn't any such thing as a "slight clinker effect." Plank is either hung "carvel" or "clinker" (AKA "lapstrake.") You did well to follow your instincts when planking and taper your planks. In fact, your intuitive solution is quite close to the actual practice, determining the width of the plank at the frame at the greatest beam and then the proportionate width of each plank at every other frame, which will give you the shape of each plank when the dimensions are laid out and a batten is sprung between the points so generated. If a hull is to be carvel planked, the edges of the planks are butted against each other and the hull is "faired," being planed and sanded to a fair shape so that a perfectly smooth hull results. A carvel planked hull is caulked with oakum and/or cotton driven between the plank edges so that the swelling of the planks against the caulking produces the necessary watertightness.) If a hull is to be clinker built, the planks are cut wider so that their edges overlap the adjacent plank, with the overlapping edges planed to a bevel which permits to overlapping planks to be riveted together, pulling the faying surface tightly together. (In this method, the swelling of the lapped plank faces provides the watertightness.) A clinker planked hull will have "gains" cut in lts plank ends so that the overlap transitions to a flat surface at the stem (and sometimes to some degree at the stern.). These gains are sloping rabets that reduce the thickness of the plank at the end overlap. "Strip planking" is a relatively new technique made possible by epoxy adhesive technology. In this method, "strips" generally as wide as they are thick, are "stacked" up and glued with epoxy adhesive, then sheathed in fabric and resin. They are a form of monocoque construction, without frames. They can be quite attractive, but are not historically correct as far as their construction goes. Google "Whitehall pulling boat" images and you'll see the range of "Whitehall" styles planked both types. Some examples are below. Your kit apparently was designed to be simply "strip planked" (after a fashion) and finished to appear as a carvel planked example of the type. A clinker planked Whitehall at the scale you are working with would be a much more involved planking exercise than would be a "carvel-looking" hull. I would suggest you finish the hull smooth and painted inside and out so that it appears to be a carvel planked hull. It will not appear correct if it has "a slight clinker effect." John Gardner's book Building Classic Small Craft, mentioned above, is an excellent resource for anyone building models of small craft. Indeed, with that book, one can spend a lot of time building many classic small boats without the need of kits at all. A carvel planked Whitehall type pulling boat. Note that the hull is smooth inside and out. An example of a couple of clinker planked pulling boats. Note the "gains" at the plank ends and the number of planks used. Note that the plank overlaps are visible both outboard and inboard with the sawn frames sometimes "jogged" with notches so the plank lies flat on the plank face and sometimes not, those frames being steamed. An example of a strip planked Whitehall pulling boat. Note the large number of "strips" and the absence of frames.

Welcome! It sounds like you're going about things properly and you'll end up with a fine model. Just a few random "tricks of the trade" I wish I'd learned earlier than I did: You may already be aware, but I'll mention that you should sand or scrape off the char from the laser cutting on any parts that will show, even if painted, and especially remove it from all faying surfaces. Paint and glue don't hold as well on the charred surfaces. Also, PVA can be softened and removed by applying isopropyl alcohol. (Wrap the joint in a bit of paper toweling which will keep the alcohol in contact with the PVA.) The primary advantage of PVA over CA is its reversibility. There will be mistakes! It goes with the territory. (I'm told there are "reversers" available to remove CA, but I'd file that under "Good luck with that!) In a build like this one, clean, sharp pieces are important. If you seal all your wood with clear ("white") shellac, the basswood parts will not "fuzz" when you sand them and you can then use water-based acrylic paints, if you wish, without the water raising the grain of the wood. Like with plastic model painting, your surface preparation and painting should be as perfect as possible. In a model like the Whitehall, you must keep your painting schedule in mind as you build. It's best to glue "bare wood to bare wood" with PVA, but sometimes this is not possible because you will want to paint some parts before assembly. This is particularly true of the interior details. (Painting beneath and around stringers, thwarts, and stern sheets, for example.) Use the forum search engine to read the discussions regarding the use of water-based acrylic coatings versus oil based coatings. There are two schools of thought. It's best to decide whether you are an "oil guy" or a "water guy" before you go too far down the road buying paints and brushes and so on. Oil and water don't mix all that well and sometimes different brands of paints don't work together all that well, either. Working with the same "system" will allow you to become familiar with it. Mixing and matching will probably cause you to "paint yourself in a corner," creating problems in painting and finishing wooden models. Always, always, always test a coating on a piece of scrap material first to confirm how it will perform before applying to the model itself. Fortunately, you seem like the kind of person who reads the instructions before diving into a process, so I don't expect you'll go too far astray if you follow the manufacturer's instructions. (Hint: oil-based coatings are more forgiving, being "organic" and "chemically simple" than water-based synthetics which can contain very critical chemical mixtures which can cause problems if instructions aren't strictly followed. E.g. some acrylics are thinned with alcohol, some with water, and some with proprietary thinners and conditioners that are specific to each brand.) If you are like most ship modelers, you'll use CA sparingly. It's nasty stuff. Store it in a zip loc plastic sandwich bag in your freezer. It will last a long time before hardening in the bottle and it ain't cheap. Be sure to read the "Articles Database" articles and the "More" sections in the drop-down banner heading of the forum homepage. Of particular value is the article on "Tools." It's sage advice will save you a lot of money! Good luck with your build!

In my experience, at least, the irony is that shaping a solid hull (or stacking up a hollow "bread and butter" hull) takes a whole lot less time and work than building a POB or POF hull. Having cut my teeth on the old Model Shipways "yellow boxes," and Blue Jacket, and Marine Models solid hull kits, I couldn't agree more that they would almost be seen as 'scratch-builds" today! As the story goes, the manufacturers picked up some of the government surplus gunstock duplicating carving machines after the War and used those to shape their kit model hulls on a mass production basis. Those machines did a pretty accurate job. There wasn't a lot of need for checking shapes with a template if you had an eye for a fair shape. All many needed was just a surface sanding without the need for carved shaping, other than the stem, keel, and bulwarks which were left thick (to prevent damage in shipping, I suppose.) I surely agree that there was little difference between the old pre-carved "kits" and scratch-building. All they provided that was not "scratch" were the cast metal fittings and the machine carved hull. Everything else, e.g. rigging thread, dowels, strip wood, that came in the old kits were just materials scratch-builders today buy piecemeal. What you were really paying for in the old kits were the plans and instructions and the perhaps exaggerated implied promise that anybody could build a model as good as the prototype in the photograph pasted on the end of the box. Back in the day, it was assumed (although not disclosed in the advertising) that someone building a ship model knew a fair amount about their subject matter and in order to build a good model that knowledge was a prerequisite. The level of detail in the old plans and instructions presumed the modeler's knowledge of basic seamanship and nomenclature. Other than Underhill and Davis, available from specialty mail order houses, modeling tutorials were hard to source and the internet was decades in the future. I think those of us who straddle the ship modeling kit generation gap will agree that the biggest difference modernly is that the level of general competence in the ordinary manual arts has dropped to the bottom of the barrel. Wood and metal "shop" and "mechanical drawing" aren't taught in high schools like they used to be. Relatively few younger people have woodworking skills beyond those required to assemble something out of an IKEA box. (Speaking of which, I expect today's kit manufacturers also appreciate the "knock-down" characteristics of POF and POB technology of POF which minimize shipping and warehousing costs.) Moreover, the power tool industry has convinced us all that their expensive machines are essential to produce high quality work all at the expense of the acquisition of skill in the use of hand tools which can usually do the same job at a much lower cost when employed by a skilled user. The spectacular open-framed "as built" and "Navy Board style" models certainly have their place, but for the modelers who have yet to attain the highly refined level of skill necessary to build them, solid hull models, or "laid up" "bread and butter" hulls should not be overlooked as an option in building a fine model. Kits have their place, if for no other reason than to serve as the "gateway drug" for the modeling hobby, but it's a quantuum leap from LEGO to building a fine traditional ship model, and it should be. Not everything should be "dumbed down" for consumption by the masses.

I'm sure someone has, but why would they want to? That would require drilling the holes, applying the putty, and then sanding the area and cleaning up. If one were so inclined, I'd suggest they use refinisher's crayons for the purpose. They "wipe on and wipe off," leaving the hole filled with a colored wax. No sanding necessary. See: https://www.amazon.com/Furniture-Repair-Crayon-Restore-Scratch/dp/B08FLZXKBZ/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=furniture+crayons&qid=1680053733&sr=8-7 If one wishes to indicate where the fasteners were placed in a deck or elsewhere, a technical pen can be used to draw dots of the desired diameter with indelible ink. ( India ink was used to good effect on many builders' models produced around the turn of the last century for indicating doors and windows and other details of deck furniture. Seal the raw wood with thin shellac before doing so to prevent the ink from soaking into the wood and spreading.) If one is interested in an accurate portrayal rather than a "modeling convention," at scale viewing distances, trunnels are invisible and in most instances are basically the same color as the planking, not a dark contrasting color. (However, locust was commonly used for trunnels on the US Eastern Seaboard and it can be slightly darker that many planking species, but not so much that one would notice it, particularly on a weathered deck.) I really don't know why so many want to depict them, but they do. If it's done, though, the fasteners must be placed accurately where they would have been placed on the prototype. The biggest eyesore in this respect are highly visible deck and planking fasteners which are not accurately placed, especially where only one fastener is showing in a plank end.

One of these smaller sized "crock pots" ("slow cookers") would serve for keeping hide glue heated, wouldn't it? No need to spring for a Lee Valley or Garret Wade $150 model, right? 0.65 qt slow cooker warmer, fondue pot set,chocolate melting pot (amazon.com)