Bob Cleek

We flew a watersail on a friend's large spidsgatter years ago. I thought it wasn't going to add much, given its percentage of the overall sail area, but it really did make quite a difference in light air downwind. They're rarely seen these days,.

The number of sails in a "fully-rigged" square-rigged vessel is a function of the size of the vessel. A smaller vessel, as pictured, will carry fewer square sails, the added complexity of a greater number of sails to break the sail plan into manageable segments not being necessary. Photo number two is classified as a brigantine in the US, but is called a "schooner brig," or "hermaphrodite brig" in Europe. The height of the after mast isn't relevant. If a boomed fore and aft sail is carried on a shorter foremast as well as a square topsail, it's a square topsail schooner. As in the United States, USS Boxer, USN training brigantine. See: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/sail/boxer4.htm And don't come out of that room until I tell ya to!

Interesting information. Obviously a localized type and perhaps now extinct. From the contemporary drawings, the gaff mizzen sail indicated a later evolution. The vessel may indeed be "Ottoman," certainly as the drawings confirm. Until a better term is discovered, in consideration of it's apparent national origin, why don't we call it a "turkey?"

To my eye, the mainsail on the brig appears to be tightly furled on the main yard. You are indeed correct that the Thames barge carries a spritsail rig.

Mechanical fastenings such as treenails and nails permit each plank to shrink and swell independently of the others, thereby spreading the wood movement proportionally over the entire structure, piece by piece, so long as the plank seams are not glued one to the other. When the seams are glued, the shrinkage (and swelling) of the solid glued piece will occur at the weakest point, often resulting in a split piece of wood or a cracked seam the width of the movement. Remember the percentage of movement, whatever it may be, is across the moving dimension of the piece. The larger the piece, the greater the movement across the moving dimension. If you glue a bunch pieces together, they will move as one. Instead of tiny bits of movement between each piece, you'll get the total movement of the glued pieces at one spot. Flexible adhesives certainly mitigate the problem of wood movement to the extent they flex, but flexible joints may pose other structural problems in a model. The problem with any adhesive, including the epoxies, the limitations of their archival and working qualities. These involve the degree of long-term changes in coloration, brittleness, acidic outgassing, loss of strength, particularly shear strength, and the reversibility of the bond in the event future conservation or restoration work may be required. These considerations usually vary greatly, depending upon the formulation of the particular adhesive. At present, the "gold standard" museum conservation epoxy adhesive is a product known as HXTAL NYL-1 designed specifically for the repair of glass and ceramic artifacts. It closely mimics the refractive index of glass and so produces an invisible repair. It's claimed to be the only epoxy adhesive which does not yellow upon exposure to light. This is a very specialized (and expensive) epoxy adhesive having very exacting mixing and application requirements and, importantly, is not easily reversible, as far as i know. While it is an excellent product for glass and ceramic repair, it isn't very suitable for modeling because it has a very long minimum setting times in excess of three days! See: https://www.hxtal.com/ and http://www.lakesidepottery.com/HTML Text/Tips/Hxtal-NYL-instructions-glass-epoxy.htm

Yes, that is a good observation. However, there are many MSW forumites who are greatly lacking in nautical nomenclature fluency. The world of ships and the sea has its own language and it's different for every commonly spoken language in the world. Even when the spoken language is the same, the nautical nomenclature may differ in different areas, just as the words "bonnet" and "hood" refer to the same part of an automobile in Britain and the US respectively, while a "bonnet" and a "hood" don't both refer to the same item of headgear in both Britain and the US. And this confusion is compounded when one tries to translate "nauticalese" from an entirely foreign language, often making the understanding of instructions for the building of model kits imported from places where a different language is spoken quite a challenge, even for the fluent "nautical" speaker in his own language, let alone one who is not. As one who had the benefit of growing up with maritime nomenclature "as a first language," being involved as both an amateur and a professional with ships and the sea all my life, having a father who worked in the industry as well, it is often apparent to me when forum posters "do not speak the language." Unfortunately, there's no "google translate" for nautical nomenclature, nor language school that teaches it, as far as I know. It can only be learned by "immersion," an apt metaphor for "sink or swim." I can't imagine the difficulty a new ship model builder from Kansas or Oklahoma who's never seen the ocean must have trying to build a sailing ship model! (Parenthetically, I've seen some highly skilled modelers who are distinguished by their careful research nevertheless make glaring errors in a model, particularly in things like rigging, because they obviously have no experience sailing vessels similar to the one they are modeling.*) To do so with that handicap is quite an accomplishment! I will say that any ship modeler who is contemplating investing in books related to the hobby would do well to make one of their initial library acquisitions a very good maritime dictionary and keep it at hand at all times. (My top recommendation in that regard would be The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea.) The use of such a dictionary will go a long way in making their forum posts more understandable and, thus, encourage more helpful responses. *Example: This Model Shipways 18th Century Longboat kit is built in complete conformance with the kit's instructions and, I have it on good authority, is an exact "model of a contemporary model" in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England. Who can spot what's wrong with it first? (Hint: It's something that should be immediately obvious to any sailor.)

The first is a staysail schooner with a boomed foresail, flying a fisherman topsail. The second is a brigantine. The third photograph isn't sufficiently clear to determine what we're looking at. Unlike the other three photos, which are indisputable, this one's identity depends upon what's happening where the odd, long-sparred jib-headed sail meets the mast. Is it attached to the mast with gaff jaws, or is it crossing the mast as would a lateen antenna. In the case of the former, it might be called gaff schooner with a weirdly long foresail gaff boom, and in the latter instance, a lateen-rigged ketch with a gaff-rigged mizzen. In the case of a lateen rig, it appears that the picture was taken while the foot of the mainsail antenna was being tacked from one side of the mast to the other. If the long boom is connected to the mast, it may have been a rig adaptation, similar to the arrangement seen on the Thames barges, which accommodated local fishing or cargo handling requirements. The fourth is another staysail schooner. The rest of you guys... That was pathetic. Go to your rooms!!! Thames barge:

Let's call a spade a spade. The search engine feature of the MSW forum platform is inadequate to address the complexity of the forum's content as well as one would expect based on experience with much more sophisticated search engines like Google, etc. (The development of these "AI-heavy" search engines is driven by their great profitability as "data mining" platforms.) This is true of most every forum search engine I've ever used. There is a "hack" for this problem, however. The trick is to search the MSW forum using a more powerful search engine than the MSW one. The problem: For example, "drifter steam capstan," using the quotations marks to indicate the full phrase, entered in the MSW search engine yields "There were no results for your search." Entering drifter steam capstan as separate words in the MSW search engine gets you the same "no results" response. Entering "steam capstan" will get you a fair number of results for the use of the term in the forum. Entering steam capstan as separate words rather than a phrase yields three pages of results for steam, steamer, steamboat, and capstan. The hack: Go to a search engine like Google and enter a search for your terms occurring in the MSW forum in the following manner: "drifter steam capstan" + Modelshipworld Google will tell you that there's no result found for the phrase drifter steam capstan in MSW, but it will alternately provide you with "results for drifter steam capstan + Modelshiipworld" (no quotation marks.) You can review those results and, by reading their website sources, see a much more focused set of results than the MSW forum search engine provides. The first result is: The next is: From all indications, these two results are as close as one can get and quickly accessible without wading through useless results

Excellent point! It addresses a shortcoming of internet forums: Everybody has a soapbox, but some have a lot more to say than others do. Forums are like good restaurants: Once they are discovered, they often tend to begin to decline in quality. The reason there are so many highly accomplished and experienced modelers on this forum, aside from its association with the Nautical Research Guild, is because they seek out each other and the rest of us are lucky to be able to look over their shoulders. They are here and make MSW what it is because this is where they can continue to learn from those who are playing the game at their level. When a forum becomes inundated with "newbies," the "level of play" naturally drops and the "high achievers" find it increasingly less worth their while and drift off. Learning is an exercise best done with the eyes open and the mouth closed, (although in my case clearly more so of the former than the latter.) The most useful learning tool of all it the search engine. Notwithstanding that most of the forum platform software packaged search engines are disappointing in the performance when compared with stand-alone search engines such as Google and Bing, they still remain the best way to look up something specific within a given forum. Given the size and age of MSW forum, there is a very high likelihood that most any question one might encounter in the course of building a ship model, excepting really esoteric historical minutia, will have been addressed, often at length, before. It's poor internet forum manners to ask others to answer a question before having exhausted your own efforts to find the answer on your own. Don't expect others to become your "information codependents." Everybody soon tires of a forum that requires hours of wasted time "separating the fly poop from the pepper" (like that other ship modeling forum we all know.) The very basic questions "newbies" ask over and over again have all been asked before. While I encourage and welcome beginners, I must confess that I rarely am moved to devote my time to answering a question they could have found themselves using the search engine. To the original poster who bemoaned the lack of responses to his build log, and to the management of the forum which encourages "build logging" and "newbies" to the hobby (and we all should,) I express my sympathy. On the one hand, build logs are a valuable feature of the forum, if not its heart and soul, but on the other hand, the "build logger" has to understand that he is competing with all the other build logs for attention and it's a jungle out there. If you are new to the hobby and are posting the seventeenth active build log of a popular kit model, your build log isn't going to generate the same amount of interest as the scratch-built masterpiece of one of the published "Superstars of Ship Modeling." I'm not knocking kits by a long shot, but they are ship modeling's "gateway drug." There is an inevitable progression, at rates varying as to the individual, from building kits to "The Dark Side" of scratch-building. No two ways about it, there is far more to learn from following the scratch-build of a never-before- modeled prototype. Don't feel discouraged starting out. Learning to crawl is just as much an accomplishment as learning to walk.

Considering that in 1775 the beer ration was one gallon a day or eight pints, I find it hard to see how the admiral could say the half pint tot of spirits could be any worse! Then again, perhaps the beer was weak. The sailors would "prove" that their rum wasn't watered down by pouring a bit on some gunpowder and seeing if the gunpowder would still burn, which confirmed it was at least 57 percent alcohol, or, in other words, "114 Proof," which is pretty stiff stuff. They couldn't do that with beer.

Thanks for the tip! I'll pass on the premixed hide glue. Strongly agree on the drawbacks of PVA adhesives acidity, as does the National Park Service in their conservation standards. (See: https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/18-02.pdf ) I've repaired "lead bloom" issues by providing case ventilation and it seems to have worked, for the last 20 years or so, at least. At present, short of real hide glue, PVA adhesive seems to be a necessary evil. I expect minimizing PVA to small amounts used in model construction serves to minimize the problem. For that reason, I use clear shellac for stiffening lines and sail material, not thinned PVA adhesive. Case ventilation is essential and not just for lead oxidation prevention. The acid from whatever source slowly deteriorates everything, particularly fiber rigging and sail material. While on the subject of acidic outgassing and display cases, based on the professional literature, I only use UV-sheilding picture frame glass for display cases and avoid all plastics in case construction at all costs due to their potential acidic outgassing characteristics. High quality plastic glazing materials (e.g. Perspex, Plexiglas, Lucite) are reportedly inert, but I'm not taking any chances that what I'm getting is "the good stuff." (Besides, as a matter of taste, I prefer the more traditional look of a wooden or metal framed glass case.) (See: https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/08-05.pdf ; See also: https://ccaha.org/resources/selecting-materials-storage-and-display )

Yes, old fashioned hide glue is a great adhesive, but it does demand clamping and it has to be mixed and kept heated in a glue pot. It doesn't have any shelf life once it's mixed, as far as I know. I'm told it's aroma is highly disagreeable, as well. It's the gold standard for fine furniture builders and restorers, though. Interestingly, Titebond has invented what they claim is a true hide glue in premixed liquid form that does not require heating. The next time I have to pick up some glue, I plan to try it. http://www.titebond.com/product/glues/9e9995b4-08eb-4fc6-8254-c47daa20f8ed I agree completely with your conclusions regarding CA. Its shelf life can be extended if you store it in the freezer when not in use, though. I do keep some on hand for repairing broken ceramics and such, but not for model building at all. Agreed with respect to wipe-on poly, too. This may be an "opinion," but, even applied very thinly, there's no way to overcome the "plastic" look of the stuff, to my eye, at least. Perhaps that can be improved by fine sanding it out, but there's nothing I know that will duplicate the finish of real oil-based paint, varnish, or shellac that's been properly applied and, if desired, hand-rubbed with rottenstone and pumice. I don't think a lot of people have had the pleasure of running their fingertips over a hand-rubbed finish these days. (PS: In reading Titebond's product literature, it appears that use of water-based paints over hide glue may be inadvisable. See: http://www.titebond.com/App_Static/literature/glues/Crackling.pdf)

If I state something that sounds like a fact, like the percentage of wood movement, you can take it to the bank. I don't write stuff like that without checking with authoritative sources. Anything else is an opinion. As mentioned, The Wood Database on line is very complete and useful. See: https://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/dimensional-shrinkage/ The federal government's publications are very helpful. You will find just about anything you want in the out-of-print and highly collectable (an hence expensive) Wood: A Manual for Its Use as a Shipbuilding Material, by the US Navy Bureau of Ships and the US Forest Products Laboratory (1945) Fortunately, it's now available for free on line. https://books.google.com/booksid=4LosAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Also How Wood Shrinks and Swells by the US Forest Products Laboratory contains an extensive spread sheet of the shrinkage factors of every wood under the sun. https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1957/peck57a.pdf The Workshop Companion has a lot of quickly accessible information: http://workshopcompanion.com/KnowHow/Design/Nature_of_Wood/2_Wood_Movement/2_Wood_Movement.htm Note that the Workshop Companion offers a rule of thumb that if a board shows mostly flat grain on its face, you should allow for 1/4" total wood movement for every 12 inches across the grain, which "will accommodate an annual change of 8 percent moisture content, much more than is common in most areas." How much your house changes shape with changes in humidity is a function of many factors, primarily depending upon the species of wood, its grain orientation when milled, and the direction in which it is oriented in the construction matrix. The articles above will explain it all in greater detail. You are absolutely correct, though, that one of the primary observable symptoms of wood movement in a house is the doors sticking in the summer when the humidity tends to be higher.

Well it was fun while it lasted. Not to worry about "dissertations." I was once a cable teletype operator and still type about as fast as I can talk. That and the fact that my fingers aren't cemented together!

Yes, I suppose that's true. I'm probably showing my age. I'm an old school boat painter. I can't remember when a can of boiled linseed oil and a can of turps weren't staples on my shop's paint shelves. Polyurethane is always "in stock," too, as is its thinner. All I've ever used polyurethane for has been indoor furniture table tops that are going to take a beating. For my purposes, in many applications, the newer synthetics' disadvantages outweigh their advantages. My own personal approach with models is to use professional-standard archival materials to the greatest extent possible. As unlikely as it may be, I like to think that if one of my models happened to survive for a couple of hundred years, some museum restorer would thank me for using reversible natural coatings instead of something plastic that was irreversible. I realize that for many, that's not a consideration at all. The much more likely outcome in my case is that I'll botch something and have to do it over and be glad i didn't use a permanent coating or adhesive!

Well, I think the main reason people don't add "in my opinion" disclaimers to their answers to direct questions is because they realize nobody's much interested in anybody else's opinion. Facts, yes. Opinions, no. Everybody already has opinions. They don't need any more. If somebody disagrees with someone else's statement of fact, they are free to offer evidence to the contrary, and should. That's the problem with the internet. Any fool can pontificate about anything they know nothing about and most do. (Can you say, "herd immunity?") For example: 1. "CA is the best choice for planking a hull using Chuck’s method." That's an opinion. It needs facts to back it up. The majority of people who've used CA are adverse to its use for many sound reasons beginning with the difficulty of working with it, the fact that it soaks into wood and affects subsequent finishing results, it is not a recognized archival material, has a relatively short "working time" before it sets up, is much more difficult to un-bond than PVA, has a relatively short shelf life and a relatively high price, and so on. Your mileage may vary. At the end of the day, "best practices" dictate that all parts of a model to the extent possible should be mechanically fastened, not just glued, anyway. 2. "I have models over 25 years old done with CA that are just fine and look great." The fact that you have models done with CA that are over 25 years old is a fact. That they are just fine and look great is an opinion, or, at best, an unproven fact. It's too early to call. Let us know how they are holding up in another 75 years. The "industry standard" is a model that properly cared for should last 100 years without exhibiting any deterioration. At present, CA hasn't been around long enough to know if it lasts that well. 3. "I don’t think any well built ship model survives dropping to the floor, it’s best not to do that." Now, that's a fact. Don't ask me how I know this. 3. (Again) "Edge gluing is not only totally unnecessary it’s also detrimental to the look of the hull." That's a fact, not an opinion. 4. "I doubt the humidity variance in most first world homes creates an issue." Whether it does or doesn't depends upon many variables in every instance, but "first world homes" isn't one of them. It's a fact that humidity is a factor to be considered in any fine woodworking. Frolich addresses a substantial problem he encountered with wood shrinkage in his fine book, The Art of Ship Modeling. One ignores it at their peril. It's sort of like Covid in that respect. 5. I’ll put up my nine models as examples of using CA for hulls any time." Not to worry. I don't think anybody doubts you built them with CA adhesive and they are still sticking together. See No. 2. above. Many don't offer what they have to say as "just their opinion" because they have little interest in expressing their opinions. They are only interested in sharing what they know to be true. If somebody prefers to offer opinions, they should go to FaceBook. Preferences are largely irrelevant. There's a right way and a wrong way to do most things, and then there are "preferences," which, more often than not are just excuses for doing it the wrong way. My wife insists that loading a toilet paper roll so the paper end hangs down the back of the roll, between the roll and the wall, instead of off the front of the roll like you've probably seen in every hotel you've ever been in, is her "preference." She was not convinced when I showed her the original patent for the toilet paper roll which clearly shows the roll coming off the front and not the back. That's obviously the way it's supposed to work. So, she has her own "preference," and i have my own bathroom.

I've been keeping my powder dry, but now that It's been said before, I'll pile on. Start simple. Those who provide you with such advice usually have decades of highly involved interest in ship modeling and all have the experience to verify that modeling is a craft, and indeed an art, in which one's skill and ability always increases in the doing of it. This forum is probably the premier ship-modeling forum in the world. There are some amazing artists and craftsmen posting build logs here and the concentration of master modelers in this forum may mislead the beginner into thinking such work is the norm. Their work certainly isn't commonplace and it definitely isn't easy. Others certainly have more experience with kits than I do, but I am familiar with what has hit the market in close to the last fifty years and I feel confident in saying that I know of no kit model of any fully-rigged Seventeenth Century vessel of the type you are contemplating that I would consider suitable for any but the most highly-experienced kit-builder to undertake. I know there are those who have done so and succeeded to one degree or another, but they are rare exceptions indeed. A beginning modeler is well-advised to select a kit suitable for beginners. These less complex kits are capable of producing every bit as elegant a model when done well as are the "monster" kits. I wouldn't advise a beginner to attempt to build any planked kit other than the high quality ones of recent vintage which provide laser-cut planks. A beginner has enough of a learning curve to deal with besides doing their own lining off and spiling the shapes of the planks and, it should also be mentioned that the shape of a hull in large measure determines the difficulty involved in planking it. A transom-sterned longboat is much easier to plank than an apple-bowed and counter-sterned warship. The beginner is also well-advised to steer clear of square-rigged vessels until they have two or three fore-and-aft-rigged kits under their belt. The increase in the complexity of square rig is exponential. The way to success is first "Do the common thing uncommonly well." Read up as much as possible on any specific kit you are considering. This forum has extensive kit review data available. Be aware that many kits are wholly incapable of producing model in the color glossy picture on its box's cover. That model was built by a highly experienced modeler who almost certainly did not limit themselves to the parts and materials contained in the kit and honest kit manufacturers will disclose that in the fine print somewhere. Most experienced kit modelers who have not "gone over to the dark side" and abandoned kits entirely routinely at least replace all the kit-supplied planking wood and rigging blocks and line because they are simply not up to their standards. (The after-market for such materials and fittings is testimony to the shortcomings of many kits!) A last bit of advice to a beginning kit builder is to select a kit that has been well-covered in the build logs section of this forum. They will provide a very valuable source of instruction as a new builder builds the same kit. Others' mistakes can be almost as instructional as our own! You don't have to re-invent the wheel. While I doubt there's any reliable data available on the subject, I believe most experienced modelers would agree that the percentage of kit models completed is but a small fraction of those purchased, which is pretty remarkable considering the price of many of the more complex kits. There's no point in encouraging the undertaking of a project which is beyond the abilities of the builder. The whole point of the exercise is to enjoy doing it. If you want to get an idea of what a top of the line kit suitable for a "determined beginner's," first and second builds, I'd recommend you check these two out. Their entire "how to build it" monographs are accessible from their websites. The longboat also has a "group build" project posted on this forum and linked from the webpage. https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/medway-longboat-1742.php https://syrenshipmodelcompany.com/revenue-cutter-cheerful-1806.php#

Most of these conundrums go by the boards once one becomes familiar with how wooden ships really appear. If one can't spend a lifetime on the waterfront, spending as much time as possible studying really great models in the better maritime museums is highly advisable, as is collecting as many books on the subject as one might have room for. The object of modeling is to create a convincing impression of the subject in miniature. If it doesn't look right, it isn't right. The trick is developing a trained eye for what a subject should look like at scale. The concept of scale viewing distance is important and often is overlooked. Scale viewing distance is best determined by asking, "If I were standing as far away from the real ship as would be necessary to make the real ship appear as small as the model, what details on the real ship would be visible? The most frequent mistake made seems to be models which have out of scale details that would not be visible at scale viewing distance. The biggest offenders seem to be copper plating tacks, deck planking seams, planking trunnels, rigging diameters, and most anything having to do with details on sails. If the model's scale viewing distance is seventy-five or a hundred yards, you certainly aren't going to be seeing much more than the most subtle hints of seams and roping on sails and certainly not individual coppering tacks. Reproducing the mere suggestion of those subtle details, where they are barely visible at scale viewing distance, is really where the modeler's artistic skills come into play and, generally, "less is more." If visualization isn't one's strong suit, a good rule of thumb is that at 1:96 scale (1/8" = foot) any detail larger than one foot in size on the real vessel should be reproduced on the model and any less than one foot in size on the real vessel should be seriously considered for omission entirely if they cannot be reproduced accurately to scale. Similarly, on a 1:48 (1/4"=foot) scale model, details less than six inches in size should be omitted if they can't be reproduced to exact scale.

Just as a general observation, if one has problems with "gap filling" in their planking, that's God's way of telling you that you need to work on your planking skills. Now, I know we've all had a painted hull that we've slapped some filler on here or there, but the object of the game is to avoid the need to do that. Given present-day planking techniques, such as Chuck Passaro's "edge-setting" heat bending method, and a reasonable amount of care, there should be no reason why plank seams shouldn't be tight over their entire length. For that same reason, there should be no reason to "double plank" a hull. (Unless, of course, you're doing an "as built" model of a prototype double-planked hull.) Double planking was a kit manufacturers' gimmick to sell more models and not have to invest in expensive solid-hull carving machinery, IMHO. Today, I would urge any beginning modeler to first plank a kit model that has laser cut planks that are certain to fit before they tackle planking a model that requires its planks to be spiled and got out of whole stock. Tackling something like one of Syren Ship Models' longboat models as a first effort is much wiser than tackling a Seventeenth Century plank on bulkhead ship of the line! See:

Application of penetrating epoxy sealer will retard the speed at which moisture is absorbed and will repel water soaking, but epoxy coatings are all moisture-permeable, contrary to common belief. There are many reasons why one hull might crack and another not, so I'd hesitate to certainly ascribe the lack of cracking to the epoxy. I'm not a fan of edge-gluing planking in any way because if there is going to be significant movement, and if the adhesive is any good at all, the wood will break before the glue line does. According to scientific testing, one of the best moisture barriers available for application to wood is thin shellac (one or two pound cut.) It is very nearly moisture impermeable. It also soaks into soft wood species, hardening their surfaces and makes it possible to sand them very smooth without any "fuzzing." I make it a practice to coat all bare wood with thin clear shellac. It makes an excellent base for paint and also makes an excellent sealer for wood which is not painted. It should be added that glue alone should not be relied upon if one expects a model to last well. Every pieced joined to another should be mechanically fastened, If one is interested in ensuring an archival-quality result, planks should be mechanically fastened with glued-in scale trunnels or wire pins. See: https://thenrg.org/resource/articles/specifications-for-construction

Yes. I would not advise using CA adhesives at all, although there are a few applications for it when nothing else will do. One big advantage of PVA adhesives is that they can be softened and "unstuck" with isopropyl alcohol.

The good Mr. Mastini's book is a good enough primer for beginning builders of boat model kits, but it has its limitations, as do most of the kits on the market, with a few notable exceptions. Mastini's book is a good book for beginning kit builders, but a lot has changed in kits since it was written. At that time, double planked model hulls were quite popular. That is not as much the case with the better kits these days which benefit greatly from laser cutting technology. (And, for openers, planking a double-planked hull requires twice the work!)

Yes, pumps. It is common for a carvel or lapstrake planked hull to dry out when a boat is out of the water and dries out. Depending upon how much the planking is opened, the boat can be launched and pumped for a few days or weeks until it "takes up," or it can be left "in the slings" if launched with a crane or travel lift or "on the stocks" if dry docked to prevent if from sinking if there is concern that the amount of leaking is more than the pumps can handle. Another practice is to put soft soap into the seams with a putty knife to stop or at least slow the leaking. As the planks expand when the boat is launched, they "spit" the soft soap from the seams and is eventually dissolves. In the age of sail, it was a regular practice to tow a ship's boats astern every so often, or in anticipation of making port, so that they would swell up and not leak unduly when it was time to use them. It may surprise the uninitiated, but a dry bilge is something of a rarity in wooden hulls and even in metal and fiberglass hulls, as water always seems to find a way somehow. Generally, most prop shaft bearings will leak a little bit as the shaft turns, if nothing else.

Ooops! My bad! So sorry about that, Allan. I thought those Model Expo boxed bit sets were the same bits they sell in the tubes of five by size. There was some discussion later in the thread about problems we had getting the wrong bits in the tubes and how they promptly made good on that PIA. I'm a big proponent of buying the best tool once instead of the cheap tool you have to buy twice. I should have known better. I've found the bits I bought from Model Expo in the tubes of five by individual sizes adequate for wood and soft metals but I wasn't expecting them to be suitable for precision machining. It's no surprise the pin vise wasn't "Starrett quality," but it should have at least been suitable for all of the bits in the boxed series. Another example of the "China Syndrome," no doubt and another reason to steer clear of "hobby" tool catalogs.

One should carefully consider the downside risks of gluing planking seams, whether by application of adhesive to the seams, or by coating the inside of a hull with epoxy resin adhesive which soaks into the seams from inside. As noted correctly, wood moves with changes in the ambient humidity levels of the environment it's in. This movement is primarily across the grain and its amount varies depending upon the wood species and, within the same species, even the location where the wood is grown. This is called tangential movement. Most woods will shrink tangentially six to ten percent when dried and will swell back depending upon the moisture content absorbed. The amount of movement is relatively small, assuming properly dried wood being used to begin with, but can still be considerable if the distance you are dealing with is relatively large. So, if you are building a model using vertical grain stock, as one should, the tangential (cross grain) side of its planked hull can easily total six inches. That's six inches of grain to shrink tangentially and even at a rate of movement of one percent, you are getting close to a sixteenth of an inch, which would be a quite noticeable crack in a model's topsides. If the planks are not fastened to each other, each will shrink individually and if you have maybe 24 1/4" planks, that shrinkage will only amount to 1/24th of a sixteenth of an inch. (You can do the math to get an exact fraction... a good example of the advantages of metric measurements!) That amount of movement isn't going to be noticeable at all and most coatings will allow for such movement without cracking at the seams. However, if the seams are all glued together, they all move as one, and the "weakest link law" takes over. In that case, a sixteenth of an inch crack along the weakest glued seam... or a crack in the wood itself... is going to occur at the weakest point. Conversely, swelling will push the glued sheet of planking for that sixteenth of an inch against everything it butts up against, again potentially causing a structural failure at the weakest point, or tend to buckle the "planking sheet" outward, breaking the glue bonds... or the wood... at the frames. Now, with prime wood species which have low movement factors and with relatively stable humidity, you may not run into any problems at all, but theoretically, the potential is there and I've seen its results in more than one model I've restored. More often than not, parts, cap rails, for example, start popping off and nobody knows why. Monocoque wood hull construction is tricky. For my money, I prefer to give the wood as much opportunity to move on its own as possible without concentrating swelling and shrinking stresses within the structure. Others' mileage may vary, of course.