Bob Cleek

The sails are simply spectacular!
 

Just to perhaps encourage those who are discouraged by the availability of the "perfect" modeling wood, may I suggest that there really are few candidates for that prize, and correspondingly hard to find and expensive. Below are some woods I'd nominate as candidates for modeling purposes. Some are primarily carving wood species good for carving and turning. Others perhaps more suitable for planking stock and larger parts. All are woods I've come across, often in abundance, in dumps and municipal woodpiles and free for the taking. Some are native California species, while others are invasive exotics, agricultural species, or ornamentals. Few are commercially available, usually because they are not large trees and because there is little market for them. A modeler with the resources to snag a few pieces, or more, should find some of them quite interesting to play with. Wood that has no visible grain is something of a "unicorn," but it must be remembered that there is in many species a wide variation in their color and figuring. As color and figuring is highly desired by furniture makers, the un--figured and lighter colored specimens are often much less expensive when available in a retail environment, while also often much more available in "the wild," as milling the plain specimens isn't as profitable as is milling highly figured stock. While it seems that building models of bright (natural finish) wood is greatly in vogue these days, it bears noting that when one isn't constrained by color-matching featureless bright wood, painting opens up many wood species which are as well-suited for modeling as any, save their natural appearance. 
 
It really costs nothing to experiment. Most city corporation yards will permit "picking" by turners and woodworkers, or even simply by those looking for firewood. There's always the big bay laurel than came down across a road in the last winter storm and the road crew bucked up to clear the road, or street ornamentals that were pruned or removed for one reason or another. Making friends with your local tree service is worthwhile. You never know when somebody decides to cut down that old holly tree in their backyard or to remove a dead birch tree.
 
Common Name(s): Myrtle, Oregon Myrtle, California Bay Laurel, Pepperwood
Scientific Name: Umbellularia californica
Distribution: Coastal regions of southwest Oregon and central California
 
Note: Quite large old specimens found commonly on creek banks. Windfalls are common.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/myrtle/
 
 
Common Name(s): Olive
Scientific Name: Olea spp. (Olea europaea, O. capensis)
Distribution: Europe and eastern Africa
 
Note: Olive trees are more valued for their fruit than for their wood, so it's rare to find for sale. Wood is available from orchard culls and removed ornamentals.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/olive/
 
Common Name(s): Sweetgum, Redgum, Sapgum, satin walnut
Scientific Name: Liquidambar styraciflua
Distribution: Southeastern United States
 
Note: Photo below is of heartwood. Wide sapwood is near-"white," through butterscotch color, similar to pear wood without significant figuring and sold as "satin walnut." Photo below is of heartwood, sometimes marketed as "redgum."
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/
 
Common Name(s): Paper Birch
Scientific Name: Betula papyrifera
Distribution: Northern and central North America
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/paper-birch/
 
 
Common Name(s): Persimmon, White Ebony
Scientific Name: Diospyros virginiana
Distribution: Eastern United States
 
(Note: Related to true ebony. This is a carving wood, used to make golf driver club heads.)
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/persimmon/
 
 
Ligustrum lucidum
Photo courtesy UC Davis Weeds of California Synonyms: Esquirolia sinensis; Ligustrum compactum var. latifolium; Ligustrum esquirolii
Common names: glossy privet; broad-leaved privet; tree privet
Ligustrum lucidum (glossy privet) is a shrub/tree (family Oleaceae) with white flowers and shiny oval-shaped leaves found in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento Valley, coastal ranges and southwestern ranges of California. It is native to China, Japan and Korea. Fast growing, but not large diameter trunks. Similar to boxwood. Listed as an invasive ornamental species. (Leaves and berries are poisonous.)
 

 
https://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/profile/ligustrum-lucidum-profile/
 
Common Name(s): Pistachio
Scientific Name: Pistacia vera
Distribution: Native to Iran, also cultivated in the 
Mediterranean and Middle East regions, and California
 
Note: Nuts more valuable than fruit. Available as windfall, culls, and prunings from commercial orchards. Suitable for carving and turning small pieces.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/pistachio/
 
Common Name(s): Holly, American Holly
Scientific Name: Ilex opaca
Distribution: Eastern United States
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/holly/
 
 
 
 
 

Fantastic work, Doris.  Certainly the best model sails I have seen.
 
Ed

One caveat here... In US, many times the planks were a lot longer as the wood supply was closer to the yards.  In France, the wood was moved to the yard by river so again.. many times the planks are longer than the English.

The supposition that nothing is known about Sea Witch is totally false.
These ships were not subjects for mass production and keeping secrete a new and successful design was not done.  John W. Griffiths was all about reputation and accolades about his skill as a naval architect. To quote Chapelle  in SSUS:
"Sea Witch is the only named clipper ship whose offsets he published, and her lines and sail plan are one of three designs of his clippers that he retained.  These are now in the Museum of History and Technology...."
HIC drafted these plans for publication. Copies of these plan are available for purchase from S.I.   The Mariner's also sells plans from a different draftsman that are not near as good.
There is a serious question about the location of the bowsprit relative to the foredeck.  There is a paper that explores this in the NRJ.  No citation, and I am not sure whether it is CD 1 or CD 2.  Anyone serious about this field, should either own both CDs or have the physical volumes.  I go with the new ideas presented in the paper.
 
The facts about what constitutes a valid historically important model as opposed to being decoration are inconvenient and uncomfortable.  For most kits, being the former is not realistic.  But when scratch building a subject that does not otherwise exist, it is important not to mislead posterity. It should be clear where speculation, reconstruction and fantasy are used.  Specious hyperbole will not refute this.

My two cents worth:
 
This topic was widely discussed in the NRJ back in the ‘70’s when a modeler living in Chicago named Jack Kertzow (sp?) began investigating locally harvested woods.  He later moved to Florida where he explored the different woods available there.  He published a series of articles in the Journal that have been reproduced in Volume 1 of the Guild’s Shop Notes.  Support the Guild!  Buy a copy if you have not already done so.
 
I was interested to see Buckthorn listed on the post about August Crabtree’s models.  Here in Minnesota, the state is on a campaign to get rid of this invasive species planted years ago as an ornamental.  It is more like a large bush than a tree.  It spreads like crazy and grows quickly.  There is a supply growing in the woods behind my house.  I cut a piece that has been drying in my basement.  I’ll have to see what it looks like.  
 
Another unlkely candidate from a quick growing shrub  might be Lilac.  It appears to be a white, hard wood.  The last time I had my Lilac bushes cut down, I saved the larger cuttings, also drying.  Like Buckthorn, they are not likely to yield large pieces but might be good for carvers.
 
Roger

Don Case asked is there some basic rules? Here are some to begin:
 
The quest to find the most suitable wood is a story which can last many years. The first step is visual. If we divide in 2 groups painted or unpainted model. If you choose unpainted model, then the wood grain is more important.
 
You look the wood species available and you try some.  The word available is important.  Apple wood has a nice scaled down grain, the color is perfect but It is not the most stable wood. Unless I know the owner of an orchard, it is probable that supplies will be ... absent.  Then the price, ideally it should be a local wood, in the way that the price will be reasonable.
 
Once you have chosen a wood grain which would look good at scale, you have to test the properties of that wood and at the end, you will keep this wood in your list or not. Examples of what kind of properties you want to verify: workability and easy to sand ( the worst 2 woods that I tried are maple, it is much longer to sand and bloodwood, if you try to go too fast, it burns and makes the sanding paper dirty), stability, especially for all the framing. Staining, some wood are easily stainable others are not.

Here there are two types. 
 
Black Locust - I think it is a legume and is able to grow in poor soil. I had some in my fence row. The seed pods resemble 5x large butter bean pods. If lawn litter is an issue, you do not want one.  One Spring I was in the parking lot at Shakertown, and there were closely planted rows of Black Locust in bloom.  Their perfume was bliss.  The wood is resistant to rot due to ground moisture or termites - fence posts.  As a wood for ship models, it is not very desirable.
 
Honey Locust - I have a minor supply from a dealer in wood for smoking meat.  I think it has great promise for frames and such, but I did not score enough and the supplier was defeated by the economics and could not sustain the business.
 
Hully is a superb wood for modeling. Hard, tight, almost no grain and has no peer at bending.  The commercial supply is very white.  This requires extraordinary effort to maintain when the wood is harvested, the tree is not large so it comes at a high price and is generally in short supply.  
Old time writers mentioned decks being holystoned white.  This was poetic exaggeration. No tree that is used for decking has white wood.  But it is a modelers convention to use Holly for decks for some of us.  Holly is prone to infection by Blue Mold.  It invades quickly when the tree is cut. It turns the wood grey or light blue. The wood is just as sound as the white wood, but infected wood is not sold.  The infected wood would probably make for a more realistic deck color.  I scored a supply from a strain of Holly that has yellow wood. I am happy with it.  My cousin, who supplied it, has a tree farm, but there is no market for yellow Holly.   Holly takes a dye very well.  Dyed black, it should rival Ebony.  It bends better and does not generate the awful sawdust.   With the right shade of dye, it can be any color desired.
 
My cousin also sees it as a problem that Sweet Gum is wide spread and prolific on his land.  It is considered little better than pallet wood as far as how much he can get for it.  He had none cut to let me try.

On the other hand, if they do a lot of business supplying the professional model making companies, as I believe they do, it may be that they can't be bothered dealing with "the riff raff" and really aren't looking to be selling to the same hobbyist market segment as, say, MicroMark or ModelExpo. I believe they have a well-established customer base with outfits like those that build architectural models and things like that. It's still a mystery how they survive in this day and age. 

I concur entirely with your evaluation of the options. I bought a new Horror Fright mini-saw as you described years ago. Fortunately, I got it with one of their coupons, so I don't think it cost me more than $25 at the time. It's still in the box, used once to see what it could do, and never touched again. Gutless and totally lacking in the accuracy needed for modeling. Totally useless for ripping strips.
 
Ahem, ... well, ... yeah, .... I know nobody ever wants to hear, "I told you so." and i didn't, so I won't, but I sure wish I had the opportunity to do so before you bought the used Dremel you've got now. I agree with your assessment that it's "second best," albeit by a long, long ways far behind the Byrnes saw. I also agree that at less than $200 used, it's probably better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and surely better than no saw at all.
 
That said, as you note, it can't hold a candle to the Byrnes saw, which, by the way, now offers a really snazzy super-accurate sliding table (cross-cut miter sled) which probably doubles its usefulness and accuracy on repetitive cross-cuts, particularly mitered ones, as an optional extra for around $135. I had never seen the "guts' of a Dremel table saw. What's remarkable in comparison to the Byrnes saw is 1.) The motor is about a third the size of the Byrnes saw. 2.)) The "mechanics" are nowhere near as "beefy" as the machined aluminum plate mechanism of the Byrnes, and 3.) there's no provision for effective dust collection (or parts of it have been removed.) Hooked up to a shop-vac, the Byrnes saw leaves virtually zero dust!
 
On the plus side, if, and only if you ever have a use for it, the Dremel does have blade-tilting capability and since the Dremel was once upon a time the best available, it still has a decent reputation among the general consumer population and half-way decent resale value if you can find somebody like yourself, which you probably can.
 
I agonized for years over whether I could justify treating myself to a Byrnes saw. It wasn't that I didn't have the money, but rather whether I could justify spending it on a "toy" for my "hobby." That didn't have anything to do with the machine. It was just my own sicko "psychology." Ultimately, I had the opportunity to buy a barely-used like-new Byrnes saw from an unfortunate RC airplane builder who had serious health problems that caused him to abandon his RC airplane hobby entirely. He also was selling a Byrnes disk sander and a Byrnes thickness sander, similarly like-new, and he was asking half of their list price exclusive of shipping. He was "local" and shipping wasn't a consideration for me. I took a deep breath and "pulled the trigger" on all three. I've never regretted it for a moment and I derive pleasure from them every day, even just by looking at them sitting there in my shop.
 
I won't tell you, "I told you so." but I'll say this:
 
Your Dremel saw will make you feel even better when you eventually get a Byrnes saw. The hungrier you are, the better food always tastes. 
 
In the meantime, you can get some practical use out of the Dremel saw and have fun trying to tweak it to perform better.
 
You can always keep the Dremel for its blade-tilting feature, so you don't have to ever feel "buyer's remorse." The only thing cooler than having a Byrnes saw is also having a Dremel just for making angled ripping cuts!
 
You can probably get back most of what you paid for the Dremel, maybe even more, if you resell it. (The same is true of the Byrnes saw when your dearly beloved pries it from your cold dead fingers. except that she'll have a lot easier job of selling the Byrnes than the Dremel.)
 
No question, the Byrnes saw is a costly piece of precision machinery, relatively speaking, but think of it this way, if you're $100 shy of affording one, all you have to do is find a way to set aside a buck a day and in about three months you'll have that hundred bucks. We're talking about throwing your pocket change in a Mason jar at the end of the day here. It's not going to change your life. Heck, if you're really in a hurry, start bringing a sandwich from home for lunch every day and skip buying your lunch every day and you'll have the full price in a less than three months. (Ha! And this is me giving you advice, the guy who couldn't bring himself to spend it for years even when he had it!) 
 
Thanks for the pics of the Dremel. Please do keep us apprised of your experiences with it!
 
 

Just to perhaps encourage those who are discouraged by the availability of the "perfect" modeling wood, may I suggest that there really are few candidates for that prize, and correspondingly hard to find and expensive. Below are some woods I'd nominate as candidates for modeling purposes. Some are primarily carving wood species good for carving and turning. Others perhaps more suitable for planking stock and larger parts. All are woods I've come across, often in abundance, in dumps and municipal woodpiles and free for the taking. Some are native California species, while others are invasive exotics, agricultural species, or ornamentals. Few are commercially available, usually because they are not large trees and because there is little market for them. A modeler with the resources to snag a few pieces, or more, should find some of them quite interesting to play with. Wood that has no visible grain is something of a "unicorn," but it must be remembered that there is in many species a wide variation in their color and figuring. As color and figuring is highly desired by furniture makers, the un--figured and lighter colored specimens are often much less expensive when available in a retail environment, while also often much more available in "the wild," as milling the plain specimens isn't as profitable as is milling highly figured stock. While it seems that building models of bright (natural finish) wood is greatly in vogue these days, it bears noting that when one isn't constrained by color-matching featureless bright wood, painting opens up many wood species which are as well-suited for modeling as any, save their natural appearance. 
 
It really costs nothing to experiment. Most city corporation yards will permit "picking" by turners and woodworkers, or even simply by those looking for firewood. There's always the big bay laurel than came down across a road in the last winter storm and the road crew bucked up to clear the road, or street ornamentals that were pruned or removed for one reason or another. Making friends with your local tree service is worthwhile. You never know when somebody decides to cut down that old holly tree in their backyard or to remove a dead birch tree.
 
Common Name(s): Myrtle, Oregon Myrtle, California Bay Laurel, Pepperwood
Scientific Name: Umbellularia californica
Distribution: Coastal regions of southwest Oregon and central California
 
Note: Quite large old specimens found commonly on creek banks. Windfalls are common.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/myrtle/
 
 
Common Name(s): Olive
Scientific Name: Olea spp. (Olea europaea, O. capensis)
Distribution: Europe and eastern Africa
 
Note: Olive trees are more valued for their fruit than for their wood, so it's rare to find for sale. Wood is available from orchard culls and removed ornamentals.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/olive/
 
Common Name(s): Sweetgum, Redgum, Sapgum, satin walnut
Scientific Name: Liquidambar styraciflua
Distribution: Southeastern United States
 
Note: Photo below is of heartwood. Wide sapwood is near-"white," through butterscotch color, similar to pear wood without significant figuring and sold as "satin walnut." Photo below is of heartwood, sometimes marketed as "redgum."
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/
 
Common Name(s): Paper Birch
Scientific Name: Betula papyrifera
Distribution: Northern and central North America
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/paper-birch/
 
 
Common Name(s): Persimmon, White Ebony
Scientific Name: Diospyros virginiana
Distribution: Eastern United States
 
(Note: Related to true ebony. This is a carving wood, used to make golf driver club heads.)
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/persimmon/
 
 
Ligustrum lucidum
Photo courtesy UC Davis Weeds of California Synonyms: Esquirolia sinensis; Ligustrum compactum var. latifolium; Ligustrum esquirolii
Common names: glossy privet; broad-leaved privet; tree privet
Ligustrum lucidum (glossy privet) is a shrub/tree (family Oleaceae) with white flowers and shiny oval-shaped leaves found in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento Valley, coastal ranges and southwestern ranges of California. It is native to China, Japan and Korea. Fast growing, but not large diameter trunks. Similar to boxwood. Listed as an invasive ornamental species. (Leaves and berries are poisonous.)
 

 
https://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/profile/ligustrum-lucidum-profile/
 
Common Name(s): Pistachio
Scientific Name: Pistacia vera
Distribution: Native to Iran, also cultivated in the 
Mediterranean and Middle East regions, and California
 
Note: Nuts more valuable than fruit. Available as windfall, culls, and prunings from commercial orchards. Suitable for carving and turning small pieces.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/pistachio/
 
Common Name(s): Holly, American Holly
Scientific Name: Ilex opaca
Distribution: Eastern United States
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/holly/
 
 
 
 
 

Just to perhaps encourage those who are discouraged by the availability of the "perfect" modeling wood, may I suggest that there really are few candidates for that prize, and correspondingly hard to find and expensive. Below are some woods I'd nominate as candidates for modeling purposes. Some are primarily carving wood species good for carving and turning. Others perhaps more suitable for planking stock and larger parts. All are woods I've come across, often in abundance, in dumps and municipal woodpiles and free for the taking. Some are native California species, while others are invasive exotics, agricultural species, or ornamentals. Few are commercially available, usually because they are not large trees and because there is little market for them. A modeler with the resources to snag a few pieces, or more, should find some of them quite interesting to play with. Wood that has no visible grain is something of a "unicorn," but it must be remembered that there is in many species a wide variation in their color and figuring. As color and figuring is highly desired by furniture makers, the un--figured and lighter colored specimens are often much less expensive when available in a retail environment, while also often much more available in "the wild," as milling the plain specimens isn't as profitable as is milling highly figured stock. While it seems that building models of bright (natural finish) wood is greatly in vogue these days, it bears noting that when one isn't constrained by color-matching featureless bright wood, painting opens up many wood species which are as well-suited for modeling as any, save their natural appearance. 
 
It really costs nothing to experiment. Most city corporation yards will permit "picking" by turners and woodworkers, or even simply by those looking for firewood. There's always the big bay laurel than came down across a road in the last winter storm and the road crew bucked up to clear the road, or street ornamentals that were pruned or removed for one reason or another. Making friends with your local tree service is worthwhile. You never know when somebody decides to cut down that old holly tree in their backyard or to remove a dead birch tree.
 
Common Name(s): Myrtle, Oregon Myrtle, California Bay Laurel, Pepperwood
Scientific Name: Umbellularia californica
Distribution: Coastal regions of southwest Oregon and central California
 
Note: Quite large old specimens found commonly on creek banks. Windfalls are common.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/myrtle/
 
 
Common Name(s): Olive
Scientific Name: Olea spp. (Olea europaea, O. capensis)
Distribution: Europe and eastern Africa
 
Note: Olive trees are more valued for their fruit than for their wood, so it's rare to find for sale. Wood is available from orchard culls and removed ornamentals.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/olive/
 
Common Name(s): Sweetgum, Redgum, Sapgum, satin walnut
Scientific Name: Liquidambar styraciflua
Distribution: Southeastern United States
 
Note: Photo below is of heartwood. Wide sapwood is near-"white," through butterscotch color, similar to pear wood without significant figuring and sold as "satin walnut." Photo below is of heartwood, sometimes marketed as "redgum."
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/sweetgum/
 
Common Name(s): Paper Birch
Scientific Name: Betula papyrifera
Distribution: Northern and central North America
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/paper-birch/
 
 
Common Name(s): Persimmon, White Ebony
Scientific Name: Diospyros virginiana
Distribution: Eastern United States
 
(Note: Related to true ebony. This is a carving wood, used to make golf driver club heads.)
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/persimmon/
 
 
Ligustrum lucidum
Photo courtesy UC Davis Weeds of California Synonyms: Esquirolia sinensis; Ligustrum compactum var. latifolium; Ligustrum esquirolii
Common names: glossy privet; broad-leaved privet; tree privet
Ligustrum lucidum (glossy privet) is a shrub/tree (family Oleaceae) with white flowers and shiny oval-shaped leaves found in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento Valley, coastal ranges and southwestern ranges of California. It is native to China, Japan and Korea. Fast growing, but not large diameter trunks. Similar to boxwood. Listed as an invasive ornamental species. (Leaves and berries are poisonous.)
 

 
https://www.cal-ipc.org/plants/profile/ligustrum-lucidum-profile/
 
Common Name(s): Pistachio
Scientific Name: Pistacia vera
Distribution: Native to Iran, also cultivated in the 
Mediterranean and Middle East regions, and California
 
Note: Nuts more valuable than fruit. Available as windfall, culls, and prunings from commercial orchards. Suitable for carving and turning small pieces.
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/pistachio/
 
Common Name(s): Holly, American Holly
Scientific Name: Ilex opaca
Distribution: Eastern United States
 

 
https://www.wood-database.com/holly/
 
 
 
 
 

The simple answer is "as long as possible, without unnecessarily wasting wood," which is why you won't see it written down anywhere. The narrower the planks, the higher the quality of the build, so maximum width will sometimes be specified in the scantlings. Deck planks, being straight, tend to be longer. Hull planks, less so, because, depending upon their shapes, they can require wider stock proportionate to the width of a given plank. Other limitations are the species of wood, i.e. what stock can be gotten out of a tree in the first place, and how difficult it is to transport from the tree to the shipyard. The shipwright picks each piece carefully to achieve economy in the use of what's available. As Jaager notes, a plank much longer than around 25' would be somewhat unusual. 

This is a bit of data that does not seem to rate being written down, back in the day.
 
One solid number is from the Warren and Falmouth contract in HASN.  The decks were to be Southern Yellow Pine and 40 feet long by 10" max wide.
This is not just any sort of Pine.  It is now near extinct and certainly nowhere near the size then. It was hard enough to turn nails.  I suspect that it was a species with a short term availability resource that steam powered saws getting to GA and SC made practical.  So 40' for decking = the outside upper limit and probably a lot shorter for most other times and other places.
 
For hull planking,  I use 20-25 feet for length.  That seems to be a sort of consensus here.  I can provide no reference and I did not originate it.
Now, if the choice is a short section near the bow or stern ..or middle to complete a strake, or fudge the length and go a bit longer, I vote cheat on the length.

Then that's it! I'm not "CAD literate," but as an old time pen and ink draftsman, I'm certain that trusting your "eye" to judge fit and fairness of the build is the surest guarantee of a good outcome. I've never seen a wooden boat builder who didn't follow the maxim, "build to the boat and not to the plans." There are so many curves and variables to the parts of a vessel and opportunities for compounding errors of measurement, it's a very difficult thing to reduce them all to dimensions having the accuracy tolerances that mimic the "interchangeable parts" processes of modern mass production. It makes perfect sense in theory, but never seems to work in practice with a "one off" build. 

On the other hand, if they do a lot of business supplying the professional model making companies, as I believe they do, it may be that they can't be bothered dealing with "the riff raff" and really aren't looking to be selling to the same hobbyist market segment as, say, MicroMark or ModelExpo. I believe they have a well-established customer base with outfits like those that build architectural models and things like that. It's still a mystery how they survive in this day and age. 

You should find that information in any good book on wooden ship and boat building. There are several well-known "scantling rules" which lay out standards for construction. I'm sure the warship modelers can tell you exactly when such particular rules were laid down by the British Admiralty and which were in effect at different times. (Called "Establishments" and designated by date, e.g. The 1706 Establishment or the 1716 Establishment, these rules set the "ratings" for the various sizes of Royal Navy ships, together with minimum standards for their construction and quality of materials, e.g. how many scarfs were permitted in the keel of a First Rate ship and so on down the line.)  The French Navy had their own scantling rules. (Uniquely, the French combined treenails and iron fastenings, but that's about as far as my own knowledge of that subject goes when it comes to warships.) Planking schedules and rules for the placement of plank butts are commonplace. In the small craft area, Lloyd's of London has "Lloyd's Rules." Europe has Det Norske Veritas' ("DNV") Rules. In America, Herreshoff's scantling rules, Skene's Rules, MacNaughton's Scantling Rules, and, modernly, the American Bureau of Shipping ("ABS") rules are followed. Most all of the current rules were established by the marine insurance industry to ensure "best practices" for vessels ensured by their member insurance companies and, with respect to wooden hull construction, have remained relatively unchanged since the early days. Researching and paying attention to these historical details is what makes a good model a great model.

Have you checked the offending bulkheads against the plans to see where the discrepancy in shape is?  This will tell you what the proper remedy is, to sand the bottom or raise them up and sand the tops I think.

On the other hand, if they do a lot of business supplying the professional model making companies, as I believe they do, it may be that they can't be bothered dealing with "the riff raff" and really aren't looking to be selling to the same hobbyist market segment as, say, MicroMark or ModelExpo. I believe they have a well-established customer base with outfits like those that build architectural models and things like that. It's still a mystery how they survive in this day and age. 

I've heard of PSME for decades. They supposedly have "the mother of all catalogs" for all things related to modeling. That said, they've got a single page website and no online catalog. Their website doesn't even mention their catalog. Like most, I expect, I've never felt like paying $12 for a mail order catalog. I can't for the life of me understand why a mail order company wouldn't at least have an online catalog in this day and age. It seems like a self-destructive business model! 

On the other hand, if they do a lot of business supplying the professional model making companies, as I believe they do, it may be that they can't be bothered dealing with "the riff raff" and really aren't looking to be selling to the same hobbyist market segment as, say, MicroMark or ModelExpo. I believe they have a well-established customer base with outfits like those that build architectural models and things like that. It's still a mystery how they survive in this day and age. 

I can't imagine why anyone would want to try to use a "power chisel" to shape a mast. The easiest way to shape a spar is to use a plane to turn the piece into an octogon and then chuck it in a drill press or hand drill motor held in a vise and sand the dowel while it's spinning. A lathe is another obvious option, but, considering the tooling costs for taper attachment and steady rest and the setup time, planing and sanding is a lot easier. Particularly with the planing, building a "planing sled" jig for your desired taper angle will make turning out a large number of spars a piece of cake.
 
I don't do a lot of wood carving, but it seems to me that there isn't a hundred bucks worth of advantage to a vibrating chisel over a good set of well-sharpened hand carving chisels and I suspect there are a lot more blade shapes available with manual carving tool lines than with the power chisels. (It seems there only five blade shapes for the Micro-Mark model.)
 
If i had a hundred bucks to spend on a tool for shaping spars, I'd go first cabin and spend $85 on a Lie-Nielsen Model Maker's Block Plane, a high-quality recreation of the old Stanley No. 100 squirel-tailed model maker's plane and the rest on a sleeve or two of sandpaper.
 
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/Model Maker's Block Plane
 

I can't imagine why anyone would want to try to use a "power chisel" to shape a mast. The easiest way to shape a spar is to use a plane to turn the piece into an octogon and then chuck it in a drill press or hand drill motor held in a vise and sand the dowel while it's spinning. A lathe is another obvious option, but, considering the tooling costs for taper attachment and steady rest and the setup time, planing and sanding is a lot easier. Particularly with the planing, building a "planing sled" jig for your desired taper angle will make turning out a large number of spars a piece of cake.
 
I don't do a lot of wood carving, but it seems to me that there isn't a hundred bucks worth of advantage to a vibrating chisel over a good set of well-sharpened hand carving chisels and I suspect there are a lot more blade shapes available with manual carving tool lines than with the power chisels. (It seems there only five blade shapes for the Micro-Mark model.)
 
If i had a hundred bucks to spend on a tool for shaping spars, I'd go first cabin and spend $85 on a Lie-Nielsen Model Maker's Block Plane, a high-quality recreation of the old Stanley No. 100 squirel-tailed model maker's plane and the rest on a sleeve or two of sandpaper.
 
https://www.lie-nielsen.com/products/Model Maker's Block Plane
 

I've heard of PSME for decades. They supposedly have "the mother of all catalogs" for all things related to modeling. That said, they've got a single page website and no online catalog. Their website doesn't even mention their catalog. Like most, I expect, I've never felt like paying $12 for a mail order catalog. I can't for the life of me understand why a mail order company wouldn't at least have an online catalog in this day and age. It seems like a self-destructive business model! 

I've heard of PSME for decades. They supposedly have "the mother of all catalogs" for all things related to modeling. That said, they've got a single page website and no online catalog. Their website doesn't even mention their catalog. Like most, I expect, I've never felt like paying $12 for a mail order catalog. I can't for the life of me understand why a mail order company wouldn't at least have an online catalog in this day and age. It seems like a self-destructive business model!