Bob Cleek

"The included instructions had me pencil in the lines and dots before the shellac went on. I don't really want to completely refinish the deck, (unless you think its a good idea), so I will try and scrape/sand it off first, or ill try the Goof Off. Can you explain what you mean by "reconsider your planking length and butt spacing?" Again, I am just following instructions. Did I do something poorly?"
 
It's good that you shellacked over the pencil marks. That will prevent the pencil lead from smearing if you try to remove the tape adhesive with solvent. I'd try the solvent, Goof Off or acetone, first. The adhesive will probably wipe off easily. If not, then try scraping. Scraping is the more radical option. If you need to, you can always scrape and sand the surface down to bare wood and refinish the whole thing. You wouldn't be the first of us who's done that. (Don't ask me how I know this!  )
 
Well, it's not that big of a deal, but black dots don't represent the appearance of a laid wooden deck. Metal fastenings through the planks into the deck beams are always covered with a wooden plug of the same species of wood used for the planking, or fastened with trunnels (pegs) and, from a distance, are virtually invisible. I don't know why the instructions would have one represent deck planking fastenings with a black pencil dot.  Metal fastenings are always set deeply into the deck planks and plugged with wood so that fastenings, which were often iron on older ships would not rust and would not stand proud when the deck wore down some. If trunnels (wooden pegs) were used to fasten the deck planks, they were wood-colored and not black. (Trunnels were often made of a slightly darker wood of a different species, frequently of locust.) The wood plugs or trunnels also permitted the decks to be "holystoned," that being "sanded" clean with flat stones having a hole in the center which permitted a long handle to be inserted so they could be swung back and forth like a mop. This kept decks, which were often covered with tar dripping from the rigging aloft, particularly in the heat of the tropics, clean, but at the cost of considerable abrasion of the wood over time. Holystoning wouldn't be possible if nail heads were standing proud of the surface of the deck.
 
As for the planking, I'm not certain of the scale of your model, and it is a somewhat esoteric detail which may not matter to you at this point in your modeling, but there are scale considerations with plank length. How long would the average deck plank be on your vessel? The longer the better. Planking stock was rarely longer than twenty-four to thirty feet long because that was the limit of what could be gotten out of the tree. A deck would not be planked with six foot planks. The distance between the planking butts (ends) should be somewhere in the range of 18' to 24'. On the model, that should be reflected in the applicable scale size. The length is significant because it affects the butt spacing in the same way bricks are laid so the vertical joints are staggered. If the plank butts all were placed on the same deck beam, that would be a very weak deck at that point. If the planks are staggered "like bricks in a wall" so that the butts are all as far apart as possible on each deck beam, that will yield the strongest deck structure possible. There are methods of laying out the deck planking to "stagger the butts." The below thread explains the methods of laying out deck planking in great detail. This is a small detail and failing to do it correctly doesn't "ruin" a model at all, but it is good to remember that a model is a collection of small details which  make up a whole. The more small details that are done right, the better the model. 
 
 

Hallelujah bro!  I would add to that: yards.

I think that is very true to some extent. I've restored a couple of old apparently sailor-made models and have one "in the on deck circle" in my shop right now. I believe it's of the Archibald Russell, although I haven't gotten around to researching it enough to be sure. It's my impression that it isn't so much that the sail area is proportionately larger, but that the rig is perfectly accurate in terms of overall scale and the run of the lines, but details like blocks are over-scale, and the detail of the hull is wanting, particularly below the waterline. Sailors didn't often see the underwater parts of their ships, of course. While their work aloft gave them a good recall of the run of the rigging, but in the top hamper deprived them of an overall sense of proportion of various details, like blocks. I'd say, though, that however crudely executed the model might be, if the rigging is right, it's probably a sailor-made model. 

I am somewhat envious.  My active experience with ships are ones with steel decks.  Now I am too lazy to volunteer on ones with caulked seams...except maybe as a docent.
 
    On the subject of perception, sometimes first hand knowledge can be skewed.  It was noted that prisoner of war models (and old swabby models) made by topmen and other crew that spent alot of time aloft seemed to be out of proportion:  the sail area was proportionately larger than the hull, because presumably that is how they saw the world.  Urban legend, perhaps, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
 
   

That's a good point. Scale distance is a major factor in coloring. Subtle is good. It's a matter of the modeler's taste and judgment.
 
You can be sure I've seen my share of planked decks from every angle. Indeed, I've paid more than my share of deck seams. Some of the most common errors in today's models involve over-scale details like deck seams, timber joints, trunnels and plugs, and copper plating tacks. 

1.   The problem of securing planks to deck beams can be addressed in a variety of ways. 
 
a)   You can drill a small hole in the plank where a trunnel would be set and use a push-pin through that hole to temporarily hold the plank against the deck beam until the glue dries. Then plug the hole with a tiny wooden peg of the same material as the plank. (Drilling a small hole first prevents splitting when the tack is placed.)
 
b)   You can use a small dot of fast-curing CA adhesive ("Super Glue") on each deck beam with wood glue on either side of it to "tack" the plank to the deck beam. The wood glue will then dry while the CA holds it and will provide the primary bond.
 
c)   You can glue the planks as you have done, but also drill small holes through the plank and into the beam and drive scale trunnels into the holes to hold the planks down. The trunnels have to be sized to fit tightly into the holes. When water-based wood glue is applied to the small trunnel pegs, they will swell slightly when the water is absorbed and hold the plank fast. This method is tricky and will take some experimenting to master.
 
d)   You can glue the planks as you have done with wood glue and use a plank bending iron or similar heat source to heat the top of the plank above each deck beam. The heat will cause the wood glue to harden and hold very quickly. Care must be taken not to scorch the top of the plank, of course.
 
I'm not sure what sort of tape it was that transferred to the deck planks, but it's adhesive is probably soluble in acetone or "Goof Off," a solvent sold in paint stores to remove paint splatters. "Goof Off" is great stuff for modeling purposes. It will remove most paints and varnishes and works well for cleaning air brushes, etc. It is much less aggressive than acetone and won't eat down into painted surfaces below the paint you want to clean off of them. Try a bit of "Goof Off" on a soft cloth and see if that removes the tape adhesive that has transferred to the deck surface. It that doesn't work, exercise the "thermonuclear option" and wipe it off with a soft cloth with acetone on it. Do this in a well ventilated place and be aware that acetone fumes are explosive, so keep it away from open flames. Lighter fluid can also be used instead of acetone. (Carbon tetrachloride ("cleaning fluid") also works great, but it's not readily obtainable anymore due to its toxicity.)  The dried shellac should be impervious to these solvents, but you should take a scrap piece of planking stock and shellac it, then test the solvent on that piece when the shellac dries to make sure the solvent isn't going to damage the shellacked surface. Also, if you put the pencil marking for the seams and fasteners on after the shellac, test this in a similar fashion to make sure the solvent won't spread the pencil lead all over the deck surface and make a huge mess.
 
If there weren't so much pencil lead on the surface, I'd say that the tape adhesive could easily be removed along with the shellac beneath it by simply applying alcohol to the shellacked surface and wiping it all off and reapplying the shellac, but I fear doing so would end up spreading a mixture of alcohol, shellac, and pencil lead all over the surface which would probably end up requiring the whole surface to be sanded clean to repair that mess.
 
Alternately, you can lightly sand, or better yet, lightly scrape with a sharp edged blade, the deck surface to remove the tape adhesive and see if that works. Additional thinned shellac can be applied over the scraped area. This will take some care. You can also sand or scrape the entire deck, removing the pencil-marked plank butts and fastener "dots" and refinish the deck entirely. This would permit you to reconsider your planking length and butt spacing, which can be determined by use of standard construction practices. (Use the search engine here to find discussions on plank length and plank butt spacing.) Plank fasteners would never be black, as you've depicted them, but rather would be wooden, being either trunnels (pegs) or metal fasteners (spikes or screws) in counterbored holes covered with wooden plugs. From a scale distance, these would be invisible. Their appearance can also be faked by using a piece of scale metal tubing (the diameter of the plug you want to mimic) with its edge sharpened. The tubing is tapped with a small hammer to create a light circular indentation which appears as a plug on the face of the plank. Some obsessive-compulsive modelers have gone so far as to employ this technique using hypodermic needles to obtain very tiny "plugs."  
 
2)   There's no problem whatsoever with excess glue in places where it doesn't show. In fact, the structure of a bulkheaded model can be considerably stiffened and strengthened by applying generous fillets of glue or epoxy at all hidden joint angles where the backbone and bulkheads meet anything else, particularly the sub-decking.
 
Hope this helps!

That's a good point. Scale distance is a major factor in coloring. Subtle is good. It's a matter of the modeler's taste and judgment.
 
You can be sure I've seen my share of planked decks from every angle. Indeed, I've paid more than my share of deck seams. Some of the most common errors in today's models involve over-scale details like deck seams, timber joints, trunnels and plugs, and copper plating tacks. 

I disagree.  I find that when applied to one side of the plank, it gives a subtle but not overwhelming look. 
 
If you ever get a chance to look at a caulked deck from above, it doesn't look pure black (at least the ones I have seen).  I have the privilege of working with the San Diego Maritime Museum and get to see the SURPRISE and others for atop the BERKELEY.  This is still unrealistic because holding a model at half arms length would require going up several hundred feet.  However, as you go up/further away, colors become lighter.
 
Anyway, just my opinion.

An artist's jet black sketching pencil often looks better than the grey lead of a writing pencil, which often looks like, well... a pencil line.

An artist's jet black sketching pencil often looks better than the grey lead of a writing pencil, which often looks like, well... a pencil line.

Quite astounding. I also am interested to know the history of the model. I note that it's a waterline model and appears to have casters on the bottom. Might it have been built as a movie prop? There was a television series, The Gale Storm Show, which was about a cruise director on the Cleveland or Wilson, but I can't recall which. That show ended in 1960. She was later used in other films, as well. I remember my father mentioning when they would make movies aboard her. 
 
My father worked for Dollar Steamship before the war and then for Dollar's successor, American President Lines, in all for over forty years. He was an accountant in the home office in San Francisco. As was the custom of the time, he got me summer job working there as well in high school. I was aboard the President Cleveland, President Wilson, and President Roosevelt, APL's passenger liners, many times. When I was in grammar school, when my father had the "weekend duty" and one of the liners would come in, he'd go down to the ship and clear the purser's books on board and he'd often bring me along. An ice cream sundae in the galley was the highlight of those trips. When I worked in the summer for APL, another fellow and I would make the run from the foreign exchange bank to the ships and bring the foreign cash aboard for the foreign cruises. You might think it was a high security job with lots of armed guards, but in fact it was just two young guys pushing hand trucks with nondescript metal boxes on them from a van and up the gangway. It was very low key, so nobody really knew who we were or what we were doing until we were aboard. I still have a champagne ice bucket with the APL logo on it off of one of the liners.
 
As you probably know, the Cleveland and Wilson were laid down by Bethlehem Steel in Alameda during the war, designed as very high speed troop transports for the Navy. The builds were cancelled later and they were then redesigned as passenger liners. APL operated them on a charter for MARAD. They were great ships and, in my opinion, quite beautiful. 
 
Please do keep us up to date on your project !
 

 
As I remember her. She'd carry passengers' cars on the Hawaii runs, seen here parked on the dock after off loading from the forward cargo hold. Note the cargo nets over the side. This photo was in the days before intermodal cargo containers. 

Tung oil does have a nice aroma. The "boiled" tung oil, as with "boiled" linseed oil, isn't really boiled. It has Japan drier (cobalt, manganese) added to it to speed polymerization. 

An artist's jet black sketching pencil often looks better than the grey lead of a writing pencil, which often looks like, well... a pencil line.

An artist's jet black sketching pencil often looks better than the grey lead of a writing pencil, which often looks like, well... a pencil line.

Yep, the products are offered by market... in this case, for the builders of the very common 1:350 battleships.
 
The smallest stud link chain I ever printed was 13 links per inch, suitable for the new 1:200 plastic battleships. It couldn't be produced reliably, so I gave up on it. I still get plaintive calls- "do you have any more chain???" This PE chain could be available for 1:200 BB's, would be a little easier to work with!  

Beyond what I said above, I've got no more information on David Goodchild. These days, I have to remind myself more and more frequently that people I've known for years are getting older, too. A lot of them were older than I in the first place. "Whatever happened to Charlie?... Oh, he died a couple of years ago." is sadly a common experience for me these days. The last time he "dropped off the radar" a few years ago, some of us who had done business with him over the years were hoping somebody would take over his business. I think it's pretty much a "one man show," but his catalog was amazing and from all indications was always thriving. 
 
Also, I believe he did not maintain any inventory of printed books, but rather produced each reprint on demand as it was ordered. I'm not sure how what technology he used, but his books were not photocopies of the original, but rather separately typeset bound volumes. The process was that an order would come in and he'd have the copy printed and bound and then sent out. I'm not positive, but I don't think he was doing the printing in house. It's also entirely possible that the local pandemic restrictions shut down his printing operation. He lives, or used to live, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, as I recall. I don't know what the pandemic situation is there right now. Like a lot of businesses, he may simply be shut down due to the pandemic. Your order would have been right around the time the "lock downs" started and it may have been stuck in the pipeline.
 
If it's any consolation, The David Goodchild I know would never take somebody's money and skip out. There's got to be an explanation there somewhere.

Quite astounding. I also am interested to know the history of the model. I note that it's a waterline model and appears to have casters on the bottom. Might it have been built as a movie prop? There was a television series, The Gale Storm Show, which was about a cruise director on the Cleveland or Wilson, but I can't recall which. That show ended in 1960. She was later used in other films, as well. I remember my father mentioning when they would make movies aboard her. 
 
My father worked for Dollar Steamship before the war and then for Dollar's successor, American President Lines, in all for over forty years. He was an accountant in the home office in San Francisco. As was the custom of the time, he got me summer job working there as well in high school. I was aboard the President Cleveland, President Wilson, and President Roosevelt, APL's passenger liners, many times. When I was in grammar school, when my father had the "weekend duty" and one of the liners would come in, he'd go down to the ship and clear the purser's books on board and he'd often bring me along. An ice cream sundae in the galley was the highlight of those trips. When I worked in the summer for APL, another fellow and I would make the run from the foreign exchange bank to the ships and bring the foreign cash aboard for the foreign cruises. You might think it was a high security job with lots of armed guards, but in fact it was just two young guys pushing hand trucks with nondescript metal boxes on them from a van and up the gangway. It was very low key, so nobody really knew who we were or what we were doing until we were aboard. I still have a champagne ice bucket with the APL logo on it off of one of the liners.
 
As you probably know, the Cleveland and Wilson were laid down by Bethlehem Steel in Alameda during the war, designed as very high speed troop transports for the Navy. The builds were cancelled later and they were then redesigned as passenger liners. APL operated them on a charter for MARAD. They were great ships and, in my opinion, quite beautiful. 
 
Please do keep us up to date on your project !
 

 
As I remember her. She'd carry passengers' cars on the Hawaii runs, seen here parked on the dock after off loading from the forward cargo hold. Note the cargo nets over the side. This photo was in the days before intermodal cargo containers. 

Quite astounding. I also am interested to know the history of the model. I note that it's a waterline model and appears to have casters on the bottom. Might it have been built as a movie prop? There was a television series, The Gale Storm Show, which was about a cruise director on the Cleveland or Wilson, but I can't recall which. That show ended in 1960. She was later used in other films, as well. I remember my father mentioning when they would make movies aboard her. 
 
My father worked for Dollar Steamship before the war and then for Dollar's successor, American President Lines, in all for over forty years. He was an accountant in the home office in San Francisco. As was the custom of the time, he got me summer job working there as well in high school. I was aboard the President Cleveland, President Wilson, and President Roosevelt, APL's passenger liners, many times. When I was in grammar school, when my father had the "weekend duty" and one of the liners would come in, he'd go down to the ship and clear the purser's books on board and he'd often bring me along. An ice cream sundae in the galley was the highlight of those trips. When I worked in the summer for APL, another fellow and I would make the run from the foreign exchange bank to the ships and bring the foreign cash aboard for the foreign cruises. You might think it was a high security job with lots of armed guards, but in fact it was just two young guys pushing hand trucks with nondescript metal boxes on them from a van and up the gangway. It was very low key, so nobody really knew who we were or what we were doing until we were aboard. I still have a champagne ice bucket with the APL logo on it off of one of the liners.
 
As you probably know, the Cleveland and Wilson were laid down by Bethlehem Steel in Alameda during the war, designed as very high speed troop transports for the Navy. The builds were cancelled later and they were then redesigned as passenger liners. APL operated them on a charter for MARAD. They were great ships and, in my opinion, quite beautiful. 
 
Please do keep us up to date on your project !
 

 
As I remember her. She'd carry passengers' cars on the Hawaii runs, seen here parked on the dock after off loading from the forward cargo hold. Note the cargo nets over the side. This photo was in the days before intermodal cargo containers. 

Quite astounding. I also am interested to know the history of the model. I note that it's a waterline model and appears to have casters on the bottom. Might it have been built as a movie prop? There was a television series, The Gale Storm Show, which was about a cruise director on the Cleveland or Wilson, but I can't recall which. That show ended in 1960. She was later used in other films, as well. I remember my father mentioning when they would make movies aboard her. 
 
My father worked for Dollar Steamship before the war and then for Dollar's successor, American President Lines, in all for over forty years. He was an accountant in the home office in San Francisco. As was the custom of the time, he got me summer job working there as well in high school. I was aboard the President Cleveland, President Wilson, and President Roosevelt, APL's passenger liners, many times. When I was in grammar school, when my father had the "weekend duty" and one of the liners would come in, he'd go down to the ship and clear the purser's books on board and he'd often bring me along. An ice cream sundae in the galley was the highlight of those trips. When I worked in the summer for APL, another fellow and I would make the run from the foreign exchange bank to the ships and bring the foreign cash aboard for the foreign cruises. You might think it was a high security job with lots of armed guards, but in fact it was just two young guys pushing hand trucks with nondescript metal boxes on them from a van and up the gangway. It was very low key, so nobody really knew who we were or what we were doing until we were aboard. I still have a champagne ice bucket with the APL logo on it off of one of the liners.
 
As you probably know, the Cleveland and Wilson were laid down by Bethlehem Steel in Alameda during the war, designed as very high speed troop transports for the Navy. The builds were cancelled later and they were then redesigned as passenger liners. APL operated them on a charter for MARAD. They were great ships and, in my opinion, quite beautiful. 
 
Please do keep us up to date on your project !
 

 
As I remember her. She'd carry passengers' cars on the Hawaii runs, seen here parked on the dock after off loading from the forward cargo hold. Note the cargo nets over the side. This photo was in the days before intermodal cargo containers. 

I did tried Shellac Bob, never really liked it! Also I dislike the smell of methylated spirits. You can get "boiled" Tung oil which polymerises much faster but I have had no problems with the normal one. Smells fantastic too!
I think the main advice should be to test on scrap wood, not on the model! A few months ago I was too impatient to test thinning my polyurethane varnish and applied directly to my rudder, painted 3 colours each with a dozen coats. When the varnish congealed I had to sand it and start again!

You need a bigger workbench! Or not. Get two tables the same height and spread them as far apart as you want. You can also simply clamp a plank longer than your workbench to its top and put your ropewalk ends at either end of the plank. Or am I missing something here?

What does your rope walk look like?  There are different styles out there..
 
Mine is somewhat traditional but limited by the length of my workbench..   I can only make about 40 inches of rope at a time.
 

 
 
The size of the rope is determined by the number of threads I use on each of the whorls.
 
I have made rope with up to 8 threads on each of the 4 whorls, for a total of 24 threads.
 

 
 

I've used WordPerfect in my law practice since the mid-eighties. I'm now using version 7.0, IIRC. It has been expanded greatly over the years and remains head and shoulders above any other word processing program. There are no longer any translation problems with MSWord, although formatting is sometimes problematic. The only complaint I have is that I'd memorized all the DOS commands to operate it and then they went to a "windows" icon-based control model. There is, however, an option for operating the new versions in an "old version" mode if one wants to keep using the DOS commands. I went over to the icons gradually. It does so much now that it's not humanly possible to remember all the old keystroke commands (which still work in the newer versions.) It's a great program. It will now automatically generate tables of contents and indexes if you want it to.

Beyond what I said above, I've got no more information on David Goodchild. These days, I have to remind myself more and more frequently that people I've known for years are getting older, too. A lot of them were older than I in the first place. "Whatever happened to Charlie?... Oh, he died a couple of years ago." is sadly a common experience for me these days. The last time he "dropped off the radar" a few years ago, some of us who had done business with him over the years were hoping somebody would take over his business. I think it's pretty much a "one man show," but his catalog was amazing and from all indications was always thriving. 
 
Also, I believe he did not maintain any inventory of printed books, but rather produced each reprint on demand as it was ordered. I'm not sure how what technology he used, but his books were not photocopies of the original, but rather separately typeset bound volumes. The process was that an order would come in and he'd have the copy printed and bound and then sent out. I'm not positive, but I don't think he was doing the printing in house. It's also entirely possible that the local pandemic restrictions shut down his printing operation. He lives, or used to live, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, as I recall. I don't know what the pandemic situation is there right now. Like a lot of businesses, he may simply be shut down due to the pandemic. Your order would have been right around the time the "lock downs" started and it may have been stuck in the pipeline.
 
If it's any consolation, The David Goodchild I know would never take somebody's money and skip out. There's got to be an explanation there somewhere.

Check this site: http://www.dngoodchild.com/
 
David Goodchild operates The Press at Toad Hall, part of which is The Shellbacks Library. I made David's acquaintance perhaps twenty-five years ago. His publications are beautifully done reprints of out-of-print works. The Shellbacks Library contains his maritime offerings, including many books on ship modeling. David's website went down a few years ago and I heard several reports of orders not being shipped. It later turned out he was reportedly very ill for some time. He reappeared last year with a refreshed and expanded website and appears to be back at it. Perhaps you can connect with him through his main portal above. Keep in mind that with the pandemic right now, shipping has become quite a bit slower than before. Within the US, there are fewer planes in the air and the carriers are shipping by truck. What used to take two or three days to get is now taking two or three weeks sometimes. David's a very nice fellow and very knowledgeable when it comes to maritime books. I do hope he's well.