Bob Cleek

In the “Closest enough for Government Work” category, just divide the circumference by three to convert to diameter.

Hi Gary
Welcome to MSW!!!    It would be very nice if you would please post a little intro about yourself in the new member forum.  Please consider starting a build log as it will bring a lot of viewers and help if you wish to have it.
 
In general, one of the most popular methods of threading rope through a block is to wet maybe a quarter inch or even half inch of the end of the rope with cyanoacrylate glue (liquid, not gel) then when cured, using a scalpel or even nail clippers, snip off a tiny piece of this stiffened portion, cutting on a bias, to create a point on what is now a needle of sorts.
 
I realize this is your first build, but it is good to start with good habits and have useful information so I hope the following is not unwelcome.  It sounds like the rope is too large or the hole in the block is too small in diameter.   There were dozens of rope sizes on a given ship, but for modeling purposes 6 to 8 usually suffice for most folks.  There are spread sheets by Danny Vadas available in the articles data base here at MSW that will give you every rope size of a wide range of British ship sizes and eras.  Typically the circumference of the rope was 0.25 the size (length) of the respective common blocks.   (Lees' Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, page 189)  Tiller rope was 0.25 the size of the main stay and the circumference of the main stay was 1/2 the diameter of the main mast. Note that rope sizes were given in circumference, not diameter, so you will have to convert when getting properly sized rope if you do not have any.  The use of miniature rope in place of some, not all,  kit supplied thread (which often looks nothing like rope,) will enhance your model a lot.  
 
Allan

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

 
An example of a couple of clinker planked pulling boats. Note the "gains" at the plank ends and the number of planks used.  Note that the plank overlaps are visible both outboard and inboard with the sawn frames sometimes "jogged" with notches so the plank lies flat on the plank face and sometimes not, those frames being steamed.

 
An example of a strip planked Whitehall pulling boat. Note the large number of "strips" and the absence of frames.

 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Thank you both for taking the time to answer my question, and in particular, thanks to Bob for the detailed explanation. 
Now the "pole solution" or the "pig stick" as I have learned, makes a lot more sense. And thank you for pointing out the error by Campbell about the location of the actual flag, this makes sense too, allowing the flag to wave freely above the mast.
If I can make it 96 times smaller, I'll go for this solution. 
There is still a doubt in my mind: once the pig stick is near the skysail, I can see only advantages, but it's a long way from the deck, filled by lines of every type and many different obstacles. During this journey, a piece of canvas seems to me to be way more convenient than the "pig stick". 
This question is just for my curiosity. I understand that you already devote much time to answering me, and I have enough information for my model, so feel free to skip the question! 
Thank you again; I have learned a lot! 
 
 
 

It looks to me like it all would be a good candidate for display in a "box" coffee table with a clear glass top. 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

The "pole solution" is not impractical at all. It is the standard rigging method for any flag flown from a masthead for a very good reason: mast head flags are "set flying" on poles (properly called "pig sticks") because the pole raises the flag high enough to avoid its fouling on the mast and its attendant rigging. 
 
The above drawing correctly shows the house flag flown from a "pig stick" (staff) at the main masthead although the stick is much shorter than in actual practice and the hoisting attachment point is incorrect as described hereafter. The pig stick is rigged with a halyard (not shown in the drawing) fastened with a clove hitch to the middle of the pig stick with its fall extending down to the deck and then, in a continuous loop, the fall is again fastened to the bottom of the pig stick to serve as a downhaul in "messenger line" fashion. The halyard can be run through a block, as the drawing above would suggest, or through holes or over a sheave in the mast cap, as Underhill's drawing depicts. In this manner the stick can be two-blocked at the highest point on the mast, generally the truck, and held vertical by the downhaul (the looped halyard fall) at the bottom of the stick.
 
The flag is often attached to the pigstick with separate rotating rings around the pig stick or by some other arrangement such as a secondary staff that rotates around the primary pig stick to permits the flag to rotate 360 degrees around the pigstick without wrapping on the stick. Note, however, that the above drawing incorrectly depicts the attachment of the foot of the flag's hoist as below the two-blocked halyard's attachment point on the stick. This arrangement would cause the flag to foul and chafe on the halyard block and wrap about the halyard block as the direction of its flying rotated. Properly, the foot of the flag's hoist is be fastened on the pig stick at a point above the halyard block and the truck, so that the flag flies in "free air" without fouling on anything. So, in a correct depiction, the pig stick would be significantly longer to permit the flag to fly free above the truck.
 
Below: pig stick with wire secondary "staff" to permit flag to rotate without fouling (and exploded parts photo.)
 

 
Below: pig sticks with wooden secondary "staffs"
 

 
Pictures of pig sticks set aloft on a modern and a traditional masthead:
 

 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

My interpretation of the illustration is a single line attached slightly above the pole midpoint, passed through a block, to raise the pole, then, not shown, a single line attached to the pole bottom for tension.
 
Cheers!

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Farmed Douglas fir is far less suitable for boat and ship building than naturally-grown vertical-grained Doug fir with ring counts of twelve to eighteen rings per inch. Just about every wooden boat and ship built on the West Coast of the US up until recent times was built primarily, or exclusively, of vertical-grain Doug fir. This includes all the lumber schooners and the once-vast fleets of small fishing boats, including the Montereys, many of which are still going strong eight to a hundred years and more from their original launching. Vertical-grain Doug fir was long a favored species for laid plank  vessel deckis. (Plain-sawn Doug fir is not nearly as good for home deck building because it does require painting to avoid weathering. Plain-sawn redwood was far better for home decking until it became cost-prohibitive.) In the Nineteenth Century, Doug fir (and larch in Europe) were favored for warship construction over teak, which became available to the Admiralty after Britain colonized India and Burma, because, although, bare teak stood up to the elements better than unpainted Doug Fir, teak was highly prone to splintering when hit by cannon shot and teak splinter wounds were highly likely to fester, unlike Doug fir splinters. Teak is also much more difficult to work than just about any of the usual ship-building woods, because its high silica content dulls tools very quickly.
 
There was a time when prime old-growth teak was so available in Asia that teak cargo pallets and cargo hatch covers were made of it, but those days are long gone. The totalitarian governments in the teak growing nations clear cut the teak forests to provide export product to support their revolutionary governments and the elephants trained to extract teak logs from the forest without damaging them are no longer available, so large teak timbers necessary for vessel construction aren't available today in the quantities necessary.  Having owned for over forty years a teak-planked yacht built to Lloyd's 100A1+ standards in 1963 by Cheoy Lee Shipyard, Kowloon, Hong Kong I can attest that the teak wood used to plank that boat is virtually unobtainable today.
 
Having worked for a yacht brokerage specializing in classic wooden yachts in the 1970's and being intimately familiar with a broad range of wooden boat building quality, I experienced firsthand the phenomenon of teak's becoming the favored species for brightwork. Before the advent of fiberglass boats, a "gold plater's" brightwork would almost always be made of mahogany, preferably real Honduras mahogany, and well-varnished. Teak was favored only for decks because of its easy maintenance: saltwater rinse daily, or bleach and rinse as needed. (Originally, holystoning was a primarily a practice on naval vessels maintained "Bristol fashion" when abrasion of the deck surface was necessary because the tar used on the rigging above the deck dripped in hot tropical weather and was tracked by sailors' feet all over the teak decks. It became "traditional" in naval practice thereafter and is a very wasteful and "abusive" maintenance practice that wears down the decks and accelerates the need to replace decks.) As fiberglass boats were built in quantity on speculation and had to sit at the brokers' docks, sometimes for considerable time, until they were sold, varnished mahogany trim required regular maintenance of drying with a chamois and sanding and re-varnishing on a regular basis.  The fiberglass boat manufacturers then began using bare teak for outboard trim on their vessels and marketed it as "highest quality." That's really how things like teak cap rails and grab rails became universal on fiberglass boats from the 'seventies on.
 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

I use Duco Cement to temporarily laminate brass sheet to craft plywood before passing it through my Byrnes saw to cut strips.

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

Regarding downhill adventures, growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco was an adventure. The wheels were old "ball bearings" we'd get from the local auto repair garage or the wrecking yard, the axle was a whittled end of a two by four with nails driven into the end to spread it to a tight fit on the inside of the bearing. Brakes were the heels of your shoes. The teenagers in the photo had fancier brakes... hinged blocks of wood. 
 

What Thukydides said. Very fine sandpaper. Use a hard sanding block so all you sand is the very edge itself.
 
Pumice or rottenstone will restore whatever level of finish, matte to gloss, that you want, but it will take a lot of rubbing to remove a masking tape "lip." Better to start with sandpaper in the 400 grit range and go finer from there.
 
The most effective way to avoid masking "lips" is to use a very thin masking tape (Tamiya or 3M Fineline) and apply your paint in multiple thin coats. When the paint is dry, carefully sand the edge down a bit before you remove the tape.
 
It's never an exact science. Not infrequently, you'll tear up some paint along the edge when removing the tape, or discover a spot where the tape "bled under" the tape, and so on. In such cases, there's often nothing for it but to carefully remove the defect by sanding and do the darn thing over and over again until it comes out right. This is one of the jobs that makes having an airbrush really worth the cost.
 

"Tow" is "short and coarse fibers of little value separated from the longer and more valuable fibers through hackling in the manufacture of rope. Tow is occasionally used in the manufacture of inferior qualities of rope." (International Maritime Dictionary, rene de Kerchove, 2nd Edition, Van Nostrand and Reinhold Co. 1961, Litton Educational Publishing]
 
"Tow" is also the short bits of fiber that break off of natural fiber rope, particularly hemp and sisal ("Manila") rope. On a large square-rigger, a lot of tow would find its way to the deck and collect in wet piles and muck things up. Hence the bosun's call, "Sweepers, man your brooms. Clean sweep down fore and aft." Another general meaning of "tow" is simply "worn out rope."
 
"Tow" was sometimes collected and saved for use in canvas pockets for padding of various sorts in rigging and so on, and for caulking material when mixed with tar to make oakum. Worn out or rotten line was often recycled into oakum as well. Quality oakum, however, was made not from lengths of worn-out line or "tow," but from new, long hemp strands. The highest quality new hemp line or oakum is made from the strong fibers from center of the stalks of the cannabis plant, which are whitish in color. (Oakum used by plumbers to caulk iron pipe joints is usually made from tarred jute or burlap.)
 
"Fibers and flyings" are what fill the air in a textile mill or rope walk and if you've ever been in a running textile mill, you will know that there is a huge cloud of fibers, little bits and pieces of broken fiber and dust, and "flyings" which are longer thin threads thrown off in the milling or spinning process, which must be continually cleaned up as they pose a large fire hazard. "Flyings" from the mills and ropewalks were used to make high quality oakum. 
 
Oakum is made by taking long fibers soaked in thick pine tar and simply twisting and rolling them into "ropes." The caulker has to prepare the oakum by unraveling lengths of the loosely twisted fiber from the loose ball (or "bale") of oakum and rolling the pine tar-soaked strands back and forth between the palm of his hand and the top of his thigh. (If you see a guy in the boatyard with his pants covered with tar on the front of his upper leg, he's a caulker! )
 
So, "The white ocham to be from flying & not from ground toes or decaid White ropes." means, "The white oakum specified here is to be made from mill flyings of the top-quality virgin white fiber of the plant and not from ground up tow or recycled rotten white hemp rope."
 
Quality oakum will result in a longer-lasting caulking job. Using old, weak fiber from worn out, rotten, or "decaid" rope will rot and decay in short order. The Admiralty wanted to use "the good stuff" because they didn't want to have to recaulk in short order because the stuff used was rotten to begin with.
 
Caulking mallet, caulking irons, and untarred "bale" of white hemp for making up oakum. See: Oakum - Wikipedia
 

Yes, exactly. For a 4mm plank width at the maximum beam, the tapering might be a bit tedious, but given the hull shapes of large vessels, as opposed to small craft, the tapering would be slight and generally at the ends of the vessel, particularly the bows. Remember when modeling that there is a scale to the length of planking as well as to its width. Plank stock isn't ever much more than 24 feet long in real life, given the limitations of tree size and handling. Given a scale plank width of 4mm at the maximum beam, there would be a lot of full length unspiled 4mm planks amidships, so that makes an easier job of it for the planker. (There are also standards for the spacing of plank butts which must be followed for an accurate scale planking job.) Keep in mind also that if the average plank width admidships is 4mm, when planking properly, there will be planks which may need to be wider than the average 4mm plank width to make everything come together without the need for "stealers." Kit manufacturers provide a bunch of pre-cut, square, finished on all four sides, strips for "planking." That stock isn't going to be suitable for all the planking at the size provided because planks aren't square.
 
You can find instructions for laying out plank in the "articles" section of the forum, so I won't repeat them here. However, if you lay out your planking at stem, stern, and each station (or perhaps every other, or even every three, frames or stations, depending upon hull shape and frame spacing,) You'll see that there's not much plank shaping to be done in the "wide open spaces" amidships.
 
If you divide the plank end widths equally at the bows, you should get a fair run on your plank seams and not end up trying to bend a "hook" in your plank seams. And sometimes plank width divisions vary, depending upon hull shape. A band of narrower planks at the turn of the bilge and wider planks (called "broads") in runs over "flat" areas is not uncommon. (In the drawing of the period planked hull below, note the "broads" below the turn of the bilge and running up to the stern post.) Planks in real life are gotten out of wider stock than the average plank width at the maximum beam. Plank stock in full size construction is often "flitch cut," meaning that it is cut as a rough slab sawn from the log, leaving the bark attached. These "flitches" are often slightly curved, as the log grew, which permits sawing out the curved plank shape to make best use of the run of the grain and lumber available. Planks are never bent across their width in full size construction, which is pretty much impossible anyway. Sometimes, a plank will be a bit "shy" and the plankers will "edge set" it by wedging it into place against its mate to get a tight seam, but edge-setting is a sign of poor fitting (which introduces strains on fasteners which can then let go) and not considered "best practices." Specifications sometimes go so far as to state, "no plank shall be edge set." When modelling with small stock of a species which will tolerate such bending, considerable stock can be saved by bending scale planks across their width to simulate what would have been a "dear" (costly) plank that in real life would have had to be cut from a very wide flitch, leaving a lot of wasted wood. That's the genius in Chuck Passaro's edge bending technique described in his great videos on the subject. Even with Chuck's method, though, some planks are going to require their own unique shape.
 
The smaller the boat, the more the plank shape differences are exaggerated. The below illustration shows the plank shapes needed to plank the hull illustrated. Note that the sheer plank shape colored white is actually wider at its ends than at its middle. In your planking job, the lack of the same sort of greater width at the stem rabet created a cumulative deficit in plank width which eventually created the upwards "hook" that became greater than you could bend your strip wood to accommodate. Trying to continue to hang 4mm wide planks in that rabet would only increase the deficit. (See the drawing of the period wooden hull planking below to see how the old-time plankers solved the problem you've got now.)
 

 
On a large wooden ship, the planking curves are not as radical, but do require curves to accommodate the shape of the hull just the same. In large construction, owing to the natural limitations of available plank stock width, "hooked," "doubler," or "stealer" planks are used to plank wider spaces than the available stock permits being gotten out of a single flitch. If a model is to show the plank seams, it must be planked as was its prototype. (Of course, if the plank seams are to be filled and the hull sanded fair and painted, it doesn't matter what the planking run looks like.) Look carefully at the plank seams in the bow and stern quarter of the below illustration to see the use of "hooked," "doubler," or "stealer" planks. (There's a larger picture and good planking instructions in the attached link.)
 

 
 
 
https://www.modelerscentral.com/blog/planking-tips-for-building-a-model-ship/
 
Don't let this discourage you. Kit manufacturers have been frustrating modelers with strip wood "planking" since kits were invented.  
 
 

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

 
An example of a couple of clinker planked pulling boats. Note the "gains" at the plank ends and the number of planks used.  Note that the plank overlaps are visible both outboard and inboard with the sawn frames sometimes "jogged" with notches so the plank lies flat on the plank face and sometimes not, those frames being steamed.

 
An example of a strip planked Whitehall pulling boat. Note the large number of "strips" and the absence of frames.