Beef Wellington

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Aaaand finished. 
Compared to a WW1 German torpedo boat 
 
and beside a big brother from
ww2 
 
and parked in the digital graveyard 

Port side coppering is completed. Although this task is pretty repetitive, I found that once I got going, I wanted to see it completed.
Learning from the starboard side, I decided to plate the gore line progressively as it occurred in the run of tiling.
Again I ran three straight runs of tile and then marked the position of the gore line with white tape.
 

 
Instead of then placing all the tiles along the line, I continued to add plates normally from the stern row by row and cutting tiles to the line of the tape as it needed. This resulted in a much smoother transition than I achieved on the starboard side
 

 

 
After that, it all went quite smoothly but I am glad to have completed this part of the build. 
 

 

 

 
I am going to leave plating the rudder for a while because I the kit supplied part will need replacement so I’ve started to think about the stern and quarter galleries.
 
David

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Looks great Rob.  Did you end up pinning the rails?  As you say, these look pretty long so are maybe less prone to damage, and with the trip piece above also helping push back against any strain from the rigging you are probably in good shape.  Must be nice not to have to worry about any armament 🙂

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Thanks Rob, you did such an excellent job on Ethalion that its a hard act to follow, but gave me no reason to hold back 🙂  I'm hoping the planned widths are sufficient to at least get started with a reasonable degree of confidence.  Once planking starts to approach the planned waterway then I suspect it will then be possible (and necessary) to tailor more manually.  Will also leave off installing any waterway planks until necessary as that should also allow some fine tuning.

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Prow now done, soon face the onerous task of assembling all the gun carriages.
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

@ Mike - no not officially an engineer, but my brain does work that way....am a physicist by education, and have played a little with battlefield engineering.  Up to this point, its been possible to get by just by look and feel, and the philosophy of thinking ahead and not sweating the small stuff 🙂.  This task just required more planned precision.  BTW - you can never have enough serving on a model if you have the patience for it.
 
Hopefully this photo makes the jig operation clearer (I left the tape off the outside guide templates for clarity).  The fine sandpaper shown is around 0.2mm thickness which would pretty much be offset by the electrical tape thickness.  (0.2mm plank width variance would add up to a 4mm problem per side, so it adds up quickly)

 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Great work Jason. I'm sure you'll be really pleased you tapered the planks. My approach was a little less precise but still it makes a nice contrast to the straight planking runs on the gun deck. As a thought you may want to put some of the planks down then reassess the widths to make fine adjustments in case laying the planks introduced some drift? But your planking is so precise I'm sure you'll be fine.
 
My digital calipers are the tool I never put away on my build desk. Especially useful when you need to work put which drill bit you need (and what order they go back in the box when you accidentally drop them!).
 
Looking forward to seeing this deck come together.
 
Rob

That's kind of you.  By coincidence I have just spent an hour reading through pages 12-15 of your Snake log to see how you dealt with masts and bowsprit - particularly in connection with shaping.  Very enlightening.  Think I'm about to explore the wold of serving
 
On the design of your planking jig, two things occurred to me: are you an engineer by any chance? (I am, and am in awe)  The spreadsheets and jig-making say yes.  But delaying to now to get a digital calliper says no (I expect I'll buy another as I need one in the shipyard (spare bedroom) and the spar factory (garage - think UK, 8 ft wide, no possibility of a car in there).
 
And then the second point, how does the jig work for guiding the sanding? Asking our of interest because I cannot imagine having the craft skills for this (and besides I could spend more money and attach CNC control to my Proxxon mill)

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Happy New Year to all!
 
Not too much to show for a little bit of extra time in the shipyard, but have put a bookend on the work at the stern and quarter galleries for now.  Basically, all I've done is glue the quarter gallery sections in place together with the various rails (Upper stool, rim and lower stool rails).  This took much longer than expected as  I had so many pieces of rework, either because if breakage when shaping, fitting or by trimming a little too much (despite reciting 'don't take off too much' continually under my breath) and needing to restart.  It was also challenging as the quarter gallery rails needed to match as well as possible to the upper and lower counter rails.  Anyway, don't think the pictures need much additional explanation - other than that some are taken without any touchup, but the extra time afforded by the site outage allowed me to get a little more done.
 
Suffice to say, I'm very pleased with the way the quarter galleries turned out, definitely challenging, but worth the extra time.  The PE lights still require some work and these will not be put in place yet, but I wanted to get a sense for the overall look and the lines.  Of course final judgement is left to others 
 

 
The kit supplied console brackets  proved to be a little oversized, to keep the same feel as the plans I wanted these to fit snuggly between the upper stool and the rim rails.  For comparison, you can see the adjusted starboard side bracket to the not yet adjusted port side on the left.
 

 
Taking a step back to compare to the plans and assessing varied angles I think I've done as much as can be done to bash any provided parts into something a little more consistent.  As always, the human eye is a little more forgiving in person.  The plan profile is enlarged from the AOTS book.  The quarter gallery sculptures now have a definite 'ledge' to visually support them and I'm glad I invested the extra time here.
 

 
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.
 
 

Thanks everyone for not forgetting me!
 
@BE - Yes, I will glaze the lights.  One of my other vacillations is what with, especially as the stern lights still need to be installed.  There is the kit supplied perspex, crystal clear, and I also have some thin mica sheets which are less than perfect but maybe a little bit more 'period'.  Still pondering that one, luckily don't need to decide now.
@Eammon - need to see you getting back into things now the Ballier is complete!
@Mike - very much enjoying watching your Snake come together
 
Planning for quarterdeck planking:
Planking the forecastle and quarterdeck has had me in a state of indecision for quite some time.  Of course one option would be to simply plank with standard 4mm strip.  While there is next to no chance of a mess-up, I knew that I would be forever kicking myself as this would not be consistent with contemporary practice.  At this time, it seems that deck planking was still done by hand and involved planks being tapered, but without being joggled into the waterway.  I'm going to follow the suggested pattern in the AOTS Diana book which show a consistent taper over the full length (with consistent run fore to aft), rather than the other contemporary practice of having a wider section at the rear of some planks to allow the adjacent plank to butt into it.  This approach will definitely be a big challenge, but I'm hoping that taking this slowly will at least give a chance of success.
 
Firstly, the quarterdeck was marked out with 1cm station markers, the centerline defined and an estimate for the waterway placement.  I'm planning on the waterway being about 5mm wide, so the edge was marked 6mm from the interior bulwark face to allow for an additional layer of planking.  For ease, this exercise was then then repeated on a paper template, and seperate templates were created for both starboard and port sides.

The width of the deck was then measured at each 1cm station.  To aid this exercise, I used a newly acquired digital caliper which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone, I don't know how I got by with without one to this point - no more eyeballing to the nearest 0.5mm!  To minimize error, each measurement was taken 3 times and then averaged on each side.  This highlighted something that is not too surprising, that is that the the hull is not symmetrical, and varies in width from the centerline by up to 1mm, and needs to be accounted for.

All of these measurements were entered into a spreadsheet to estimate the required taper for each plank, and which allowed certain constraints to be resolved (for example, a whole number of planks are needed (!), and that the width of the plank at the aftmost end shouldn't be less than 50% of the widest part of the plank.).  The small discrepancies between the starboard and port side were resolved by simply averaging the two, mainly to avoid the need for different tapering approaches, and hopefully these discrepancies can be resolved without being apparent to a typical observer.  The spreadsheet allowed the overall planking plan to be determined at each station, so that this can continually be checked as planking progresses.  To give everyone a sense for where this landed, the desired plank is 3.85mm at its widest, tapering to 2.16mm at its narrowest over a length of 35cm.

Now the plank widths were known, 2 templates could be made out of some spare pear stock. (These were fine tuned after temporarily glueing together)  I was very happy with how this turned out, and it proved possible to get to a high level of accuracy with time and care.  These templates were then glued onto a board, and jig to hold planks placed in between.  Each plank was rough shaped to remove 75% of the needed material, but then finished with ever finer sandpaper.  The sandpaper was placed in the center of a block that slides on the templates to provide the final shape.  Electrical tape was placed on the templates to help protect them, and also offset the thickness of the sandpaper.  The bottom photo shows the first 10 planks having been finished.  I was very pleased with the level of accuracy that this gave, there being very little difference between the planned and actual.

Next step will be to start getting some of these installed, and continue shaping the remainder that will be needed.