vossiewulf

Yes, apologies to Mark for late-night threadjacking.

Thanks Popeye, will keep that in mind.

Gemma, I agree with Pat that foam is questionable if you intend the model to have any longevity, they don't generally age well and some kind of bad thing will happen when they do so inside a ship model. Pat, no you can't cut wood of any kind with any hot wire cutter I'm aware of, they're designed to melt their way through with little resistance, I foresee fire extinguishers in the future of anyone who tries cutting balsa. I think the only reasonable way to do it is the same way the kit is done, with additional bulkheads laser-cut out of material of similar thickness. As nice as a fully continuous surface to work against is, it's not necessary, the requirement is to make the gaps narrow enough to really fair the hull lines with enough bulkheads that the planks can follow a correct curve the whole way, and to provide enough support so planks don't sag under sanding between bulkheads. It surprises me that no one has taken a run at making basic 3d hull models of most of the major kits using the kit bulkhead shapes in the correct locations, there is more than one possible aftermarket application of a library like that. In this case once you have the skinned model you can slice it anywhere you want and there's the profile of a bulkhead in that location. All you need to do is add enough extra to allow the fairing sanding and there's the final bulkhead that would need to be cut. Very easy to produce versions that use 2, 3, 4 or more new bulkheads between the existing ones. Only other factor is checking the keel/keel plate part to see what kind of fit you need for the new bulkheads.

This is more of a supplies item than tools, but I just ordered these last night from Amazon. They look to be just the right size for small ship parts, come with labels, and a pack of 50 are $10 which seems a pretty good deal.

Interesting Derek, scaled down yes that looks like it could do a number of useful things.

First used mine to do a super-detailed cockpit on a 1/32 FW-190A-8 back in like 1991. They work very well, just has limited sizes. If you look on Otto Frei there are punch sets with a wider range of sizes, but they're also pretty expensive.

This thread isn't just for me to talk to myself btw, if anyone else comes across handy tools that others may not be aware of, post them here.

Thin-beam square from Micromark, very handy working with thin sheet stock. Mini-scraper from Lee Valley, just the right size for ship models.

I've fixed the planking lines and am working on completing it, have pics of the steps but will post once I'm closer to done with the inner planking. This however is how I ended up needing to fix, this is a plank at 2x size, the outer line shows the widths the planks should have had at the interim stations, the red line shows what I actually did. Those slightly too narrow widths at the interim stations added up over a series of planks to that bad upward sweep. And the results:

Dang, I was hoping for Commerce de Marseille at 1/6 But I'm also sure that's going to be one of if not the finest model of a 74 in existence.

Repeating other folks, they look great Tom. I'm planning to use this build log for when I get to my Constitution, and I hope I can do someewhere close to as well. My workbench top will never look that neat however

Thanks guys, I had actually read those, but I'd ruled spiling out as a factor since doing it correctly requires planking material three or four times the width of the intended plank, and we don't have that in a kit. The boxwood planking from Crown Timber that is intended for the final planking is even smaller, at 4mm wide, so I assumed this was something reserved for people scratchbuilding that was one area where scratchbuilding is a bit easier than kit building since we can't do that. I think the main issue for me here is that I didn't recognize the need for the taper on the bow end to be a pronounced curve, not at all a straight line between midships and bow as I cut, and hence the interim widths of the plank at the last two stations prior to the stem are much too narrow; otherwise I have no difficulty doing what this guy says is impossible, to bend a plank along its width and twist it so it lays flat on the bulkhead.

If they're not available I have no issue making something like that for myself. I was more thinking it's a niche market that someone with a laser could make a little money in Create required files for top 10-15 kits, offer for sale, run them off on demand.

Thanks Pat and Rick. I'm not anywhere close to throwing hands in air, I expected these kinds of things and were I to rip off everything planked so far and start over again it would be massively better as I've already run into the major things having to do with laying it out and tapering and beveling. It's exactly what I was hoping would happen, to see and figure out solutions to these things before we get to the final planking. I think you're both right that I started the tapering too far back, and now that I've seen this I know that if you have a more vertical stem, the more likely the taper isn't going to be straight and you need to start a little forward at least. But I'm going to take the time to draw it out in Photoshop or Illustrator, I bet it's actually a noticeable curve and for best results I'd have to largely skip using my plane and focus on using abrasives to get that curve correct. As for beveling, sounds like Pat says 100% bevel on the lower edge of the plank you're gluing on, and Rick says bevel the upper edge The one thing I don't hear is trying to do both sides, but I think what Pat is saying make for easier adjutment/fitting.

Great idea Mark. One I was thinking of after watching everyone spend time using filler blocks to fill in overlarge gaps between bulkheads for planking was whether someone with a laser rig and reasonable CAD skills could create filler kits for popular retail kits. For example you could do two tweened bulkheads that get added between each kit bulkhead, at that point no gap would be big enough to cause a problem. Or simpler, but less elegant, would be bread and butter pieces that you stack and then slide in between bulkheads that are cut to fit specific bulkhead locations. I think those would be quite doable and I at least would pay some money for something like that to cut out an annoying step by using laser-cut pieces that would solve the problem not just for the bow and stern but provide pieces for midships as well, I would use them.

Another one for new folks, if you don't fill the bulkhead spaces in with blocks, the long midships first planking section in particular will flex, making it trickier than it should be to sand to the smooth curves you want for the second planking. Answer is Sepping's angled bracing for Lady Nelson: Take some scrap inner planking strips and cut one or two grooves into them like this. Put glue on the side without the grooves, position, then press down making them fold at the grooves so they follow the inner curve well enough for a good glue joint. Once that's done, fill the grooves with super glue and set with accelerator, end result is a strong and rigid support following the curve of the planking. And it makes those sections much more rigid so they won't flex during sanding. I did this after 6 planks, you could do it after 7 (halfway). I'm considering filling in the remaining areas to be planked with some basswood.

Popeye, you're correct I'm spending more time on this than is necessary, and for my second and third and fourth ship I won't be spending this time. But remember this is my first ship, and very shortly I will need to do the outer planking which does require as close to perfect joinery as I can do. I could just race through this section and then try to produce that high quality joinery, but that would seem to be wishful thinking. So instead I am trying to learn how to get the fit I want on the outer planks by practicing on the inner planking layer. Somewhere above I said it better by saying I now have 28 inner planks with which to learn quality planking before I have to do it for real. So this is a first-model workflow not to be repeated on later models. And it's working, I mentioned above each plank that's going on is fitting better with less effort, and I'm figuring out which steps are really important to get that fit and which aren't, and I'm running into the problems I would face on the outer planking beforehand so I hopefully don't face them at a time where it will be orders of magnitude more difficult to fix. And I have a new set of questions and another problem that I need to ask about, now that I'm halfway through the inner planking. First question has to do with beveling plank edges - I watched Chuck's videos and he seems to not do any beveling of the edges he's not gluing, and does all of the required beveling to make the next plank fit correctly on that next plank. I'm wondering if that is the standard method or whether people try to do it more as it was really done, with the edge of each plank being perpendicular to the tangent of the bulkhead/frame at that point, meaning that you split the required bevel between the two planks so each gets some instead of Chuck's method where only one is beveled and that bevel needs to be more extreme. The former method makes more sense to me but requires a beveling step on all edges instead of just half of them. And now the next problem - When it came to the required bow and stern taper, after laying it out it looked very close to a straight shot in both cases, so I've been tapering from the last full-sized midship bulkhead in each direction down to the correct bow and stern plank sizes (midships is 3/16", bow is .108" and stern .140" for the first 10 planks). However I now think that was wrong and the taper on the bow needed to be done in steps, or most accurately it should be a slight curve from midships to final bow width. At least that's my explanation for what I'm seeing now, which is that the midships and bow dimensions are right but the interim widths are slightly too narrow, And was we've added up those small width misses we now have a significant one. Since this is inner planking I can use whatever means I want to fix that in this case, the concern is how to avoid it with the final planking. So am I correct here in what is happening? And if so, what's the best way to do a curving taper like that?

Going to show a few more pics below of a problem I had to fix last night, another example of something I missed due to my noobishness and simply not knowing where all the minefields are. Also, don't think I am imagining that anyone commenting on this thread is learning anything from what I'm doing, I'm showing what I'm doing so 1) you folks can say OMG DONT DO THAT if you see me heading down a bad path, plus 2) Rick has saddled me with the responsibility of creating the greatest build log/practicum ever for new people building LN, one so perfect that 100 years from now modelers will still be saying "man, THAT was a good practicum," earning themselves odd looks from the floating cyborg barista at their local Starbucks zero-G bar. First a couple pics for new people showing how I'm marking my planks, showing bow and stern ends, which side is the current glue line, and where the tapers begin. In my shooting board we line the start of taper mark on the top edge of the plank flush with the shooting board surface, and the other end is positioned so we remove everything down to the taper mark. Before and after bow taper. And I'm using this Modified Passaro Bender for the vertical bends, wet plank, bend it more than is needed, clamp in place, hit it with heat (hair dryer or plank bender) and then let it cool. So, with each plank I'm figuring out the geometry of the joining surfaces better, and each glue line is better than the last. And there I was feeling all fat and happy about that and congratulating myself when start dry-fitting the third plank on the port side. The bulkhead strips were registered on their top edges in the stem slot, I never considered the possibility they'd have different heights. And of course they did. And it looks like the first couple planks just exacerbated it. If this were the second planking, I'd probably tear off the port planks and start over. And if I decided I couldn't do that, I'd be doing calculations to split the amount to be removed off the remaining planks to minimize the noticeability of the fix. However, since this is the first planking I'm going to take it all out in one shot. Caliper set to .108", the height of the bow end of the planks. We can see how much we have to take off that plank on the right Mark the removal line. Start removal with xacto. Then riffler files to straighten and bevel correctly for new glue joint. Check, looks like that's correct. For inexplicable reasons didn't take a photo of the fix spot after putting on the third plank, I'll post one later But we do see that the glue lines are getting better with each one, Unless something else interesting happens, otherwise I'm going to be head down finishing the first planking run, will post more pics when we get there

Thanks Grant. Yes, sandpaper will work also but it's also more likely to slip and leave cross-grain scratches; I picked the rough-cut file as it should bite just a little with lines going with the grain. But if you don't want to kill innocent riffler files, sandpaper is the best choice. That said, please note the file I used was a hobby store $1 file, not one of my $10 G/V rifflers.

Nice progress Popeye, and I agree with philo426 that the deck camber looks perfect.

So here is my clamping idea, the Mk.I Advanced Filamper. Yes, all of my tools are born advanced. Naturally. When I improve them they become Uber. And yes they are named whatever damned fool thing pops into my head, it's tradition. So I grabbed a couple sizes of dowels and scroll-sawed them down the middle lengthwise. Rabbet with miniature rabbeter. Then glued all the file pieces to the rabbeted dowel and then sliced them apart into individual Advanced Filampers. And they work fine as long as tape holds. This one isn't pulled tight but I was able to exert goodly amount of force when I did pull them tight. Of course a better idea in general is rubber bands, but the geometry of the tape makes it easier to generate more force in the desired direction.

To a modeler, the whole world is his tool. Wait that didn't work. To a modeler, the whole world is just a bunch of tools. Crap that's even worse. The world is a tool and the tools of the world make... the modeler.... CUT! I'll come in again.

The answer is yes, yes they do Three types of large rubber bands and two types of erasers- the traditional pink ones and some modern white polymer ones, will be here by 7PM. This is where there's an advantage to living in the Bay Area. Also Rick I have lego blocks, going to grab a pile of those too.

Thanks guys, good ideas! Much appreciated I especially like Ian's idea of eraser blocks. The idea I had that I'm also going to try is this: This is an old cheap riffler file in cut 0 or so, pretty coarse, and snapped it into little pieces. I'm going to glue them on the bottom of small blocks. I tested, and they will grab a plank face quite firmly without leaving bad marks. I think Ian's idea is better but I think this should work also and since I already murdered the file I might as well follow through and see. Anyway, off to see if Amazon Prime Now with two hour delivery has erasers and big rubber bands. I love Prime Now, last time I went to our Bellevue office (just outside Seattle) to visit my team there I forgot my mouse, and I had Prime Now deliver me a new one in two hours to my hotel room.

Finally got to sit down last night and start putting on planks. Although it's going fine I'm still thrashing around with the process, but it will get considerably quicker from here; fitting the planks isn't taking me very long. The only issue is that I haven't found an acceptable way to clamp yet, so I gave up for the moment and am just using CA glue and hand clamping, applying glue in three sections as I work down the plank. Technically that would work for the outer planking too but I'd prefer not to be planking with expensive boxwood using the one chance to get it right CA method. I tried various pins and those plank clamps - part of the problem is this ship is so small, the plank clamps would work reasonably well on a bigger ship. I'm going to stop about halfway through the first planking and work on that problem again until I have something workable, I very much want to use the inner planking to try out whatever I'm going to use on the final planking, would rather not be trying something for the first time there. Rick, the boxwood planking is a very different size from the inner planking, being about .6mm x 4mm, considerably thinner and narrower than the kit planks. So more planks needed but should be much easier to do. So anyway, planking. I wasn't taking pictures with the first one, just get to see results. * This is basic workflow as of now. Start with ensuring joint surface on ship is clean and ready using the trusty rifflers. Mark the required tapers on each end, for these planks it's .108" on the bow and .140" on the stern, and then position them in turn on the shooting board and plane the taper, this step literally takes about 30 seconds. Besides fast, it's also quite accurate. Then use a solid graphite pencil on the edge to be beveled, makes it much easier to see them and know whether you're done. I probably shouldn't be doing this since I won't use this method on the final planks as it's possible the pencil would show in some places (like deck caulking). First plank starboard side. Trimming down adding more planks. Repeat, got two planks on each side before calling it a night, not bad considering I spent half the night trying to figure out how I was doing the next step. With everything worked out except clamping, hopefully can make quicker progress. Starboard and port.