To spile or not to spile...

[mtaylor]

Mark, Jolley, Fish, I think the epiphany has occurred, yes?

 

Indeed it has, Joel.

[jbshan]

I took my Philadelphia model to the local club meeting when I was doing the outside planking.  Using merely some manila file folder stock, I measured, marked and cut out with scissors a pattern for the next plank.  Holding it up to the hull, it easily, with no wrinkles, bends, kinks, slipped 'magically' in place.  Philadelphia is 1/2" scale, so big enough to do the demonstration for a largish group.

[Cabbie]

First pair of spiled planks, took about 1/2 an hour to make. If not less than that, maybe 20mins.

Currently they are soaking in hot water, I am not game to bend around the hull

and glue in one go.

Without the soaking it would have been a lot quicker than normally soaking and

pinning to the hull until dry.

 

In real life they would have been made from a plank 600mm wide,

and they are in real life a plank 240mm wide.

Cheers Chris

Edited January 24, 2016 by Cabbie

[mtaylor]

Looks good, Chris.  You'll get faster and yes soaking to make the bends takes time.   Try dry bending on scrap.  Use a curling iron, soldering iron, heat gun and see if that doesn't work for you.  

[druxey]

Chris: in real life these planks would have been cut from narrower, naturally curved wood.

[Cabbie]

Good Morning Mark

I will have a try at those things, the Jarrah I am using is quite brittle and needs softening, I don't know

if the heat will do that. They might have been ok, to use without soaking. I wasn't game to try.

 

Thanks Druxey

I have been wondering how they managed to get the wide planks to cut with.

Would they have tried to plank a bow like an Endeavour doing almost right angled spiles and

make all the planks go forward?

 

Thanks Chris

[druxey]

Chris: see my post #6 for the shape of a plank on a bow similar to Endeavour's. The shape is not what you'd anticipate.

[Cabbie]

Thanks druxey.

The question was asked wrong.

What i want to know is

Were ships like this, planked by tapering the planks, and making them

all go forward to the bow post?

By spiling, bending,

Or were some of the planks finished and or dropped under the wales,

as I am doing by copying the replica?

 

Now that i am thinking about, i am answering my own question.

I have seen models where the planks all go forward, but some are dropped

so that there is a lesser no of planks to finish in at the bow post.

Cheers Chris

[druxey]

Well, practice varied between English and Continental shipbuilding. Generally British practice was to drop planks just under the wale as necessary.

[Cabbie]

Things for me to look up.

Thanks Druxey, for your time and patience this morning, or evening I should say.

Cheers Chris

Edited January 24, 2016 by Cabbie

[EJ_L]

I must say that this topic has my interest peaked as I'm just starting a new build and will have to deal with these issues soon. I am going to have to try spiling on this build and see how that works out. It sounds like that is the way to go. Thank you all for this great discussion.

[rtropp]

hi all,

There is an interesting book, A Practical Course in Wooden Boat and Ship Building,  that was written on the eve of WW1 to help train carpenters in shipbuilding. One section describes spiling in some detail.

 

It is on google books.

 

The part with spiling is at

https://books.google.com/books?id=ITGmOqThhl4C&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=what+is+spiling+in+ship+building&source=bl&ots=Y5fYIsozj0&sig=wZw6aG2GRq-6NC7YZnan1Z_b_E0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmsK3t2eXKAhVINiYKHST7AkEQ6AEISTAI#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20spiling%20in%20ship%20building&f=false

 

The I dont think you can copy and paste the whole address but need to copy each line, one after the other to the address line.

 

Richard

[rdestefano01]

to spile!