Lady Nelson by vossiewulf - Amati/Victory Models - 1:64

[vossiewulf]

23 hours ago, Passer said:

And many that are finished! It is goldmine to have so many references of very nice models to learn from. Trying to keep an eye of all of them.

Yes, and I've been lucky in that Rick has been doing most of the research for me  But I just see now that he has a new build going, something I'd missed. I'm glad that he's working on something but I'll have to assume I need to do more digging myself. If you see upstream we were discussing at length the gunport locations and orientation, since they follow the line of the top of the gunwale rather than the deck line, which still seems weird to me.

 

7 hours ago, shipmodel said:

1.  The garboard strake, and even the next strake known as the first broad strake, flare at the stern on actual ships.  On a narrow hull like a cutter this may eliminate the need for any stealers at the stern.

 

 

2.  At the bow, keep the tip of the garboard plank low.  The more it is allowed to rise up the stem the less room you will have for the upper planking strakes, so the more they will have to taper or you will have to use more drop planks.

 

 

3.  Don't worry about locations of butt joints in the hull planking.  They were pretty much random, and governed by the availability of various plank lengths.  The only general principal is that you do not want butt joints on the same frame unless they are separated by two or three solid strakes.  The 3 and 4-step planking layout applies to the deck, not the hull.  

 

4.  The best resource I have found for hull planking, deck planking too, is "Planking the Built-Up Ship Model" by Jim Roberts and available from Model Expo and/or other book sellers.

 

Hope this helps a bit.  

 

Thanks Dan. I think the one book I don't have is that one, so I'll grab it. I wish I'd known about the flaring before I started the second planking, that would have made things much easier. As it is unfortunately I'm committed now and will have to go with my stealer plan. They're going to be where the surface flares out for the transom and therefore will be mostly edge-on from normal viewing angles so hopefully not a real issue.

 

After putting on the garboard the first thing I did was taper the topline to reduce how far it comes up the stem on both sides. And I found a new issue that I'd need to account for, that the bow end of the port rabbet bottom line drifts upward a bit less than 1/32" before beginning the upward sweep. Not sure how that happened yet but experience with the first planking told me to fully compare each plank as it's put on each side to within an inch of their lives to catch those kind of things so I saw immediately that the top line of the garboard plank on the port side was considerably higher than the starboard one. I carefully trimmed the port one back most of the way with the first plank and the rest of the way with the second, spreading the error out a bit.

 

As of the second plank they've been dead even port and starboard so hopefully all is well, and I'm going to be more careful cutting rabbets next time. 

[shipmodel]

Jay - 

 

Sounds like you are learning lots of good lessons, including how to adapt, adjust, and overcome issues as they come up.  Spreading out the adjustment of the port planks was an excellent idea.

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

Be well

 

Dan

 

 

[Rick01]

4 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

I just see now that he has a new build going, something I'd missed. I'm glad that he's working on something but I'll have to assume I need to do more digging myself.

I'll still be around to comment on deck furniture, masts and rigging . This seems to be where the kit has taken the easy way and oversimplified much of the detail, however as it's a kit of representative cutter it does allow us to reinterpret/refit this whole area.  

[vossiewulf]

5 hours ago, Rick01 said:

I'll still be around to comment on deck furniture, masts and rigging . This seems to be where the kit has taken the easy way and oversimplified much of the detail, however as it's a kit of representative cutter it does allow us to reinterpret/refit this whole area.  

As long as you accept that anything bad that happens in your absence is your fault, I'm good

 

I've figured furniture is still a totally open question, we've seen a whole series of models, none of which has the same furniture as the others.

 

[popeye the sailor]

there are models out there,  where proper research has depicted the layout of this ship.   but then again, as more details are known,  there are none that are exact.   the model manufacturers won't put that kind of time into a kit.......time and cost effectiveness rules the roost there.   however much time we choose to put into our models,  will dictate how much detail we add to them.   looking at other build is a good way to see the differences in the deck layouts........in the end,  put them all together and add what you see.

[Jörgen]

I totally agree with Popey. I think it is impossible to ghet them historicly correct even with years of research so I don't put so much effort to that. I build Sherbourne to learn as much skills that I can so I can use it on Vasa. My goal is to build good looking models and I think for age of sails ship models it is better for example to have a "clean" model rather than a realistic weathered one. But ofc, that is totally up to the builder to decide. But again on realistic, read the discussions about right colours on world war 2 aircrafts for the right shade of sky or RLM 02.....

[shipmodel]

Hi Jay - 

 

I completely agree with Popeye and Jorgen.  There is little sense in worrying about perfect historic accuracy for a model of a ship that never existed.  The best that we can do is to include all the deck furniture and machinery that would be needed for a working vessel of the period and the place.  For that, the books of Howard Chapelle are an excellent source.  He was a trained marine architect and did many of his drawings and plans after looking at the actual ships and boats.  Of course, as Jorgen says, individual variations are up to the builder.

 

Best of success with the project.

 

Dan

 

 

[vossiewulf]

Easy guys I didn't say anything about slavish attempt to find the perfect furniture, just that whatever I end up doing is still an open question  Once I get there I'm going to review the LN kit vs. various cutter models, I think it was Tony who provided a link upthread to a large collection of cutter models, some period.

 

I have been toying with the idea though of giving this a real name of a cutter of the right size and time period, I don't much like the idea of a made-up name. Haven't decided yet.

 

Passer, if you haven't found it already the best build log you should be following even though the design is somewhat larger and a bit different than our cutters, is Chuck's Cutter Cheerful. He's doing the rigging now and also the full step-by-step instructions are available on his Syren Models site.

 

Also, as Rick pointed out to me some time ago, the first chapter of Rigging Period Fore and Aft Craft could be relabeled "The Advanced Rigging Manual For Lady Nelson and Sherbourne". It covers a cutter basically identical to ours.

[Jörgen]

I follow Cheerful and will use the Rigging Period book. Also follow AOTS Alert and ofc the different builds here. Don't know how the mix of all these resources will end up to

 

[Rick01]

Jay - don't know how far down you want to go with detail but have a look at this 

It's something that has bugged me for a while - common sense says there had to be some sort of gasket but I could never find any illustrations/references to the fittings.

 

[vossiewulf]

EDIT - wow, wrote this six hours ago and then navigated away without actually, you know, submitting. One time I'm very glad about that autosave feature.

 

I had wondered about that too, since all the kits I've seen have a big open hole there, and iirc I think I saw one of period models that Tony took pics of had an open hole also. At that point I decided that despite appearances not much water must have been shipped that way.

 

And I am still making slow progress, managing about one strake on one side an evening as time is still somewhat limited. And it would be nice if I stopped buying new tools every five minutes as it seems like every evening I have something new to unpack and find a place for. The new acquisitions finally overwhelmed my tool holders completely and I had to get new ones and that led to two evenings of reorganization.

 

All the workbench area tools laid out for reorganization. It's just slightly possible that I have a teensy tool-collecting problem.

 

One of the holders is connected clear tubes and considering the expense of many of these tools I took the time to use contact cement to glue pieces of rubber padding and green felt together to go in the bottom of said tubes to protect the tips of everything.

 

Just a little bit better now. The one on the right has sawed-off wine corks (unused :)) and I used my rotary tool to cut custom holder grooves/holes for each tool. Very important as this is where all those super fine forceps are and those tips need to be very protected.

 

Speaking of which, after a couple months of shopping on EBay for good deals this is the set I ended up with. I'm extremely happy with these, they work so much better than other tweezers I've owned that I want to do a 1/600 ship just to give me an opportunity to use them to their potential. The ones on the bottom are .5mm both side and top view down at the tips, and just last night I used them to easily pick up and hold a piece of brass that was 1/8" x 1" x 3". You really don't have to worry about dropping stuff with these.

However if the folks reading were going to buy only one surgical tool, it would be these - a Storz Barraquer needle holder. Just for god's sake don't try to save money buy buying a no-name $10 version, these are hardened duralumin and are beautifully made. Since I got them they haven't left my bench top and they've become my go-to tool for grabbing stuff, and you best be ready to take me on with fully sharpened carving knives in each hand if you want to take it away  New these are probably $100, I got mine for $50.

[Rick01]

Just before you "first build" guys get scared off by this collection ( I'm green with envy). Have a look at my current work top and tools bottom of this post 

[vossiewulf]

What Rick says is absolutely right - none of these super special tools are required, they just make certain things easier and instead of jack of all trade tools you have ones more specialized for certain situations. I made do just fine for a very long time with just a couple knives and razor saws and sandpaper.

 

And downside of fancy tools is that if you don't get good results, you look like a complete doofus

 

[Rick01]

We must have been thinking along similar tracks today - I put up my workbench/tools purely to show what you can get away with somewhere about the same time as you posted your collection. 

 

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

 

I had wondered about that too, since all the kits I've seen have a big open hole there, and iirc I think I saw one of period models that Tony took pics of had an open hole also. At that point I decided that despite appearances not much water must have been shipped that way.

I just kept imagining a wave coming up hard and fast from astern and the fountain as it blew up through the hole for the rudder ( bit like a good blow hole).

[vossiewulf]

42 minutes ago, Rick01 said:

I just kept imagining a wave coming up hard and fast from astern and the fountain as it blew up through the hole for the rudder ( bit like a good blow hole).

Ok now that has me imagining a fleet of cutters in a following sea, little blowhole fountains scattered across the horizon, occasionally including a steersman flying head over heels. But I see what you mean, hard to see how that wouldn't happen with waves of the right height. I'm going to go look at Tony's photos again.

 

Another thing is that although my drawing upthread of the color scheme is using the waterline that I see marked, it looks a bit off to me now, with the bow too high. Are we sure I have the right line?

[Rick01]

1 hour ago, vossiewulf said:

Another thing is that although my drawing upthread of the color scheme is using the waterline that I see marked, it looks a bit off to me now, with the bow too high. Are we sure I have the right line?

Check these plans http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;authority=subject-90352;collectionReference=subject-90352;innerSearchTerm=armed_cutter I think you'll see that the bow actually does sit quite high ( as long as you can make out the very feint water line shown). I've just gone back and looked at your scheme and I feel that the waterline is pretty good, but do check these plans yourself.

[tkay11]

There are plenty of references to rudder coats and how to make them on several of the builds, including the Sherbourne. It's true they're not seen on some contemporary models, but they are there on others, and referred to in the books. Dan Vadas made a lovely one on his frigate, as did Dirk on his Sherbourne, and I explained how I made my own lesser contribution in my Sherbourne log here.

 

Tony

[vossiewulf]

11 hours ago, tkay11 said:

There are plenty of references to rudder coats and how to make them on several of the builds, including the Sherbourne. It's true they're not seen on some contemporary models, but they are there on others, and referred to in the books. Dan Vadas made a lovely one on his frigate, as did Dirk on his Sherbourne, and I explained how I made my own lesser contribution in my Sherbourne log here.

 

Tony

Thanks Tony! Man modeling in the intertubes age is a tad easier than it used to be. We ask, a few hours later I not only have an explanation but step by step photo instructions

[vossiewulf]

15 hours ago, Rick01 said:

Check these plans http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;authority=subject-90352;collectionReference=subject-90352;innerSearchTerm=armed_cutter I think you'll see that the bow actually does sit quite high ( as long as you can make out the very feint water line shown). I've just gone back and looked at your scheme and I feel that the waterline is pretty good, but do check these plans yourself.

Yep, looking at the Requien plans there, if anything her bow is higher. They must have done that with ballasting as the mid and rear hull are much fuller than the bows, so unballasted I'd think these boats would tend toward down at the nose. If that's the case, then the trim is probably pretty squirrelly in terms of getting it and keeping it right.

 

But I'm still confused a bit. So ok, bow higher is probably a good idea in a small boat toodling around the North Sea. But even so, you'd think they could have done a better job of aligning with gunports with, well, anything. On my boat the gunports will not follow either the deck or the waterline, but they will follow the top line of the gunwales, which is by far the least important of the three.

[Rick01]

The only thing I can offer in the way of basic reasoning is that originally these were used by smugglers then excise guys as high speed rough water craft. Imagine one under way in a reasonable blow, all the canvas possible spread - the bow is going to be forced down some way and this should level the gunports fairly well ( my thoughts anyway). I really know nothing about sailing craft but I tend to apply common sense to a problem which usually gives some sort of reasonable solution. Of course the other point is that (as we've both felt) the kit supplied gunwales is slightly out of whack !

Another theory!! They put 6lb guns at the bow end and fire these first with the discharge forcing the bows down which then brings 3lb stern guns up to the same level allowing them to be discharged on the same plane?"  Well it does sound good.

[vossiewulf]

Blah the second one doesn't sound good, that would require careful timing in combat and that's not a good idea, besides the fact you'd have to fire a 6lb mass at about mach 34 to generate enough force to really bring the bow down.

 

Your first idea though, is much much better and I think that's the winner. We're forgetting these ships were so over-canvassed that they likely would be pushed significantly bow-down under full sail, there just wasn't enough bow length forward of the mast to stop that from happening. In fact more I think about it, I'm sure that's the reason for the bizarre at-rest waterline, and that would be a very important point of note for anyone wanting to do a waterline model under sail. 

 

Edit - here we go, it all makes sense now  Here's a guess at how she would trim under full sail, gunports now align reasonably well with the water. Well not all makes sense, as I still don't understand why the gunport heights follow the top of the rail and not the deck, but that's minor compared to the overall trim alignment.

 

[vossiewulf]

Ok so update on the relatively slow progress and going to take an opportunity to explain exactly what I'm doing on the second planking for the sake of anyone new reading. Although the progress has been slow, I'm pleased with the results so far and I have a pretty firm process now that requires just three tools (four if you count my fixit tool), none of which are expensive surgical, dental, or jewelry/watchmaking tools.

 

First thing is you need a good knife with which you can trim plank edges easily and with consistency. This is something I know from my chip-carving experience, where I learned to cut lines with great consistency - 

And the ONLY way to do that is to use a Rc60+ hardness knife with a very fine bevel that is absolutely flat. Basically the finer the bevel, the closer the blade axis is to the cutting axis, and the closer it is the easier it is to cut where you want to. If you have a secondary bevel with an increased cutting angle, the blade tends to dive into the wood. If the bevel is even slightly rounded, the blade tends to climb out of the cut - there's a reason properly-sharpened straight razors have severely-rounded bevels.

 

So to neither dive in nor climb out, the bevel has to be flat and it needs to be at a fine angle, and the fine angle also reduces cutting resistance. You can't do consistent lines straight or curved using anything but a light touch. 

 

Yes I made this knife myself but you can buy ones from Ron Hock or Northwood Bay or others for $25-$30 that are very good, the blade on my knife below is from Ron Hock. Some of the best cheap knives are from Japan woodworker, they have marking knives with central cutting steel that's Rc63-64. Here's one that's perfect and already ground with a very fine bevel, epoxy a handle on it if you like. Even better for this purpose would be single-bevel knives, blade and cutting axis exactly aligned. I have some single-bevel knives on order from Mikhail but I might get some from Japan woodworker also.

In case anyone wonders, Japanese white and blue steel has nothing to do with the color of the metal, it has to do with the color of the wrappings they traditionally come from the foundry in. White steels are simple, nearly iron and carbon only and have all the advantages and disadvantages of the pure alloy. Blue steels are alloys that are more like our A2 or O1 steels, and can range all the way to what we'd call high speed steels. So generally speaking white steels might provide the best edges, while blue steels offer more edge durability.

 

Back on track.

 

Second tool is super-sophisticated, being a piece of .018" blue-temper spring steel with PSA 220 on one side. The hardest part about getting pieces of spring steel is finding someone who wants to sell you less than 25 feet of the stuff. I found a tattoo supplier on EBay selling short segments of various thicknesses for $7. I have no idea what tattoo artists do with it.

Last is a small scraper that I've ground with convex and concave curves sorta French curvish that you'll see below. NO CLAMPS OR TAPE OR ANYTHING ELSE!

 

So overall look at the results so far.

 

All that said, this plank wasn't going so great  I think it was Dan who pointed out that real ships often had flared planks to handle the stealer issue, and I decided to do that, just merge the stealers into the plank they were fitting into. It turned out I do have a boxwood sheet, however it's 1/16" so making workable planks requires cutting them roughly out and then planing down to thickness. This was the first one I was doing, and I learned I need to go a bit farther in planing them down, this guy just wasn't flexible enough. Obviously this would be a do-over higher up, but all of this is getting painted white so I went ahead with it.

 

Also, the sharp-eyed might notice that I was able to minimize the up and down rollercoaster look of the first few planks with some judicious curve reduction, not sure how realistic this part is as the planks ended up varying in width slightly and subtly, something that might be trickier than a dockyard would want to do.

 

One of my fancy tools helped here, because of the break the plank was no longer and no longer fit. This is the 90 degree attachment for my high-torque handset and it's like having a handheld Byrnes disc sander, with a fresh disc it can chew through boxwood without slowing down. With care it can be a precision joinery tool too, for example the bow rabbet fit of every plank is being done with this guy.

It wasn't as bad as it looked, it's ok once cleaned up.

So the process is that there are only two things I do to the planks I'm about to glue on:

 

1) Rough taper to 1/64" or so of intended line.

2) Relieve the top inner edge very slightly to minimize interference with glue or anything else I didn't notice right on the surface.

 

No beveling, sanding, anything else. Of course this is also Crown Timber wood and that means it's surfaced very well with straight and square edges. If that wasn't the case I'd work the plank until that was the case.

 

So basically ALL of the beveling and final taper and otherwise preparing the joints comes once the plank has been glued on.

 

First step, as mentioned, is using knife to trim us down to very close. We're doing two parts here, one is trimming to the line, the other is trimming in the correct bevel. This is easy, just keep the knife exactly perpendicular to the surface as you go. What we're trying to produce is an edge that is always exactly perpendicular to the surface, and therefore the planks we're about to glue on with their perfect square 90 degree edge will fit perfectly top to bottom - no concern about it looking good now but having seams open as you sand down.

Good sharp knife, you can get quite close.

Then we have just a little bit of sanding to finalize those lines and make sure we have our good perpendicular edge everywhere. I purposely left my little sanding tool at this width even though it means 90% of it never gets touched for this purpose. Anyone guess why? Class? Bueller? BUELLER?

Because it makes it much easier to see what angle you're sanding at. With this tool, it's not really hard at all to sand the edges to exactly what you want. The reason for the spring steel is you have a nice gentle curve that allows you to hit specific areas or you can straighten it out while holding it to cover longer distances.

 

As noted, the resulting fit is very good. I'm holding this plank up to test with very little pressure, and nothing has been done to the plank at this point other than pulling it out of the bag.

And one last step, remember I relieved the top inner edge of the to-be-glued-on plank to avoid surface interference, I further reduce chances of that by taking the corner of my little scraper and cutting a very small groove in the prepared plank right down on the surface.

So that's the basic process, we can follow it with the fifth strake on the starboard side, that includes the first flared plank at the stern. Don't think you got it just yet, there are some things about how I am gluing and how I'm fixing issues that are important to note.

 

Because of the good fit, the pressure required to glue is very minimal, and as such we're using CA, and we're going to do it in short segments so we don't stress about fast-setting CA and also so we can make extra sure of the fit.

 

IMPORTANT POINT: we DON'T glue the plank edges AT ALL, except for plank edges and ends that fit into rabbets.

 

The first reason is that any glue in there will create a line even when there didn't need to be.

The second has to do with fixing issues, as you'll see below.

And lastly, if you insist, once we have the plank fully glue in and leveled you can run some thin super glue over the edges, enough will wick in to lock the planks in place.

 

This is the bow plank of the fifth strake, and we start by getting a very solid glue joint with the rabbet. I generally let this one sit for five minutes or so to make sure it's going nowhere.

 

I'll add a pic here a bit later, but I add glue with a photoetched glue thing that fits into an XActo knife. It's .007" thick, which is very much required for this glue method. What I do is pry the plank up from the previously-glued segment (WITHOUT pulling up anything glued) and I then carefully paint the inner surface of the plank segment about to be glued with my thin XActo applicator - pick up a big drop, and then kinda squeegee it down the inner surface of the plank.

 

IMPORTANT POINT: LESS IS MORE! We want NO squeezeout on either side. On the upper side, it gets into the edge joint and as previously discussed we don't want that. On the bottom it squeezes out where we're going to be fitting our next plank, which is unnecessary cleanup work to remove that we don't want to do.

As mentioned, little pressure or fuss required gluing. I'm "clamping" this segment with one hand. I don't know about you but I like one-handed, 30 second gluing of plank segments with a very good fit.

So far so good, but now we come to issue fixing, because just after this segment I got a little greedy and tried to glue the rest in one shot, when I really needed to do it in two segments and it didn't land quite right and grabbed so I couldn't adjust. It's hardly a nightmare, but it's definitely much more open around the butt joint in the planks just above, more so than the results we should have had here, so we want to fix it if we can. And we can.

This is the semi-fourth tool required for this planking method - our burnisher/fixer. Good for holding down parts of planks while we glue in this method in general, but it's also perfect for fixing little openings like this.

 

Now if we'd added glue to that edge, there would be nothing at all we could do about it since it would be filled with glue and the planks would be locked together. But because we didn't, we can take advantage of the fact that wood can be quite plastic if manipulated correctly.

 

Step one to fixing an opening - with considerable pressure (at least on boxwood) we use the burnisher to press in a groove just short of joint. If you look closely you can see it here, particularly in the shadow of the burnisher.

Step two - that leaves a raised edge right at the joint, exactly what we need. We flip the burnisher over, and now when we bear down on it and work it toward the joint, this edge will be squishing down and will go toward the only open space available.

Step three - be pleased by the results. And as mentioned you can wick in thin superglue at this point to give you the traditional fully locked into place planking.

Here's that plank all cleaned up.

 

Same process for the stern plank, but we start by cutting out a piece matching the port side by using the same template as I used on the port side.

As with the bow, gluing starts with the rabbet joint and we get that right before working toward the middle. Based on my experience of the port side, I decided to leave this plank long and cut the midships butt joint just before gluing it down. Although I think I had it right on the port side before I decided to break that plank, that plank is long enough and bends enough to make it tricky to get it exactly right and the disadvantages of cutting a joint on a piece already glued in was outweighed by the advantage of being unlikely to get it wildly wrong.

Once we get to the other end, we cut it close with a good flush cutter. A good Lindstrom or Erem full-flush angled cutter like this is a very handy tool with lots of uses.

Then back to the rotary tool to finalize the joint, but with care you could do this with just as good results with the spring-steel sander.

And fit is good enough that I'll have to pry it back up to add glue.

I didn't show it, the the scraper is also useful for removing stock when working down plank edges as part of the fitting process. You can see the plank we just put on will require some knife trimming and sanding, you can add the scraper to the tool choice there as long as you keep one corner perfectly square. But below is its primary use, quickly leveling down the planks as we glue them on. 

And here's that stern plank done and that strake is finished.

 

 

 

 

[Jörgen]

Very nice and elegant planking technic. Please continue with photos and your comments. They are very helpful. Must learn from you here since my planking is much more "rought" with water soaking, drying, preassure, superglue and sanding..

[Rick01]

Like the spring steel idea - I've been using emery boards with various grades of paper stuck on with double sided tape. Must loo into the spring steel option though (eldest son builds rotary aircraft engines and probably has access to such stuff), I'm guessing this would also work well when trying to draw a straight line on a curved surface.

[Rick01]

3 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Second tool is super-sophisticated, being a piece of .018" blue-temper spring steel with PSA 220 on one side. The hardest part about getting pieces of spring steel is finding someone who wants to sell you less than 25 feet of the stuff.

Here's a thought for anyone thinking of going this way - 12" feeler gauge at .018". They're available but tend to be in packs of 5+  so you may want to on sell some.

[vossiewulf]

BTW should have been clearer that knife of course isn't required. I think the correct sharp knife is the fastest and most accurate way to get yourself down to the minimal sanding point but there are lots of ways to do that including files and another piece of spring steel with 120 on it. So really in the end all you absolutely need using this method is a couple of sanding sticks and some CA glue. Well and a pencil too for marking the lines you sand down to.

 

Speaking of that, for thoroughness you can see I marked everything out on the port side. When I'm ready to glue on a plank I mark the correct widths on the plank with a digital caliper and usually rough-taper it. I then write down the widths it needs to be at various stations, because as you see I level it down after gluing and that would remove any marks. That's an intentional decision, you can mark a nice leveled plank more clearly and it means on the knife work you're cutting through a thinner piece, and that's easier.

 

So once it's glued on and leveled, I use a digital caliper to mark it and then draw the line as accurately as possible. You've seen the rest above. Then I just mirror whatever I did to the starboard side.

[vossiewulf]

26 minutes ago, Rick01 said:

Here's a thought for anyone thinking of going this way - 12" feeler gauge at .018".

I never did find a decent price on feeler gauges. You might want to get a few thicknesses somewhere around there. What I decided was that .012 was only good for delicate work and thinner than that was probably useless, and bigger than .20 or so and it might as well be a stick. But there's a fair amount of difference in bendiness between say .14 and .18, so if it's not too expensive get two or three thicknesses to make sure you find one you like. 

[popeye the sailor]

nice planking      I don't work with fancy tools either.......why change now       I also make my own sanding sticks,  but I use various widths of planking,  along with various grits.

[Tigersteve]

Very clean work as expected. Still hoping you don't paint this lovely plank work!

Steve

[vossiewulf]

On 5/9/2017 at 2:59 PM, Tigersteve said:

Very clean work as expected. Still hoping you don't paint this lovely plank work!

Steve

I can call that broken plank battle damage where a frog smuggler rammed it.

 

BTW, see my post in my tools topic for a recommendation for a not-expensive but very good knife, one that can easily handle what I'm talking about above with plank-trimming. The default bevel it comes with is good, just grind out any double bevel they have so the two main side bevels meet at the edge. You'll have a knife that will melt through wood like a hot knife through styrofoam. Assuming you know how to sharpen edges, of course. If you do, this is a knife where you can hold a full newspaper up in the air and take a swing at it and cut all the way through and then slice off ribbons, I know as I did it testing once.

 

I would have recommended it above but I couldn't find it and assumed Japan Woodworker no longer carried them. I was wrong, it was in the knife section not the carving tools section.