USRC Not the Dallas 1815 by roach101761 - Artesania Latina

[roach101761]

I have decided to start a build log of the Artesania Latina kit Dallas. The model is already in an advanced stage.  I do however have a few photos of the the process after the hull was planked.  Some of the text and a photo or two, I have copied from a previous thread I started on the splash boards that are featured on the three William Doughty revenue cutter plans of 1815. The two paragraphs below are from my earlier thread.

 

 

 

I have been Kit bashing the AL Dallas revenue cutter.  I have done a lot of research and collected a lot of materials on the Doughty revenue cutters circa 1815.  See Chapelle's History of American Sailing Ships, chapter four.   By the way, the AL kit is not the Dallas, as it depicts the 79 ton cutter.  The Dallas was the 51 ton Doughty cutter.  I have also collected the plans of the the  Ranger,(a Corel kit) a non existent ship, which is also a Doughty revenue cutter circa 1815.  The three  Doughty cutters ares 31 ton, 51 tons and 79 tons.

 

Prior to beginning my build I collected a lot of research on Dallas.  Then one day I was Reading Don Canney's book US Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters and he stated that Dallas and It's sister Surprise were the 51 ton Daughty design cutter.  I was shocked.  Chapelle says 80 tons.  How could this be?  So I called him, told him of my shock and requested his source.  A few weeks later he called back and directed me to the David Gelston Papers at Mystic Seaport.  Gelston was the collector of revenue in NY City.  The papers contain the correspondence From Secretary Dallas that orders and directs its building by Adam and Noah Brown.  The papers contain the contract and later the certification of the ships measurements.  I began researching more and collected a research partner along the way.  YUP  51 tons.     No doubt.  I am in the process of writing an article or two.  I have a very rough draft so far.   An other problem is that two vessels were built at the same time.  One went to Savannah.  The other went to Massachusetts.   Not South Carolina.  I now call my model the Ship that Is NOT the Dallas.  Still looking for data to determine a name for any 80 ton Cutter built to the Daughty large plan.    The Ship was contracted for in August of 1815,  Launched in Oct 1815, Delivered to its captain in New York City in Dec. 1815 and is reported at Savannah shortly before the end of the year.  The ship served until Nov. 1821 when it was sold out by public auction in Charleston SC.  I have a complete copy of the Coast Guards Record Of Movements.  For the early boats there are a lot of errors and inconsistencies in this work.

[juhu]

Nice bit of research, looking forward to reading more.

Just to be sure, have you got Canney's US coast guard and revenue cutters book? Quite useful here I believe.

 

[roach101761]

This is one of the earliest photos I have my AL Dallas kit. At this point the hull is fully planked, the rubbing wale and the four channels are attached to the hull.   More on the planking and rubbing wale latter. After fighting with the thick plywood deck it need filling in several spots before I could begin my deck planking.    In this photo the margin plank is in and I begun planking from the outside in.   Believe me, EVERYONE told me to start from the center and work out. Normally that would be the correct path, but I could not because of the deck planking pattern I chose for this ship.  

 

I am a believer in the curved and tapered deck planking concept.   I was not going to cut my deck planks into 20 to 25 foot scale lengths and place them on the deck.  For a vessel so small I believe much longer planks would be used and there would be far fewer butts in the deck planking.  Also this ship was built in the United States in 1815 or shortly there after.  Much longer cuts of wood were available in North America although the supply was exhausted in Britain and most of Europe.   The trees could still be floated or carried overland to New York rather than transported on a ship.   In order to work out the plank pattern that I desired it was necessary to work from the outside to the center.

 

This picture also shows  that I have roughly framed up the cabin so that I could properly located it on deck. 

 

I was always disappointed with the design of the transom in this kit.  An oval of plywood was provide in one piece to be bent and glued into place with no supporting knees.  As you can see I have made a major modification to the stern which I will describe in greater detail latter.

 

 

[roach101761]

This photo was taken of the ship after a lot of progress was made on the model.  I am posting it now for two reasons.  The first is to show the planking job I have done on the boat, and the second is to show the building board that the model is being built upon. I will provide more detail on the other visible elements at a later time. 

 

First the planking.        At this point all should know that I have not used much of the wood that came in the kit. I used the false keel and bulkhead assembly,  keel, stern, stem, and the ply wood false deck pieces provided in the kit.  I planked the model with bass wood.  I have always known that I would copper plate the hull and cover up the planking.   I planked the hull in several strakes using proportional dividers, creating a port and starboard plank for each side, prior to moving on to the next plank. This was my first effort at prototypical planking and I used Jim Roberts' book Planking The Built-Up Ship Model as well as Don Dressel's Planking Techniques for Model Ship Builders.  Both of these books were a great help to me for this model.  I highly recommend both of them.

 

If memory serves, I attached the wales first.  They are made of cherry.  I then attached the garboard followed by the first broad strake.   Both these planks are much wider than the normal planking stock.    I then measured and set my planking battens.  Each of my strakes contained five (5) planks.  I set the strakes by using the tick strip method of measuring the bulkhead at the widest point of the ship. Then divided the distance to determine the number of planks it would take and the determined the number of strakes. I will provide more details on the planking in further posts.  The model is not out now, I will take additional photos of the hull and provide further descriptions.  

 

Now the building board.  It is 3/4" cabinet quality birch plywood.  I am embarrassed  to admit how many years it has supported the model.   I has been very stable and has remained flat.   In order to support the model level at the water line it was necessary to figure the angle so as to build the supporting structure to rest the keel.  I took the measurement directly from the kit plan sheet that depicts the completed model profile.  Believe it or not the printed plan sheet had the waterline parallel to the edge of the paper.  I do not remember the angle now, but you can see the result.  More on the building board and more photos later.

 

Edited February 11, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

Here are a few pictures of my building board. 

 

This first picture shows it from the side.  You can see the angle necessary to insure that the waterline was parallel to the the building board.

 

 

This second photo shows how I marked all the station lines for the bulkheads.  It also shows the scale I drew on the board to measure my deck planks.  Station two (2) is the bow. 

 

 

This photo shows the view from the bow to the stern.  It also shows the guide I made to form and bend the margin plank and for which I used to cut and fit the first planks on both port and starboard.

 

 

This is a close up of the scale for the planks on the board

 

Edited February 12, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

Now, back to the planking.   These two photo's show the port and starboard sides.   There are 15 planks on each side. The planks were laid in three(3) strakes.  The widest part of this hull  is at station #4.  This ship has an extreme Baltimore Clipper hull form.   The space in the bow makes for very narrow planks and at the stern the planks get very wide.   In the stern, to fill up the space I used wider stock and shaped the planks.   I used two stealers in the stern.  In the bow I DID NOT use any drop planks.   Most of the planks did not go below 1/2 of the plank width of the stock I used,  Actually looking at the model now, only one (1) plank violated this rule.   The first nine (9) planks down from the wale were laid in one piece stem to stern.  I laid in the stem first and worked my way aft.  The 10th plank was laid in two parts with the butt at station Six (6). The aft portion of this plank received the first stealer plank.  Plank eleven has its butt at station five (5).  Plank twelve (12) has its butt at station four (4).  Plank thirteen has its butt at station five (5) on the starboard side only.  This plank is cut to receive the second stealer in the stern.  The port side is in one piece.  I recall that I messed up the stem part after the stealer was cut correctly.  I did not want to do it again so cut the port plank at station Five (5).  Plank Fourteen (14) and the Garboard are all one piece. 

 

If you look you may see what appear as short lengths of plank and more butts.  I milled some of my planking stock to very thin thicknesses and tried using them as fill.   Some of the planks developed depressions between the bulkheads.  For the most part it was a success.  However, I have more sanding to do and will use some filler before I copper the hull.

 

The port side.

 

 

The Starboard side.

 

Edited February 13, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

Here is a photo of the bow of my ship.   You can see how narrow the bow planks get, however only one of them is less that 1/2 of the original planking stock.  This photo also shows what a beating a model can take while you are working on it.   The hull still needs some sanding and filling in spots before I copper plate it.    This photo also shows the lack of any drop planks in the bow.   Perhaps I could have used at least one, but then the plank would have not been in one piece and the exercise of this planking job was to learn how to plank in a prototypical manner, so it was a necessary exercise to cut and shape each plank to fit the space.  

 

 

[Gregory]

I missed it if you clarified this above..

 

Did you manage to match the AL plans to a Doughty design if not a named ship?

 

I look forward to your progress on this kit.  It is one I hope to complete in the future..

 

 I think it would be fun to emblazon " Not The Dallas " across the transom...

Edited February 14, 2017 by Gregory

[roach101761]

Sorry for the delay in my reply but I had to pull out my research to be sure.   I have not been able to confirm that any ships were built that conform to the Large cutter (79 or80 ton) plan prepared by William Doughty in 1816.  The AL kit conforms to the large cutter design but is not the Dallas, as the Dallas is confirmed to be the Medium size  Doughty cutter design of 51 tons.  Although I can not site specifics, I believe that there are confirmed ships of the 31 ton plan as well.  According Marc Mosco of Model Expo, he explained to me in an email that AL marketed the kit to ride on the Hollywood  fame of the popular television series Dallas, staring Larry Hagman. 

[roach101761]

These are two photo's of the stern of my model.  They are being posted to show the planking that I described above.  You should be able to see the two stealers I used in the stern.  They also show the wider planks that were necessary in the stern to take up the additional space created by the significant keel drop. 

 

 

 

I will discuss the make up of the stern and transom in a later post  and will probably re-post the photo again when I discuss the stern.

 

[roach101761]

Back to planking the deck.   As you can see in the photo below I progressed with my deck planking from the outside to the inside.   I also have made progress on major components of the deck furniture.  I will discuss those at a later time.  As you can see the deck planks are curved and tapered both at the bow and stern.  All of the deck planking butts will meet in the middle portion of the deck.  You will note that I have not randomly cut scale 20 foot planks and fixed them to the deck in some pattern dictated by the plans and other modeling sources.  I explain  my choices in further posts or I may edit this one so refer back to it from time to time. 

 

 

You can see the deck plan from the plan set with the uniform plank lengths next to the model.  The deck furniture is not attached at this stage.  It is just placed on deck to help with planning the placement of the deck planks. 

Edited February 17, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

Deck Planking in American ships prior to 1820.

 

In a post above I advised that I was a believer in the theory that deck planks were curved and tapered. Especially in American Ships where the timber was readily available everywhere.  Lloyd McCaffery published an article in the Nautical Research Journal in Vol 53, No. 4 Winter 2008.  He made the case that in earlier ships, hacking the deck planks into 20 foot planks and adhering to a strict pattern was not the norm until very late in the age of sail.  It perhaps appeared earlier in English ships as their timber supplies became very limited and had to import most of their timber.  He makes several points to support his argument.  Among those points is that the timber itself is tapered and the shipwrights would have taken advantage of this natural feature.   He also states that straight run decks did not appear until the early 1800's.   He presented several examples where the planks were curved, tapered and varied in width.   Intuitively I felt his thesis was correct, especially in American built craft where timber was always abundant in the age of sail. Further, in small ships it seemed to make the most sense.  I also began to notice how ridiculous adhering to a straight laid deck with a rigid pattern may be.   This Kit that is not the Dallas represents the large 79/80 ton large cutter design by William Doughty.   The following are some key design features.  

 

Length on deck       69'6''

Main mast              64'

Fore mast               62'

Square sail yard       40'

Boom                      42'

 

I give these dimensions to show that very long timbers, exceeding 25 feet were readily available.  They did not need to be transported by ship, but could be rafted down river or towed to the ship yard.   Or travel over land with ox drawn conveyances.  Now look at the deck plan of the kit Dallas and you will readily observe how stupid the deck layout is drawn.

 

 

When you look at these two attachments please remember the whole deck is only 69'6".  Two 35 foot planks could be laid to cover the entire uninterrupted deck from rudder post to the tip of the deck at the bow.   Also remember that the data of the ship given above shows that timber more than 40 feet long was readily available. 

 

 

 

 

Please note the scale I have superimposed on the deck plan at 5' intervals and the measured distances between major deck furniture. 

The distance between the stern and cabin trunk is only about 6 feet.  Why on earth would you cut that deck plank into a 4 foot section and 2 foot section?  Plank butts are places for water to intrude and are a weak point in the deck.  Those two butts should be eliminated. The third one in the stern should go as well because the plank terminates at the cabin trunk at about 15 feet.

Next, check out the three butts at the forward end of the cabin trunk that are one foot in length from the the cabin.  How stupid is that?  Especially since the distance to the main hatch is only about 17.5 feet from the cabin trunk.  The forward part of the main hatch to the furthermost point of the bow is only 24 feet and rapidly diminishes as the deck sweeps aft. 

Also, look at the obstructions of both masts, main hatch and forward hatch.  Many of the butts should be eliminated, not just the ones I marked to show my point. 

 

I decided a new decking pattern and plan for the deck was in order, using longer lengths of plank and not hacking it into 20 foot sections.    Actually this deck plan cuts the planking into lengths approximately 17 feet long.  A greater sin.   

 

Take a look.  Shortly I will have additional comments on how I laid out my deck.

 

Edited February 24, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

In the last post I did not manage to insert the opened deck plan views.  I will edit it shortly when I figure that out.

Edited February 24, 2017 by roach101761

[roach101761]

I just managed to insert the attachments of the deck plan in the kit  so that it appears as an image.   So go back above and check it out. 

 

[roach101761]

Above I stated the the idea that deck planks did not have to be cut in to 20 foot or less lengths.   In the deck plan of this AL Kit the deck plank lengths are about 17 feet.   I set out to prove that greater lengths of plank were available in the United States.    I was fortunate enough to come across a document submitted to Congress that was a report of the contracts of the Navy for 1823.

 

 

 

 

EXHIBIT of Contracts for Timber, made by the Navy Commissioners, during the year 1823.

 

The document proves that there was plenty of timber bought that was more than 20 feet long.  Most of this timber was more than 20 feet long.  How long do you think a log may be?  Most important to our discussions is the fact that there are white oak logs, and yellow pine that are 29 feet long.  Yellow heart pine that is 25 to 50 feet long and white oak plank stocks that are 35 and 45 feet long.   Also note that the majority of the timber was delivered to the Washington Navy yard, with some going to Portsmouth, N.H.  Which means it was perhaps transported some distance.

 

These contracts were entered into 8 years after the War Of 1812 ended and the building of those first replacement Revenue Cutters in 1815.

 

 

 

[roach101761]

More on planking this deck. 

 

 

 

In this image I have added a few more planks port and starboard.   I have been able to permanently locate the cabin.  I drilled holes in the deck and used steel pins to hold it in place while I planked the deck.   This allowed me plank around it without gluing it down.   This was also about the time that I discovered that the planks would become more straight the closer I got the center line.  I also needed to take up more space at the widest portion of the hull just abaft the foremast. You will note that the planks here are wider than the others to each side of them.   I hit the books and discovered that ship decks had what is known as a binding strake.  The planking is wider and thicker in these strakes than other parts of the deck.  It is possible they were made from Oak also and not pine. Thus I had some authority for my choice on this deck.  It was also about this time that I began thinking that I should have planked it just like the hull.   However I have never seen a printed plan of a deck using stealers and drop planks.  I have seen one model use a stealer in a deck.  Also in the photo I have begun toying with the masts to make sure they will placed correctly. 

 

 

 

In this photo the decking is nearly complete, as are the hatches and the cabin.  I decided to use a king plank at the center line of the deck.  Like a binding strake a king plank is usually wider and thicker than the other planks.   It to is tapered.  Please note the planking of the cabin.   Just about all planking plans I have seen plank the cabin on the same lines of the deck, so that is what I did.  Those planks are tapered toward the stern. 

 

 

 

This photo shows the ship in the same condition except with the kit deck plan next to it.  It appears smaller because it is on the building board 4 or so inches below the model deck. 

 

I succeeded in laying a deck with curved and tapered planks. 

No plank at its' ends was less than half the width of the plank stock used.

There are only 20 plank butts in the deck, all in the center portion of the ship, 10 to port, 10 to starboard.

The different colors in the deck planking was my failure to have uniform material.  However, I like the look.  It sort of looks weathered.

I got some practice with scarf joints.  The Margin plank is in 4 parts on each side. 

I also had practice at nibbing planks both at the stem and stern. 

The longest plank probably scales out to about 40 feet.  Maybe a cheat, except the mainsail boom is 42 feet, and the square sail yard is 42 feet. 

I decided to use a 4 plank butt pattern and stuck to it for aesthetics.

I like the result.

 

The biggest fail on this deck is that I used bass wood.  I used a sharpie pen to simulate the calk in the seams and it ran and was absorbed by the bass wood very badly.  Especially at the butts.    I did not use a pencil because it barely showed.  The bass wood was not from a uniform stock, and other than the color differences it also absorbed moisture at different levels.  Some of the planks became proud over time and it was necessary for me to sand the deck smooth again.  The next deck I will use holly or some harder fruit wood. Further, on the next one I will use hull planking techniques and run strakes of planks on deck using the king plank as if it were the keel.

 

I am looking for some way to chemically treat the ink to get it off.  I have had some success with q-tips and alcohol and acetone.  Also with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  That one bleached the deck also.  The photos above are before any treatment to remove the ink. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[roach101761]

I thought I would conclude the deck section with a final photo of  the deck that is completed with all the spaces ready to receive the hatches, masts and cabin. 

 

 

These next two photos show two of the scarf joints that are part of the margin plank.

 

 

 

[Steve 12345]

I see left out some of the joints in the planking and I see your theory behind it however just to throw a spanner in the works yes there would have been long enough planks to cover some of the distances but what did they then do with the offcuts 

[roach101761]

Steve

 

Do not understand the term or use of the terms offcuts?  God you are up late.

 

[roach101761]

Now the stern.    You can all see that I have heavily modified the stern from the kit.  Looking at the kit, the kit plans and Howard Chapell's The History of American Sailing Ships, Chapter 4 on Revenue Cutters I concluded that it could not be right.  Mainly, that it was unlikely to have been a solid piece of wood.   I decided that most likely it would be built up on the stern timbers and then planked.  The Photo's below show the parts that came in the kit.  This is a 1980's kit so the parts are stamped out of plywood.

 

 

This is the way the parts came on the sheet plywood. I put fin the center line to help me locate the part on the ship which I used for pattern. 

 

 

Here are the parts snapped out.   The stern piece is on edge go you can see how thick it is.   The fashion piece is next with the insert snapped out.  Before deciding to build up the stern I tried to build it according to the kit.   The wood was way to thick to soak and bend, plus it is plywood and may have de-laminated.  

 

 

 

 

[roach101761]

Continuing with the stern details.   The plan sheets follow with what succeeded on my assembly and what did not succeed.  

 

Figure 4 shows all of the filler pieces necessary to install in the stern to help shape the drastic curvature under the counter and the foundation piece of the counter(16).  This all went very well and according to the plan.

 

 

 

 

Figure 5 shows the shaping necessary to have the all those filler pieces conform to the hull Plan.  All was going well thus far.

 

 

 

 

Figure 8 is where it went wrong.  This kit was typical in its instructions to plank the hull before putting on the keel, stem and stern pieces.  I installed all of them before planking the boat.  I established the bearding line and provided for a rabbet.  However, that did not affect the stern construction. The problem here was part #26.  It was a small piece of rigid  plywood that would not take up the necessary curvature or fill the space necessary to fit flush with the planking.  Not to mention that that it was ugly and the plans made no mention of covering it. 

 

 

This is figure 9 and things then got really ugly.  The instructions call for planking not only the hull but the deck prior to fitting the counter in Fig. 8 above.  Here the stem, keel and stern pieces go on. The big trick here is the angle that is necessary to sand the sub deck, deck planking and the side rails(#19) to to receive the transom(#27).  Not an easy task. That angle also has to be sanded to the proper curvature to receive the transom.  A harder task.  Soaking and bending this plywood piece was impossible.  I would not take the curve.  There was too much stress on the point of contact joint.  With the fashion piece in place it also looked chunky and not elegant.  It was also two more pieces of raw plywood.  It was not going to be pretty.

 

I have seen examples of the completed model, both here on MSW, in person from other modeler's and in Ships in Scale.  In fact all the articles are in my research note book.

Some have made the mistake of not placing the transom at an angle.   Also, in the completed examples, including the box top, the model looked boxy and did not have the elegant appearance of Henry Rusk's drawings in Howard Chapelle's book, The History of the American Sailing ships.   I had to find a better, more attractive solution.

 

 

 

 

 

[juhu]

You are fighting bravely with the kit shortcomings. This aft partition is also in my focus. It is very often omitted or poorly described detail, usually represented by unrealistic flat wooden "deck" just like in this kit. I also search for some good looking solution that would make the overall hull planking continuous to the mirror and naturally looking. Good luck!

[roach101761]

I will begin now on how I constructed the stern on my model.

 

As stated above, all went well with all the filler pieces supplied in the kit for shaping the aft section of hull to where it meets the counter.  The final counter piece however proved to be problematic.  Because I installed the stern, stem and keel pieces prior to planking, there were also issues with the counter fitting flush with the planking, in addition to the problems associated with the little piece of rigid plywood provided for the counter,  It required thicker material for the counter and it needed to be planked(or at least appear to be planked) up.   I also needed a new solution for the transom and fashion piece.  It also needed to be planked up. 

 

Below is and image for the stern from above showing the stern timbers I created from cherry stock.   The transom and counter are made from cherry.  For the timbers I shaped the stock so as to approximate the proper angle of the transom to the deck.   In order to fit the timbers to the hull and deck  I cut slots into the lower deck on my table saw. I did not plank the deck prior to this operation.  I turned the hull up side down on the table saw, and after careful measurements between cuts(must have measured at least 10 times) and after carefully aligning the hull with  the saw and fence(probably did this 20 times) I cut the first slot.   All the measurement before cutting was to insure the timbers would be parallel  to the keel or center line of the model.  I experimented with some scrap to determine the width of the cut, saw blade kerf and thickness of the timbers.  I got lucky, the kerf of the blade turned out to be the thickness I needed for the timbers. I cut the timber blanks just a hair wider so I would have an extremely tight fit.   I did not worry too much about the length of the cut as it would be covered by the planking.  The cuts are not too deep, perhaps just over an 8th of an inch. Because the deck could not be flush on the table saw, the cuts were also at an angle. This required additional work on the stock pieces to finalize the angle of the transom.  As you can see, I got them in parallel to each other and the center line, and equidistant from each other.

 

That's all for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[roach101761]

Continuing with the Counter

 

After cutting the slots for the stern timbers and roughly shaping them to the correct angle I decided that I should fix the counter before I progressed.  As the deck was not planked yet I had the perfect clamping situation for the planks that would make up the counter.   I cut planks from cherry to fill the space of the counter, making them long enough to form that little wing on each side of the hull that interfaces with the transom pieces. The counter has a curvature, being high at the center line with a bend toward the deck on port and starboard.   It was not a very great bend and I decided to glue and clamp it in place.   I used 5 minute epoxy to insure I had the strength in the bond.

 

Here is a photo of the counter.

 

 

I possessed the perfect pattern for the piece.  The discarded part from the kit.  The planks used were roughly the same width as the hull planking.  I was assured a flush fit with the hull planking because the counter planks were thicker than the kit part, and I had the opportunity to fill low spots and continue to re-work the base of the counter.  If you look , it took two whole planks and part of a third at the interface of the counter and transom.  I drilled and cut the hole for the rudder post after the work was done on the counter, having pre-drilled the hole in the false deck and filler pieces.  What appears to be a fourth piece is actually the first plank of the of the transom construct.   You can also see in this photo that the transom is also curved from the center line slightly sweeping toward the bow.   Fitting that small third piece of plank to the counter allowed me to fix the angle it made with the transom.  It started as oversized and I was able to work it down to the desired contours of the transom.  This process also allowed me to fix the angles of the stern timbers. 

 

[roach101761]

On to building the Transom.

 

My stern timbers were cut from cherry stock.  They were basically triangle shaped.  I approximated the angle and prepared a large blank. I sliced them at the correct thickness and then placed one blank into each slot I cut in the un-planked sub deck that I cut on my table saw.  The stern of the deck was curved from the center line to each edge.  It was also at an angle.  I toyed or fiddled or played with the stern timbers and the kit part that was the transom until I was sure of the angle that the stern timbers should take. The counter already built was a big help in establishing the angle. The first plank of the transom that interfaced and meet the counter was going to rule the angle and the the look of the finished transom.  The stern timber surfaces with the planks would also have to be angled for curvature from the center line to the deck edges in order for the transom planks to fit flush with the timbers.  Because of the angle and bend from the center line to the edge of the deck and counter the planks would take on a downward curvature from the center line.   The flat kit part exaggerates this drop.  I would need to pre-bend the planks.  I created a blank to cut planks from.  They are about the same width of the hull planks.   To create the downward curve I used the tried and true method for making deck beams.  I soaked and heated my blank and held the ends down with weights so when dry it would be a curved piece of wood.  I worked like a charm. This was my first attempt at this method and I was very pleasantly surprised that it worked so well and as advertised.  The blank was over long.  I sliced the number of planks I needed and then some so I would have enough.

 

I then glued each of the stern timbers into the slots.   For strength I used 5 minute epoxy.  It worked very well.  I waited a whole day before putting on the first transom plank.  Clamping was not an issue because the stern timbers and counter gave great surfaces to clamp with.  I used yellow wood glue for this process.  Each day I added a plank.  I wanted to make sure I had maximum strength for the cured glue. After the first lower plank the stern timbers themselves were all that I needed for a clamping surface. Before the topmost plank on the transom I began shaping the top and forward parts of the stern timbers.  I did this with my Dremel with a drum sander attachment.  I also shortened the timbers as they proceeded to the edge of the deck to account for the downward curve the the planks and the transom.

forming

I  used the kit supplied part as a rough guide to shape the transom when the last plank set up. The counter planks forming the wings at the wales provided the starting point for the upward outward sweep of the transom planks.  Because I used pre bent planks for the transom the top rail curve was set The knuckles on each side needed rounded down and that is all.  Because planks were bent before I sliced them from the blank, the transom almost shaped itself. I left final shaping until I made and fit the fashion piece. 

 

Here are two more views of the transom looking from the bow and the port quarter.  In these photos I still have some glue clean up to attend to.

[roach101761]

I have not been on in a month.   I will now describe the construction of the fashion piece which is the decorative ebony framing on the after side of the transom.   I needed to shape the transom to it's final configuration to and shape the fashion piece.  To do this I started with the kit part and made a pattern of it.   It nearly matched the transom I built on the top of the rail.  You can see that the shape of the transom that I ended up with at the counter and the wings was very different than the kit part.    This photo is below.

I then folded it in half to insure the port and starboard matched each other. I then took some thin ebony and made the port and starboard side. I then cut and shaped the top and bottom portions.   When the overall shape was close (I made the whole assembly a little over large) I then attached the the two sides to the transom with 5 min. epoxy.   I then fit, cut and shaped the top and bottom portions and attached them with 5 min epoxy.  This assembly was a little over large on all four sides.  I then final shaped the transom piece to fit the built cherry planking transom.   From the photo's you can see the result.  I still have some glue/epoxy clean up/removal to do. 

 

 

The next challenge with this transom is to create a top rail in on piece that wraps the entire edge around and down each side to where the wings attach to the hull.  Still trying to work that out.

 

[roach101761]

I posting this picture again because after reviewing above I determined that I left out a step.

 

I cut filler pieces and inserted them between each of the stern timbers to set the curve at the stern and to fill the gaps.  Each one is also cherry.