Pliable planks from glue & water?

[irishrover1970]

Hello. I am about to start working on the Drakkar Viking ship by Amati and I am already confused. It seems like The directions are telling me to soak the planks in a solution of 50% water and 50% white glue and then let them air dry to make them more pliable. Am I understanding this correctly? Should I do this?

[wefalck]

NO ! You will end up with rigid planks. Planks are normally soaked in hot water, offered to the hull, held temporarily in position until dry in order to keep their shape and the glued/dowelled.

 

There is a technique, however, by which the planks are soaked and then directly glued on using white glue: when in the correct position the planks are dried and the glue set using a hot (temperature-controlled) soldering iron. I still would not necessarily soak the planks in a glue-water mixture, as the open time for manipulation would be rather short before the glue sets. You may have not finished adjusting the plank before the glue sets.

[Jaager]

A basic overview =  wood is a series of cellulose tubes that are held together by glue: lignin.

The lignin bond can be weakened by heat and pure ammonia.  Water does not dissolve either cellulose or lignin.

What water does is greatly increase heat transfer.  Hot water or steam can soften the lignin bond - allow adjustment and reset when back to RT.

Any ammonia that is in water, does nothing that water alone will not do, is smelly, and messes up the surface of the wood.

If the wood is a rectangle in cross section, bending should be limited to up/down thru the thin plane.  Curving thru the thick dimension tends to break the wood.  Spilling from a wider plank is the better option.

 

I have not seen the 50% PVA before.  I suspect that the wood provided with the kit is fragile and prone to splitting and fiber separation. 

The PVA would mitigate some that when it dried.  It will not help with the actual bending.  At the end and with more experience, you may wish that you had replaced the wood provided with a supply from a 3rd source.  Wood of a species with no obvious pores, that bends well, and use wider planks, that allow spilling for lateral bends.

 

Spilling is a migration from spoiling -  it means that the "S" shape or "C" shape curve is cut out of a wider board, and a lot of the wood goes as waste ie. is spoiled. 

[No Idea]

If this is the kit I’m thinking of the planks are already spilled “shaped” by the manufacturer and the hull is clinker built. This would mean that there’s going to be no lateral bending forces, in fact I bet there’s very little bending involved at all due to the pre-manufactured planks. Its also a very narrow hull which will also help. Personally I would follow the instructions word for word as the kit is designed with ease of build in mind. If I’m thinking of the wrong kit then just ignore my ramblings 😂

[wefalck]

... but also consider that sometimes instructions get lost in translation 😬

[Jaager]

One of the resent articles in SIS was a Viking.  The planking layout was just wrong.  The sheer plank did not follow the sheer.  I hope the kit here is not the one from that series.

[No Idea]

21 minutes ago, wefalck said:

... but also consider that sometimes instructions get lost in translation 😬

Yea  your right there but what’s the worst that can happen.  It’s a diluted mix of PVA which most likely is just going to coat the surface of the wood.  Nothing more and nothing less

6 minutes ago, Jaager said:

One of the resent articles in SIS was a Viking.  The planking layout was just wrong.  The sheer plank did not follow the sheer.  I hope the kit here is not the one from that series.

Ah come on that’s hardly inspiration for this builder and has nothing to do with their original question. Personally I wish the builder really good luck and I hope it turns out great 👍

[irishrover1970]

Yes “no idea” < love that username lol. It is indeed a pre-cut/shaped kit. All of the planks are paper thin and pre-cut and a few of the bulkheads have notches for them to lay in. I am  gathering as much information here as I can before I jump in and attempt this . I am a bit worried after reading through all of the build logs for this kit.  Maybe I should have read them before I bought it? Oh well, guess we’ll see.. 

[irishrover1970]

[No Idea]

You can sometimes really over think things.  I’m terrible for doing this and my experience has shown that more often than not the doing is much easier than first believed. Just go for it and solve each small problem as it arises. If your unsure whether to glue something, clamp it in place first and have a play around with it. You’ll get the idea but make sure you have fun and enjoy your build 

[irishrover1970]

Great advice NI. I still have a few  supplies I need to replace (lost in a move) before I can start anyway ,but your  absolutely right!  The best way to find something out is to do it! I’ll work on the “having fun” part for sure 😉. But also great advice!!

[Jaager]

The planking run on this kit looks good.

[irishrover1970]

Thanks Jaager . That makes me feel better 😀.

[wefalck]

The kit seems to be quite well thought-through - for instance, the notches in the frames, which would have been in every frame of the prototype, are only in the two extreme and the middle frame - this makes for good alignment without forcing. I gather the kit is an interpretation of the Oseberg-Ship and for this a reconstructed plank diagramme would be available. So, the laser-cut planks should fit reasonably well.

If you are going for the 50-50 method, keep the planks humid as long as possible so that the glue does not set, while you are manipulating them.

Overthinking things - also called procrastination - I am good at too. This can be a wise-approach, when building from scratch, but a kit has already been thought through, e.g. with respect to the building sequence. Hence, one can approach this quite relaxed.

[irishrover1970]

Thanks Wefalck for the  words of encouragement. I am going to start this build next weekend and just see how it goes. Oh, did I forget to  mention that this will be my very first wooden model ship ? Maybe I should have started with that 🤔. LOL. I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on. But like others have said.  Best way to see how cold the water is ,is to dive in!!

[irishrover1970]

Hey. Can anyone give me advice on putting the bulkheads in  Square ? I have heard of using kids  Lego blocks to do this. Any other advice  would be greatly appreciated . Thanks.

[Redleg6]

In James H 's excellent review of this kit, he mentions that in addition to the Italian language 8-page basic instruction manual for this model, Amati includes a separate sheet with English annotation, keyed by number to the illustrated manual.  Could you give us a photo of both the illustrated step and the accompanying English instructions for this 50 -50 solution?  I don't recall any of the other build logs for this kit mentioning this kind of plank preparation--that may just indicate that my memory is as bad as my wife tells me it is , or perhaps Amati has come up with an improvement for working with these unusually thin planking components(?)

 

David

 

[irishrover1970]

Here is what it says.

Edited February 26, 2019 by irishrover1970

[Gregory]

I like the wood finish on the box art, however, the glue/water mix would certainly seal the wood to some degree and make

any further natural finishing difficult.

 

Do the instructions call for painting?

[irishrover1970]

Yes, I believe it calls for painting but I would  rather stain it myself. I agree, I think Amati might be having a bit of fun with us on this one.

[Redleg6]

Picture and wording are pretty clear, but I agree with Gregory that this may affect how the planked hull takes a finish.  I"m probably the least experienced ship modeller on this forum, but for what it's worth, I think in your place I would skip this step if the the pliability of the material allows.  If you intend a natural finish for the completed model, that will probably give you a more pleasing result.

 

David

[irishrover1970]

Thanks  David . I am going to do just that! I am brand new to this also but have never come across anything like this in all my readings. Seems like a bad idea all the way around.

[wefalck]

OK, the Italian is pretty clear. I think they mean that rather than using undiluted glue to dilute it with water. The picture doesn't say anything about soaking the planks completely.

[mtaylor]

You might use the search function to find other builds of the same kit and see how they did it.

[irishrover1970]

Yeah, I have read all the Viking builds and no one has said a thing about it. And as far as the picture not saying anything about it your right. It’s in the text, not the picture.

[irishrover1970]

I am going to replace this cheap wood with good stuff. Can anyone tell me a good place to order wood? Thanks.

[No Idea]

Hi - I can see why you may want to swap woods - but as you have said this is your first wooden boat build. Why not just build it and get some great experience under your belt. You will learn loads and solve many small problems along the way too. There are some really tricky planks that you would have to cut and it will take you ages. This may put you off a bit for a first attempt as it should be fun and inspire you to more complex builds.  Just my thoughts that’s all 👍

[vossiewulf]

2 hours ago, irishrover1970 said:

I am going to replace this cheap wood with good stuff.

If you're set on that, you're replacing cheap wood with definitely not cheap wood. The preferred options are Swiss pear and Castello boxwood, with the former being a little more reasonable than the latter. As others have noted, you can also go with much less expensive maple or cherry, and since it's likely to be stained dark it may not be worth it to go for boxwood or pear.

[wefalck]

It may be a good idea to trace/photocopy all parts before building. Then use the kit-supplied materials and when you think that you got the hang of it, you can use the patterns retained to cut the material for another model.

 

Not sure it would be worthwhile to go for expensive stuff such as pear or castello - you also need the equipment to work it !

[irishrover1970]

Thank you all, great advice from everybody!! I think I might just go for it and not worry since the model was not much $ anyway. The experience is what counts indeed!! Thank you all and will keep you posted 👍.