Oseberg Ship by KrisWood - 1:25 - Vibeke Bischoff Plans

[Cathead]

In terms of general fairing, I don't think you need a scale plank. Any strip of flexibile material is enough to test the accuracy of fairing, either wood thin enough to bend easily or plastic/styrne. The goal is to ensure that you always have a smooth run between bulkheads (i.e the plank/trip doesn't lift off the bulkhead or have a gap) and that shouldn't require a precise plank width.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this:

 

28 minutes ago, KrisWood said:

I don't want to glue it in place before fairing it if possible

 

Do you mean that you don't want to glue the bulkheads in place before fairing, i.e. that you're trying to fair them before installation? Normal procedure would be to glue the bulkheads in place, then fair them all in one go. Or am I misunderstanding you?

[KrisWood]

Hi @Cathead,

 

Sort of. On my first attempt at this planking jig, I'd glued all the pieces to two parallel piece of scrap wood left over from when I redid the moldings in my living room. I ended up having to tear the whole thing apart when I realized things weren't lined up correctly. I don't want to repeat that process if at all possible. Remember, I'm a total newbie at model ship building and my goal, however unrealistic it may be, is to make a floating model that doesn't sink right away. To that end, I want to adhere as closely as possible to the Saga Oseberg reconstruction plans. Therefore it is very important that the planks match the reconstruction lines as closely as possible.

 

I think I found a solution though. I remembered that the top two strakes are nearly vertical amidships, so I scaled the lines drawing to line up with the plank diagram for those two strakes. Because the plank diagram is "drawn flat", and the ship's lines are curved, they do not match exactly, nor should they, but by lining up the fore and aft ends of the strakes with the lines drawings I was able to get in the general ballpark. Then I lined up the midship station vertically with the portion of the plank it intersected and scaled it until the plank in the diagram for that strake was the same height as the strake in the lines plan. I think this should get me close enough that I can print out a few cardboard planks and see if they fit the height of the planks in my bulkheads, then fine tune it from there. Does that sound like it should work?

 

As for the flexible material, I have a thin strip of basswood I've been using for that purpose and it looks like it curves nicely to me, so that if this model were only for display I'd be happy with where it's at right now. I'm just worried that if I make a nice looking curve that isn't the curve of the actual Saga Oseberg reconstruction, it'll sink as soon as I put it in the water.

[KrisWood]

I just remembered also that the garboard strake is near horizontal amidships, so I scaled the lines drawing just a hair smaller and now it lines up perfectly with the widths of both the top strake and the garboard strake just inside the lands of the planks. I think I'm ready to try a few cardboard planks.

 

[bigpetr]

I admire you for puting so much effort to the ship you will burn.

 I do not think it is so crucial to have exact planking as oseberg to stay on the watter. As long as rib shapes are right the ship will not sink.

[ccoyle]

14 minutes ago, bigpetr said:

I admire you for puting so much effort to the ship you will burn.

Wait -- what?

[bigpetr]

On 5/19/2020 at 5:32 AM, KrisWood said:

That said, is doing the keel and stems over again as layers of plywood for a model that isn't for display and only needs to hold together long enough to burn a bad idea?

 

I thougth you are going to burn the ship after this post. Sorry if I did not understand correctly.

[Cathead]

I agree with Petr. If you want to have it just-so for your own satisfaction, that's fine, but it should have little bearing on whether it floats (that would seem to relate more to whatever sealant is used and proper ballasting, not precise planking).

 

As for burning, I recall reklein sharing photos of a model he gave a proper flaming burial to (earlier in this thread), but I don't recall Kris saying that was the purpose of this model (just that it represented a personally symbolic "burial"). Did I miss something?

 

I'm still not sure about the reasoning regarding needing to get the fairing right before gluing in the bulkheads.

[KrisWood]

You understood correctly. The project is my meditation on my processing of grief. My family doesn't want me to burn it though because it's going to be so pretty once it's done, so I'm very seriously considering building a second one afterward that I keep.

[Cathead]

Wait, so are you or aren't you burning it? It's your choice, just confused as to the plan.

[KrisWood]

@Cathead, I am 99% certain I'm burning it, but I'll probably build a second model that I don't burn just to have one to keep displayed in my home (and maybe take sailing on the river nearby with the kids).

[KrisWood]

1 hour ago, bigpetr said:

 I do not think it is so crucial to have exact planking as oseberg to stay on the watter. As long as rib shapes are right the ship will not sink.

 

The rib shapes are the part I want to make sure are aligned correctly. In Viking ships, the shape of the ribs are defined by the planks, not the other way around. Therefore I need to make absolutely certain my planking bulkheads are aligned to create the correct hull shape before I can make any frame timbers.

[KrisWood]

Random tangent, my 9yr old daughter is watching a kids history TV show that is currently going over the Vikings and they've got Erik the Red sailing on the Oseberg ship as their generic Viking ship. "Daddy! He's got your boat!!!"

[KrisWood]

Minor update: I printed the planks out on heavy card stock last night and pinned them to my bulkheads. I was ~1 5/8" long on my guesstimate. I rescaled it and printed it again. I'll just keep adjusting until they fit properly on my model.

 

Edit: In the process of pinning the planks to the bulkheads I experienced first hand something I'd read here on MSW but hadn't fully appreciated until now: Cutting planking bulkheads exactly to the line results in a 90 degree angle along the edge of the bulkhead, while the planks themselves are curved by nature, meaning the planks only touch the bulkheads at the very corner of the wood. This results in a very weak connection with the bulkhead that's supposed to be shaping the flow of the planks, and a tendency for the plank, at least in card stock, to push inward where the pin presses into the bulkhead. I'm thinking about using some wood fill left over from painting rooms in my house to add some substance to the empty space. We'll see if that even works... Next time I'll cut my bulkheads larger, or put them on the other side of the station lines so that they just need to be filed down on the side that's too large.

[Cathead]

That's what "fairing" refers to; bulkhead edges need to be filed to an angle that matches the flow of the planks. I thought that's what we had been talking about. Have you read any of the planking tutorials here on MSW? They'd be pretty helpful.

 

If your bulkheads haven't accounted for this, there's a way to fix it. Many of us, when fairing, mistakenly take off too much at some point, resulting in the plank not sitting properly as you describe. You could use filler as you suggest, but it's often easier to glue a thin strip of wood to the outside edge of the bulkhead, then sand this back down to the properly faired angle.

[KrisWood]

@Cathead, that's a brilliant solution that I hadn't even thought of! I will absolutely try that. 😁

 

I'd read the planking tutorials on MSW but didn't really understand them until I tried pinning cardboard planks onto my bulkheads. I wonder if the model shops are reopened yet. I'm going to need more thin strips of wood!

[Cathead]

Model Expo is shipping and they sell packaged strips in all kinds of dimensions that are very useful.

[KrisWood]

The hobby shop near my home was open so I got all stocked up on thin strips of wood. I'm ready to do some serious building! 😁

[KrisWood]

I started gluing my planking bulkheads to the false keel last night and found that in the time between when I'd cut it and when I'd started gluing it, the plywood of false keel had warped a bit and the slots for the bulkheads no longer line up with the stations on my plans. Does anyone have any tips for fixing this? 

 

The best I've come up with so far is to take two strips of wood along the bottom, mark where the bulkheads SHOULD go, and glue bits of wood to it to sandwich the bottoms of the bulkheads into.

 

Edit: I should clarify that I say two strips along the bottom because I still need to be able to align the centerlines of my bulkheads with the centerline in my plans, so I still need to be able to see it through the bottom.

[Cathead]

Seems reasonable from what you've described.

[KrisWood]

Status update: I started gluing blocks to both strips of wood and the bulkheads and was two bulkheads in when I realized this solution was not going to work. My planking jig is built in three sections because the stems curve back over themselves at the top, so there'll be no way to remove it once the planking is in place if it's all one piece. 

 

I quickly removed the strips of wood and wiped the glue off before it dried.

 

Instead I used clamps to hold the blocks in place on the strips and to hold the bulkheads against the blocks while gluing them to the false keel. This way I was able to remove the strips of wood from the bottom when all the bulkheads were nicely squared up and glued in place. I also ended up using L shaped corner moldings left over from a home remodeling project to keep the bulkheads lined up with the false keel instead of filler blocks. This saved me a lot of time and still got the job done. I'd share a photo but it really doesn't look much different from my last photo except the bulkheads are properly aligned now and there's no more clamps holding them together except the fore and aft portions to the middle portion.

 

I also started cutting out planks! Because the planking diagram in the book is unscaled, it took a lot of trial and error printing out the 10th strake on card stock, lining it up with my bulkheads, and scaling it up or down using a ruler to find the difference between what I printed and what was needed. I eventually found a scale that seemed correct, made it 1% larger so I can trim planks to the correct size/shape while fitting them to the bulkheads, and started cutting them out of 1/16" basswood. So far I've cut out all the planks of my garboard strake. I think it's probably ok to share this image because I drew it by hand from a very very pixelated source so a lot of it is my own conjecture and not the actual copyrighted material.

 

 

Next step will be filing down the false keel in a few places and shaping the rest of the actual keel and stems to fit the garboard strake. In some places the 1/4" plywood of the false keel is wider than the width of my bulkheads (mainly where the garboard meets the rabbets in the keel). In other places my jigsawing wasn't perfect and I left too much material where the false keel meets the actual keel, so I'll have to file those down. Lastly I never finished filing my keel to its actual width, carving the rabbets, and carving the T shaped cross section. My plan is to mark in pencil where the keel is too big to fit the false keel/bulkheads, and where there is too much material still on the keel to fit the garboard to the bulkheads. I figure once everything fits I'll know this next step is done.

 

So far this is the most exciting part of this project, as I'm starting to see all these disparate pieces come together into something resembling a ship.

 

Pictures to follow once I get to a step that's photo worthy.

 

[KrisWood]

Unrelated to the above, I'm starting to think metal rivets aren't going to be the best means of assembling this thing and I'm looking into turning toothpicks down to the right diameter. Problem is I don't have a micro-lathe. I do have multiple hand drills and rotary tools though. Does anyone have a good diy tutorials (no videos please, I'm too old to absorb information from videos) for turning a rotary tool or hand drill into a micro lathe? While I'm at it maybe I should make a micro drill press / router at the same time. I have a full size drill press but it's massive and I'd like for this rotary tool "workstation" to fit on my desk if possible.

[Cathead]

The standard method for simulating treenails often uses a drawplate, but that probably wouldn't work if you intend them to work structurally rather than aesthetically.

 

If you're going to sacrifice authenticity for practicality in this case by abandoning rivets, why not just use glue and simulate the rivets? It'd be a heckuva lot easier and would look more authentic.

 

I can't help on your actual question, I have no experience with that.

[KrisWood]

It turned out my planks were still a couple centimeters too long. I'll have to scale the plans down just a little bit.

 

Meanwhile I made a functional steaming box to steam my planks in out of some scrap wood and an electric tea kettle! 😁

[KrisWood]

Another minor update:

 

I found scaled versions of a couple planks individually in published papers on the Oseberg Ship 1:1 reconstruction project. This allowed me to correctly scale the entire planking diagram, and I've now completed cutting, steaming, bending, and clamping an incredibly lovely and accurate garboard strake!

 

In doing so I discovered that I'd really messed up on cutting my keel scarfs and rabbets. 🤣

 

I also discovered that I'll need to file down parts of my planking jig to get the keel to sit flush against the bulkheads.

 

I'm in the process of figuring out if my current keel is still salvageable or if I should just cut it out again and do it correctly from the start this time. I'll post some pics once I figure that out and have the garboard and the keel lining up properly.

[KrisWood]

While I'm on the topic of steaming and bending planks....!

 

A better method for steaming planks: At first I started out with a steaming box similar to what's used in DIY furniture-making tutorials. The problem here is that at this scale and with the pitiful amount of steam generated by my electric kettle, I couldn't get the planks hot/damp enough to really get them bendable.

 

Last night I decided to try steaming them the way I would vegetables. I've got a colander that fits inside a pot with a lid. I filled the pot with water up to the bottom of the colander, put a wire rack inside the colander to hold my planks up above the water, put the lid on, and set the water to boil for about half an hour. The planks came out soft and pliable and bending them was super easy.

 

 

Inexpensive bulkhead planking clamps:

 

https://shipmodeler.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/simple-planking-clamp-from-binder-clips/

 

It's a bit fiddly for the garboard strake because it requires getting the clip really close to the center of my jig where there's wood in the way of getting a good fit for the binder clip, but I figured out if I put it a little further away and put a strip of basswood under the middle of the clip it holds the planks right where they should be.

[Louie da fly]

Kris, I'm really enjoying following this build, and your problem-solving procedure. It's really fascinating seeing how you're overcoming each obstacle as you encounter it. That and your thoroughgoing research and attention to detail are very impressive.  

[KrisWood]

@Louie da fly Thank you for the kind words! I'm quite flattered. I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. >.<

 

 

 

Meanwhile, I've decided to abandon my current keel and stems. Hacking slices of wood off it to make the T shape is painfully slow, has drawn blood more than once, and I'm really unhappy with how rough the resulting shape is, with chunks out of it all over the place where I've misjudged how deep to cut.

 

My plan is to re-draw the keel parts with an eye toward the final thickness of the cross sections this time, then cut it out in layers of basswood already the right size and shape to build up the T shape of the keel parts instead of trying to carve them out of a single piece of wood.

 

Back to the drawing board. Literally.

[Louie da fly]

13 minutes ago, KrisWood said:

I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. >.<

Welcome to the club!

 

Your strategy for the keel sounds like the right thing to be doing. Building up out of bits that are nice and straight and square is (almost) always prefreable to carving to shape (don't ask me how I know)

15 minutes ago, KrisWood said:

has drawn blood more than once,

Way back when I was making armour, my signature on the armour forum was "It's not really armour unless you've bled on it". I fancy the same applies to ship modelling. Certainly several bits of my own model have little bloodstains on them.

 

 

[mtaylor]

True statement:  "There will be blood".     As for trimming the wood, would files or sanding sticks work for getting the pieces to fit together?   I do that a lot as I cut slightly larger and then file/sand to fit.

[KrisWood]

7 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

True statement:  "There will be blood".     As for trimming the wood, would files or sanding sticks work for getting the pieces to fit together?   I do that a lot as I cut slightly larger and then file/sand to fit.

 

If you saw my current keel, you'd understand. It's been torn to shreds as I've chiseled shavings off of it, sometimes in chunks rather than shavings. There are places where it's now far more slender than it should be. There are other places where it has mangled chunks sticking out where I'd torn the wood.

 

To make this out of a solid piece, the initial piece must be wider than the widest point on the T of the keel. The vertical part of the T is much narrower than the horizontal part. Imagine it like an inverted rabbet the width of a strake, where instead of going into the keel it sticks out. The garboard strake connects to the underside of the T, so shaping it correctly is imperative, because it defines all other curves of the lapstrake (that is to say, plank first) hull.

 

I can easily see now what I could not see when I started this project, as people were telling me at the time, a lapstrake hull is no simple task for a beginner.

 

That said I am undaunted and have begun redrawing my keel and stems. This time I have to draw the width of the keel and stems at every point so that I can draw cross sections for each of the layer of wood I'll be cutting out and gluing together. In doing so I've started using math to fill in the gaps in the plans only to discover I'd sorely misinterpreted many of the lines in my initial attempts. Some lines in the profile view are actually absent in the bodyplan and top views and vice versa. By lining up my curves with the profile lines, then using math to get the rest of the way, I can clearly see which lines are which in the other views. The new keel and stem drawings are looking far more elegant. I'll post a screenshot when I'm done.

 

Then I'll just have to figure out how to get cross sections from curves in Rhino. 😆