Viking longship by Cathead - Dusek - 1:35 - FINISHED

[liteflight]

Stand looking good.  And bracing the formers a wise plan.  
Would you consider glueing  on a temporary gunwale with balsa cement to stabilise the tops of the bulkheads? Or has your bracing Sorted them?

Like the dark colour and contrast with untreated wood

[Cathead]

Right now I feel like they're pretty firm and don't need a temporary gunwale, but it's a good suggestion and I appreciate it.

[Louie da fly]

4 hours ago, Cathead said:

This won't allow me to plank all the way, but will let me get a series of strakes on that will help stabilize the hull.

Nice jig. I should think you'll be able to get quite a bit of planking done before the supports at bow and stern get in the way. That should certainly stabilize the shape of the hull.

[mbp521]

Eric,

 

Looks good. That should get you going. A few planks along the hull should go a long way to stabilize the hull. 
 

-Brian

[Cathead]

All the planks in this kit are pre-spiled, so I pre-stained them within the laser-cut sheet so that the framing around them would minimize unwanted warping:

 

 

The thin sheets these are cut from have a pretty strong swirling wood grain that creates some strange patterns on the planks (not at all realistic for scale wood grain). My goal is to repaint/stain the hull, especially the outside, once it's assembled to minimize this effect. For now, I just want the planks to have a base color that stays relatively dark if/when I have to do minor sanding or shaping.

 

The instructions, once again, leave much to be desired when trying to explain how to actually do the planking. Each strake is made up of two pieces (labelled a and b by strake number, as in 17a and 17b), but nowhere do the instructions specifically tell you in which direction these are meant to go on the hull. Each planking sheet has an arrow referred to as "planking direction", and one could assume the arrow points toward the bow, but it never actually says this.

 

 

They also never explain how to handle the butt joint between the two strakes. It would make sense to me that these are meant to go over one of the frames for maximum strength, but one of the 3D drawings in the instructions clearly shows butt joints shifted away from the frames, which makes no sense to me as you'd have to use some kind of parallel reinforcement and that would ruin the look of the planking in an open boat. I think that drawing is just sloppy, but it's concerning as there's no clear answer. The plans have a full-scale side view but don't show butt joints (each strake is shown as a single piece). There's also no guide for how and where the tips of the planks are supposed to run up the curved stem and stern; you're just supposed to guess?

 

I think I have to proceed on the assumption that planks are butted over frames. A test fit of the first garboard plank (below) implies that placing its end over a frame puts the tip in about the right place on the stem. This would mean that, in theory the location at stem and stern would take care of themselves as the precut plank lengths will determine where the tips go. Still makes me nervous to have so little guidance.

 

 

So far, the kit itself seems to be reasonably well thought-out but the instructions leave out a LOT of critical information regarding how you're actually supposed to proceed. There will be more examples of this soon, but I'll cover them when I get there. For now, I'm waiting for the stained planks to dry and probably won't get back to this until sometime Sunday as I'm spending the rest of today helping my in-laws and have to work part of Sunday to make up for work time lost during the week to other issues.

 

Thanks for reading, let me know if any of this doesn't make sense or if you have other ideas. As always, talking about builds like this is so much better than just going it alone.

 

EDIT: I meant to ask another question. The fact that each strake is made up of only two pieces makes for unnaturally long planks and only two butt joints in the whole hull. I'm thinking about cutting these down to make shorter sets of planks that are still butted over frames but far more often, as I think this would look good and more realistic. GIven the pre-spiling, I don't think this would hurt anything? Thoughts? How long would a typical plank in this era be? I know 20-30' is a good guess for the later Age of Sail, but have no idea for this era.

[Binho]

Here you go, straight from the excavation report. In short, the planks found all came from the bottom of the ship. They ranged between 2-6.5m (7-20’). They think the planks above the water line may have been longer though.

 

 

[Louie da fly]

10 hours ago, Cathead said:

All the planks in this kit are pre-spiled, so I pre-stained them within the laser-cut sheet so that the framing around them would minimize unwanted warping:

Very good idea. I don't know if there's a real risk of warping, but doing it this way will head it off if there's a chance of it happening.

 

10 hours ago, Cathead said:

I'm thinking about cutting these down to make shorter sets of planks that are still butted over frames but far more often, as I think this would look good and more realistic.

 

Also a good idea. The only suggestion I'd make is to offset the joins so they don't all land on the same set of frames.This is how it was done in the day and I think if you search "Planking shifts" (I think that's the term)you'll probably find more info. Normally there was a repeating pattern of three strakes, so every fourth strake was the same (if that makes sense).

 

And it might be possible to make scarph joints between the planks instead of butt joints.

 

 

However, I'd be wary of doing that - Because of the overlap in scarph joints, they might shorten your strakes so they don't fit the ship.

 

You're going well, despite the confusing instructions. Keep up the good work.

 

[Cathead]

Louie, thanks, I know about staggering plank ends and scarphing from previous models. The kit is already designed to alternate plank lengths so that you get a two-strake shift and that can't really be changed given where the planks are already cut. My goal was to at least shorten the planks so there was more than one joint per strake, distributing the look more evenly. However, this is getting even wierder than I thought.

 

I found even more frustration last night when messing with the planking. My initial assumption was wrong: the planks can't be butted over a frame the way they're designed. I rechecked the plans and tested setting two lines of strakes; there is no way to butt the two halves of a given strake over a frame that also makes the plank ends line up properly with the stem and stern curves.

 

Here is what the correct alignment at stem and stern looks like for the first two strakes:

 

You can see how the both planks follow the curve of the keel properly and how the inner one will curve nicely into the outer one. This has to be right; you can't shift these more than a few mm in either direction or the whole assembly is thrown off. However, here's where this places the two butt joints:

 

 

Why??? Why not design this so these joints fall over the frames? They're not that far away! But there's no allowance for how you're supposed to join these ends.

 

Scarph joints won't work because these are pre-spiled to a pretty tight tolerance. The instructions say absolutely nothing about this. This also screws up my plans to cut these into shorter planks and do a more staggered butt pattern, because I'd really want that centered over frames.

 

For the first strake this will be manageable because I can just glue a wood-scrap clamp behind the joint, as long as it's buried beneath the deck. But I have no idea how this is supposed to work once you get above the deck. And I want to define my butt-joint pattern now rather than altering it partway along.

 

This is the downside of pre-spiled planks. They make life easy when they're done right, but also allow for very little adaptation. WIth a bunch of strip wood, I could design my own pattern and cut them where I please, but I have to work with these or cut all my own planks from new stock, which I'd really rather not do as (a) I don't have it (b) I don't want to and (c) this was meant to be a relaxing model, not another scratchbuild.

 

A final point: All the frames above the deck are just for construction, as this vessel didn't have frames extending up that far. What you're supposed to do is plank the whole hull, then cut out the frames above the deck, leaving a hollow planked shell (this is also not obvious from the instructions and I had to confirm it through PMing with Binho; I was going to mention this when I got there as anothe flaw in the directinos). Which means that all the butt joints above the deck won't be supported by anything. So how does the kit expect those joints to be made in a way that stays strong enough? Is the assumption that the clinker overlap will hold them in place? Maybe that is the answer, the more I think about it.  Still seems odd, and it should certainly be explained in the instructions as it's not typical for modellers used to carvel planking.

 

Just going to keep mulling this over and see if something brilliant occurs to me. As no one has recorded a log for this model before, I don't have a direct reference. Binho built the 1:72 version, but that one was small enough it looks like all the strakes came in one piece, so this wasn't an issue. I reviewed a few logs for the Dusek 1:35 Gokstad ship just in case the design had a similar flaw, but they didn't mention this problem and just show a nicely planked hull with joints that seem to be over the frames.

[kurtvd19]

Eric:

I have seen backing plates supporting ends of adjoining planks just like you mention below the floor used on small boats all over the hull - full size prototypical boats - but not being into that particular type didn't pay too much attention as to what kind they were.  Somebody with more knowledge of this type of construction might be able to give you more info.

Kurt

[RichardG]

There is a document "SHSC002 Plank Lengths V1.2" from the Sutton Hoo excavation which states (emphasis mine).

 

"There is no reason to disagree with Evans (1975, p. 364) “… the commonest distance between the few surviving pairs of plank-joints was approximately 18 feet (5.45 m), although occasionally a much shorter length occurs.”
Ribs do not cover over any plank joints. This was not necessarily pre-planned. It is possible that rib positions were adjusted to fit the constructed hull where necessary."

 

https://saxonship.org/archaeological-research/ 

[Cathead]

Richard, thanks for that. The documents listed there also clarifies that various scarph joints were used, which makes perfect sense. It's clear that the original didn't  space the butts over ribs because these ships were built as open shells and there weren't ribs at that stage of construction, especially in the upper hull. What I'm referring to is model design, because the thin scale planks can't easily be scarphed and it would seem to make life a lot easier for the model building if the joints were designed to fit over the frames during construction. At the very least the instructions could explain what the designer intends the builder to do here.

 

Also forgot to thank Binho for chipping in those insights from the original wreck!

 

 

[vossy]

Will be pleased to follow this Eric after a long absence from myself. Looks like you are making great progress and detailing any problems a lot of kits present for future builders.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Jim Lad]

That's starting to come together nicely, Eric.

 

John

[liteflight]

Don’t know if it helps with the scarphing  question, but I recall seeing a video of a full size ship of this type being planked.  The planks were bent and held by wooden clamps until rivets had been fixed.  The planks were joined with a short scarph (not much longer than the thickness of the plank). The joint was sealed with something fibrous (?horsehair ) and something goopy (a blackish tar-based mastic?)

I don’t recall any rivets or reinforcement on the back of the joint

By the time the next strake is fitted and rivetted the joint will be well supported on a clinker hull

 

My big Oseberg shows a short 45 degree scarph in each strake, and I never thought to look on other people’s build logs to see if they lay on a frame.  There has been comment on the fact that all the joints land in a small area roughly amidships.

Perhaps it’s a non-event, and that is why it’s not mentioned in the logs?

 

[Louie da fly]

I think this must be what it's all about - the clinker is supposed to hold it all together, as a shell-first ship. But I don't understand how the planks are supposed to stay in  line at the join.

 

But keep at it - I'm sure you'll sort it out.

[Binho]

Steven is right, the clinker definitely holds it all together. The overlap on my smaller model is 1mm or less in some places and there are no stability issues whatsoever. I think your best bet is to keep some filler ready to put between any small gaps in the planks. I think it will work much better than you think once you get started, that's how it was for me.

 

In terms of scarphs, on all five Skuldelev wrecks they were just simple overlapping scarphs held together by a few rivets. The frames couldn't go over the joints because the rivets were there. Also the treenails that held the frames in place would probably have weakend the scarph joint since the overlap was actually fairly small. The frame positions of Skuldelev 2 are marked in the drawing I posted above, you can see none of the surviving joints is over a frame. Below is a pic from the new reconstruction of the Skuldelev 3 at the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum showing the scarphs. I highly recommend their website if you don't know it. Here's their Skuldelev 3 reconstruction gallery, and here is their highly detailed section about Longships, including Skuldelev 2.

 

[Cathead]

Binho, thanks for that. I have been poking around on the Skuldelev 2 part of that site, but hadn't stumbled on the reconstruction gallery yet, which has lots of good images.

 

The strakes should clearly be composed of many shorter planks rather than a few long ones. I don't fault the kit for this, it makes sense to have it designed as it is for ease of construction. If someone wants to up the realism ante and go for shorter strakes, good for them. The kit's problem is solely in the instructions' total lack of clarity on how you are expected to build the model as scarphed butt joints are impossible under the kit's design.

 

Anyway, last night I worked out how I wanted to approach this and put the first strake on. I wanted to simulate more shorter planks and initially just decided that I would cut the pre-spiled planks into shorter lengths and deal with the butt-joining as best I could. So I marked some locations and tried to use my chopper tool to ensure a clean and square cut:

 

 

However, the planks are actually quite tough across the grain and the tool only scored the surface. This gave me a rather good idea, in which I realized that a scored joint would look about as good as a full joint without actually compromising the plank. So I did the same all the way along and used a narrow file to widen the "joint" scar slightly since I assumed that subsquent painting/staining would swell the fibres and close it up again. After all, I just want a hint of this pattern as the real joint would naturally be pretty tight.

 

 

I then did some serious sanding to put the proper angle into the edge of this garboard plank (so it would sit properly against the keel). This angle got broader and broader as the strake curved toward the stem, until by the end I was mostly sanding the plank flat so it would sit flush against the keel rather than on-end to it. Here's a view partway through that sanding. The stain is actually really helpful for judging exactly how far the sanding has progressed.

 

 

Having done that to my satisfaction for both halves of this strake, I installed one at a time using wood glue and a lot of clamps"

 

 

It's hard to tell in that evening light but it came out nicely. Will try to take better photos later. I'm going to lay the same strake on both sides of the hull before moving up (rather than planking one whole side first) to help ensure (a) that the hull stays straight and (b) that the strakes line up at stem and stern across the keel as they'll be REALLY visible if they're offset. To handle this first butt joint, I used a scrap piece as a clamp glued behind the two planks. After this, further strakes may not need this given the support of the clinkered plank below; we'll see.

 

Thanks to everyone for  helping me talk through this and figure it out. I probably complained more than I should have but it was frustrating there for a bit and I'm kind of on edge overall. I appreciate the patience and the support. This ought to get more fun and interesting as the planking develops.

 

 

[Balclutha75]

Thanks for sharing this process, it's all been super educational for me. I was interested in your staining before removing the planks, something I had been scratching my head about. I decided to glue first stain later.

 

Good luck and stay well!

[Louie da fly]

6 hours ago, Cathead said:

I realized that a scored joint would look about as good as a full joint without actually compromising the plank.

Damn! I was going to say that! You beat me to it! BTW, if you have any trouble having a continuous line between the two joined planks, at least below deck-line, it might be an idea to add a slim piece of wood bridging the gap and extending some way either side of the join, on the inside of the hull where it would be invisible. And as well as helping maintain a continuous line in the planking, it would add to the integrity of the whole thing as well. Once you go above deck line, even without adding an extra piece of wood the lower planks might possibly support the upper ones where they join.

 

Eric, I'm very impressed with your persistence and ingenuity in solving the problems the kit has presented to you. You're actually doing very well with this.

 

And don't worry about "complaining too much". The whole point of this forum is to provide encouragement, help and support in ship modelling. And if you can't complain to us, who understand, who can you complain to?

[Cathead]

Steven, great minds strike twice, as I did clamp the butt joint with a scrap piece behind the planks. As I noted above, I'm hoping others are right and that the clinker overlap will support these joints well enough from now on. Thanks for the ongoing support and advice!

[Binho]

The scoring is a cool idea! Are you going to attempt to score the decorative moulding lines too? I was going to try, but at my scale it's too fidgety.

 

You are doing great! A lot fewer false starts than me. I did my share of complaining too because of the vague instructions. Honestly though, after the first two or three strakes it all started to make sense and went much smoother. Don't forget that above the deck line there are two internal stringers that will help strengthen the hull and, in your case especially, hold the planks in each strake together.

[liteflight]

Good thinking, Eric

Correct appearance with no loss of integrity.  Win-Win!

On 8/10/2020 at 12:38 PM, Binho said:

in terms of scarphs, on all five Skuldelev wrecks they were just simple overlapping scarphs held together by a few rivets. The frames couldn't go over the joints because the rivets were there. Also the treenails that held the frames in place would probably have weakend the scarph joint since the overlap was actually fairly small. The frame positions of Skuldelev 2 are marked in the drawing I posted above, you can see none of the surviving joints is over a frame. Below is a pic from the new reconstruction of the Skuldelev 3 at the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum showing the scarphs. I highly recommend their website if you don't know it. Here's their Skuldelev 3 reconstruction gallery, and here is their highly detailed section about Longships, including Skuldelev 2.

 

 

I have been looking at the scarph joints shown here.  If I were a Viking shipwright, I would arrange the scarph joints so that they were "trailing" ie the raised edge on the outside facing the stern (rather similar to coppering on a ship, and any joint on a plane.

If this is so, then this view is towards the stern

I will go and check on those sites.  Perhaps as I grow up I will check before posting

But it doesn't affect this build

 

[bigpetr]

They did it this way, although exceptions can be found - like transverse piece from keel to stem on Gokstad ship.

[Cathead]

I've been pre-soaking the planks using an old rain gauge tube, which works great:

 

 

After 20-30 minutes, I clamp them in place on the hull, let them dry, then attach with glue. Works great.

 

One thing I really wanted to get right was keeping the strakes on both sides of the hull aligned at stem and stern so they'd look good when viewed from the ends. So I came up with this simple idea for ensuring consistency. Once the first side was glued down, I used a few binder clamps to "mark" that position equally on both sides. For example, here is the first strake glued on:

 

One binder clip marks the very tip of the plank, the next two are parallel to its outer curve. Since the clamps are the same size on both sides, their edges mark the exact location where the opposite plank should go. So when I set the opposite plank up, I could nestle it right in among these clips and know it was right, without needing to mark lines. This also helped hold the plank in place.

 

Here's another example, using the second strake. First, clip marking the installed strake's location:

 

 

And opposite side showing exactly where the next one needs to go:

 

 

Sharp eyes will notice that I've been having a devil of a time getting the strakes to fit inside each others' curves perfectly. I'm doing my best and expect to maybe use a tiny bit of filler. I think it'll overall vanish into the broader hull's pattern, and I'm learning how these interact as I go, so I think the upper (and more visible) ones will be better. I also think this one slid a little under the clamp, something I'm now being more careful about it.

[Binho]

Smart idea with the binder clip aligners, wish I had thought of that! I had the same issues getting the strakes to fit in each others' curves, but it did get better as I built updwards.

[Cathead]

And here's the model with two full strakes attached. It's nice outside, so I took it out of the frame and went outdoors for some better lighting. Almost got stung by a wasp that was nesting under this porch bench and didn't appreciate me using it. Maybe I'll paint this black and yellow and name it the Old Norse term for wasp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I think I said before, I'm planning to repaint the finished hull for a darker, more tar-like tone so am not worrying about the uneven finish in the initial staining.  You can see the really coarse wavy grain in the original wood, which is another reason I want to repaint the finished product. I also want to help blend the ends of the strakes into the keel, either by sanding them down or by using some kind of filler to extend them. I might even try to make false joints so it looks like the pre-formed stem/stern that many real ships used.

[Jim Lad]

She's coming together nicely, mate!

 

John

[mbp521]

Looking good Eric. Great idea with the binders. I’ve tried using finger clamps before hold pieces in place on each side, but the swivel feet made it difficult to line up on both sides. I’m going to keep this method in my back pocket for future use. 
 

It’s just a thought, but the color of stain that you are using looks great on there. I would think that a couple of more coats would give you the desired color you are looking for and may help alleviate the visible wavy lines of the wood. 
 

-Brian

[Louie da fly]

I've bookmarked this clamping technique. Simple, elegant and brilliant!

[liteflight]

Eric

Excellent thinking with both the soaking/bending container and the binder clips

Do you mind if I use the idea in future?

 

My Oseberg actually has doubler pieces which effectively make the planking "end-stops" and should produce a sweet and smooth curve

(It says here in the small print)