HMS Winchelsea by Greg M - 1/48 scale

[Jim Rogers]

      I use this from MicroMark. Great little sander, easier to control then Dremil, flat surface not round.

[Greg M]

Thanks for the feedback and all the likes.  Jim, thanks for the reminder on that sander.  I remember seeing it quite a while ago and adding it to my wish list then promptly forgetting about it.  I love the Dremel in the router table, but it's not the best freehand device.  I think that sander is one of those things that were I to buy it, it would somehow disappear into my wife's craft room, so I would have to buy a his and hers.

 

The fairing is complete.  I can't believe how fast the underside went.  I thought it would be a two day affair, but I was able to get some good time in the afternoon to just plug away at it.  In hindsight, sanding the bow fillers took about the same amount of time as the entire underside of the ship.

 

I created a little jig out of some 4x4 and used the pink highlighter to color all the frames.  A couple frames also came up a bit short and ended up with a bit of basswood shim.

 

 

I quickly realized I needed to go outdoors for this as the amount of sawdust being created was insane.  I was going to do the same sequence of port center, then starboard center, port stern, starboard stern, etc, but just got on a roll and took the port side down in a couple hours.

 

 The hero of this story is the Diablo 1/3 Sheet dual density sanding block using an 80 grit sanding sheet.  The soft side gave up the ghost and tore apart as I was fairing the last couple frames at the stern, but it was an absolute beast on the underside of the hull; 70 minutes for the entire starboard sidel.  This exercise took me 7 days, but will easily be cut in half in the future.  The port side took twice as long as the starboard at each stage as I worked my way through the best angle of attack.

 

 

The lines look clean and this is definitely the most symmetrical model I've built. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greg M]

Thank You for the likes and advice all.  I took a couple days off in order to work on the honey do list, but finally was able to get back into the swing yesterday.  In the downtime, I had a lot of time to think about approaches to marking the run for the gun port sills.

 

I frankly don't trust my eye for symmetry, but I picked up a set of calipers that will measure to 1/128" a couple months ago and have come to trust them.  I went to the plans and measured from the bottom of the false keel to the top of the gun port sill  (fore and aft) at each station.  I chose to the nearest 1/64" as my reference point for all measurements.  I definitely followed the measure twice and then measure again principal going so far as to reset the calipers between each measurement so I wouldn't fall into a rhythm of guessing the next measurement and writing it down too quickly.  Regardless, what I found was the measurements were flat between A-G, so I marked those four frames as the middle and then focused on the foreward and aft sections independently.  I set the calipers to the measurements and ran the battens from G forward to the stem and A back to the stern on each side trying not to pay attention to the reference lines until I finished the run.  Everything lines up super nice with just a few frames where the marking don't match up to the reference lines, but it may have been enough to frustrate me to the point of doing something stupid or rushed in trying to adjust.  

 

 

 

I decided to check for level across the battens and found every one fit within the center lines, however you can see the bubble favoring the port side of the lines which was about a .25mm variance.  Noodling on it for a few hours and trying to come up with a resolution, I went and checked measurements again and realized the bubble was reversed from the pictures (I needed to raise the port side to level).  I had changed the direction of the ship between taking the photos and the issue the whole time is that my workbench is not completely level.  I leveled the building board and the runs are now dead center.  Oh man, missed the forest for the trees on this one, but decided to leave my "problem" up in the post in case anyone else tries the same thing to save themselves some grief and check that the building board itself is level.  Everything is plumb, measured out and ready for the sills to be installed.

 

 

[Greg M]

Thank you for the likes.  Lower sills are in place.  I picked up a Proxxon for milling strips in chapter 2,  but haven't broken it out of the box yet.  I am definitely done with using a razor saw ever again and am pulling it out and using that going forward. 

 

Found a technique that worked very well for squaring up the gun port sills.  I took a really cheap Harbor Freight clamp that generates very little pressure but it can create just enough tension to hold the sill in snug.  I then used the caliper measurements I took from the plan to fit the sill.  Finally, I took another piece of stock, squared it up and placed it under the lower side of the gunport, then used a binder clip to secure it.   I then adjusted the calipers for the higher side of the sill from the plans.  Finally, I only had to remove the sill, glue and place the lower side on the stock and adjust the higher side with the calipers.  I then would do the same sill on the opposite side, run a piece of stock across and make sure they were level and the sills were squared up before moving onto the next.   I only did this for the gun ports and just eyeballed the blocking pieces. 

 

 

The run looks clean on the port side

 

as well as starboard.

 

One final thing I did was take the actual measurements of the gunports on both sides with the calipers to 1/128" (.2mm) in order to make sure there were no major discrepancies between both sides that should be adjusted now. The results are in the variance column where both sides are within 1/128" and 4 of the last 5 frames I did are spot on.  Very happy with the results.  One final observation is that I cross-referenced my measurements against the plan measurements and found that the areas where there were discrepancies were in the transition from the flat A-G frames forward and aft and the final small sill at the stern which was a bit tough due to its size to get good measurements.    This is completely because of the way I laid my battens out earlier and caused me to smooth out the rise from the waist a bit more than it should be.  The run looks smooth to my eye and the important thing is there is little variance between the two sides, so any fine adjustments that may need to be made at a later point would be applied equally.

 

Pretty excited about learning to use a new tool and getting these gun ports framed in.   

[Matt D]

It’s looking good.  I’m certain that your precision will pay off.

[Greg M]

Thanks Matt.  I'm finding slowing down, taking my time measuring and writing it all down is keeping my enthusiasm up more than if I just kept moving.  A lot less time doing things 2 or 3 times.  Still making some mistakes and having to redo things, but much less than usual and it's not nearly as discouraging.

 

I pulled out the Proxxon and what a difference it made.  Probably reduced the time of cutting and sanding the lintels by a couple of hours.  Fairing everything up took a bit of time and I knocked 2 or.3 pieces loose on each side that had to be fixed, but better to fix a bad glue joint now than when planking.

 

Run looks nice from the stern.  

 

 

and from the bow.

 

One question I had is I started putting in the gunport uprights and realized those will require a fair bit of fairing to the bulkhead curve as well.  Any tips on fairing the uprights without messing up the sills?  I'm assuming fairly high grit and patience are in order.

 

[Greg M]

Thank you all for the likes.  

 

Quick update, which is more around a tip for anyone just getting going.  I installed all the gun port uprights today.  As I moved towards the ones in the bow that need to have the bulkheads cut, I removed starboard bulkhead S first.  I thought everything was great until I went to install the gun port upright and noticed that it was a touch too long so it had pushed the top of the bulkhead and lintels out of alignment.  I removed it, but due to lack of support it broke apart everything between bulkhead Q and U above the sills.  It became a puzzle and took a bit of time to get everything back together and properly squared up, but it came out all right in the end.  

 

Simply installing a temporary piece between (W and U) and (Q and S) allowed me to cut through and install all the other upright without any problems.  Then I just removed the temporary support with a set of needle nose pliers after sanding and installing the upright.  Having a support under each side of the lintel was enough to stabilize everything.  

 

 

Also, discovered that hand backed 150 grit (sheet of sandpaper cut into a third, then folded into thirds) works awesome for sanding the gunport uprights without messing up the sills.

 

I just need an hour or two to fair all the gunports and then onward to the stern.  

[Greg M]

Great progress.  The uprights faired up nicely.  Sanding with just the pressure of my thumb did a great job of creating that slight depression in the uprights without overspending.  A whole lotta sanding up to this point, but I'm super happy with the results.  

 

 

I've moved onto the stern.  I'm trying something here as a bit of an experiment to see if it works.  I set the double-frames first then clipped a batten across the tops.  I then put in the four frames in between them aligned to the batten and tacked a drop of glue across frames 27 and 28 at each frame.  I'm going to let this dry overnight, but I think this should keep any frame from rising or dropping as I install the transoms sills and worst case if it doesn't work, it should be easy to chip out the glue and restart without causing any damage. 

 

 

 

 

[Greg M]

Adding the batten and tacking in the transom frames did exactly what I hoped it would do, but a little too well.  I shouldn't have tacked in the double frames as it caused a whole lot of grief.  I'm glad I've been looking at other folks build logs.  I forget whose I saw it in, but a few weeks ago someones build log everything looked great except when viewed from above.  I was running into that exact same problem when I tried to install the transom pieces with all 5 window fillers in place.  Turns out the double frames were exerting so much pressure that they were pushing the other frames out of alignment.  

 

Regardless, I stepped back and realized installing just the middle sills without any other fillers in place and working my way out would remove any pressure to push the frames out of alignment.  I messed up the top measurement on the tick strips, but I installed the lower sills first, so everything is aligned properly.  My major concern right now is using the batten to make sure there was no movement might have flattened the transom too much.  I probably won't know if I need to correct this until after  it's faired.

 

 

The double frames had to be pushed out quite a bit, but in the end everything lines up on the transom piece.  I was a little worried that the holes would be off, but they appear fine.

 

From above, the transom has a little visible curve, but definitely not to the extent on the plans.  The lower sills look fine.  Looks like a lot of sanding in my future tomorrow. 

[Rustyj]

Looking good. I think once sanded the curve will show up better.

[Greg M]

Thanks Rusty.  You're right.  I finished rough sanding and there's definitely more of a curve evident even if it doesn't show well in the photo.  It's much more evident when viewed from below.  I do think there's a slight spring to the starboard side that should correct when I frame for the galleries.  The calipers show measurements the same on both sides, but there's a little more play to the starboard side than port, so  I think I may put a sacrificial piece of framing or two in place to make sure the transom is stable before fairing the sides.

 

[Greg M]

Definitely starting to get a little tired of sanding, but I think I'm done with fairing the inside and outside of the stern for Chapter 1.  There may be some fine adjustments come Chapter 3, but I'm happy with the way it looks.  I did a light fairing of the counter, but it will need some more love in Chapter 2.  I'd been dreading the stern since the day I started the build based on how much trouble I've had in that area in the past, but those little alignment fillers made all the difference the world.  

 

I need to do a little work on bulkheads 27/28 prior to fairing the sides of the stern and bulkhead 29.  In the monograph, Chuck specifically calls out fairing the sides prior to framing for the galleries, but was wondering if at least framing the horizontal pieces would make fairing easier by reducing any play in the stern.  Above I was thinking of putting sacrificial supports in place, but then started thinking why not just install the horizontal framing.  Any advice, thoughts or caveats?  

 

Edit 16 hours later: Way overthought this and caused myself a bit of analysis paralysis, but fairing the sides of the stern was really no different than fairing the sills, lintels and uprights.  The cedar is quite a bit softer than the plywood, so taking it slow and not being too aggressive is all that was needed.

 

 

 

[Stuntflyer]

Greg, just a small reminder to fair the outer stern frames as shown here by the dotted lies.

 

Mike

[Greg M]

Thanks Mike and everyone for the likes.  I started this morning by drawing that dotted line as my boundaries for fairing.  It turned out to be much more straightforward than I thought it would be once I started.  I faired down just a little bit onto frame 29.  I figure it will be much easier to faire the rest of frame 29 once the Wales are in place and I flip her back over.  

 

The gunports and Q Gallery framing turned out to be a much different story.  I made the same stupid mistake on the starboard gunport that I made earlier on the first gunport I had to cut the frame for.  After fairing, I installed the two horizontal pieces, but didn't think to install any vertical supports.  I decided to cut the gunport and I ended up with a little bit of a puzzle again.  I fixed that, was able to clean up the gunport properly and then when I moved over to the port side, I discovered that the frames had shifted a touch after glueing up due to a bad clamping job, so I cut those out and redo.   On a positive note. the Proxxon has been a huge boon as I've been cutting each piece of frame out twice to the same spec and if it fits on one side, but not the other I know there's a problem, which I might not have caught until further down the road if I was still hand cutting each piece as needed. 

     

Just one of those things I guess where the hard part turns out to be easier than you would think and the easy part you take for granted and it bites you.  The past 6 weeks have flown by getting to this point; can't believe the end of chapter 1 is in sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greg M]

Thank You for the likes folks.  Last night I was up late measuring and remeasuring the stern because of the circled areas below left.  This area was far enough off from the plan to be noticeable visually and I spent a long time trying to root cause it.  I couldn't find the problem as the port side seemed alright.  Went to bed last night realizing I was in danger of falling into the "it's good enough" habit and I had to break it.  I read up on chapter three to get an idea of what dangers lay ahead and paid special attention to what Chuck was saying about the optional panels and gunport placement.  I went back and spent a good amount of time reframing and sanding both gunports to match the plans as close as I could get them.  It turned out that the starboard port was about 1/32" too low fore and aft.  The port one was a little bit lower on the forward side and a little bit higher on the aft side in comparison, so it didn't look off visually and the measurements between the two side weren't far off, but it would have come back to bite me down the road.  

 

 

With the tops of the starboard bulkheads measured, faired and the rail installed for the quarterdeck, everything is back in spec and transferring the measurements to the port side should be a snap.

 

 

[Greg M]

As always, thank you for the Likes. It's extremely motivating.  Lots of progress over the last couple days.  Hance pieces and quarterdeck rails are in place...not without a couple little glitches related to the foreword hance pieces that I didn't catch until I went to the port side and remeasured.  I had faired it so a rail would abut the hance piece like the quarterdeck instead of fairing the hance piece into the bulkheads.  Then I had also faired the bulkhead just aft of the hance piece level not noticing it should be proud about 3/64".  Regardless, very easy fixes at this stage.

 

 

It's starting to look like a ship...I broke out the pink highlighter to mark what I wanted to fair inboard.  I figured it was a good time to remove a lot of the excess wood for the first three bulkheads.

 

I decided to try using the cone cutter and it worked great for the port side.  What hadn't occurred to me is if the cone cutter catches a burr the wrong way, bad things can happen and that's the second time that joint has come apart.  It turned out to be a bit fortuitous though, as rather than rushing to reinstall the piece, it gave better access to the lower parts of the bulkhead beneath the gunport.  Glueing the pieces back into place wasn't a problem, but I decided to not press my luck so I put the cone cutter away and pulled out the drum sander.  Those extra supports from earlier would have helped if I had just left them in and removed them during planking

 

 

Drum sander held in a flexishaft in one hand and shop vac in the other on a rainy day.  Worked wonders on taking down the stem without too much hassle and my lungs feel great; still needed to take down the port side a little bit more after this picture.

 

Before starting the bollards, I wanted to make sure they were fit properly and discovered that BF1/2 were about 1/16" too high.  Below left I have CAREFULLY adjusted the starboard one and on the right everything is adjusted and ready for the last part of Chapter 1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Greg M

[Rustyj]

Coming along nicely. I can tell you from experience keep looking forward and checking

your measurements. It will save a lot of anguish later on.  

[Greg M]

Thanks Rusty.  Couldn't agree more.  I've been lax a bit too much about measurements in the past and It never fails to come back to bite me.  I'd like to avoid that as much as possible.

 

Made really good progress on the bollards today.  I still need to bevel them for the bowsprit as well as thin and bevel the chock, but that's it for chapter 1.  I'm amazed how well these parts dry fit together with just removing the char.  These were a ton of fun to make and considering Chuck gave extras, I think I may make a second set and see which pair look better.   Like most things, I learned what works and doesn't with the first one.  Once I finish this up (hopefully tomorrow), time to take a few days off from building and spend some time just digesting the next 3 chapters and making sure everything measures up; also learning how to use the table saw to rip planks.

 

Not sure how it happened even though the stem was taped and I've been extremely careful working around it, but it looks like both sides of the inner stem took a strike from a.knife or file (scuff visible near the bottom of the starboard bollard).  I'm glad I put a few coats of WOP to protect it and a little 220 should buff it out, but it's going to grate on my nerves until I fix it.  Just going to have to resist that urge until I'm done planking.

 

 

Edit 10/30: and so ends Chapter 1.  I haven't glued it in yet, but it's sitting in there snuggly.  I'm happy with the result, but there are 2 or 3 things that jump out at me that I know I can do better, so I'l definitely be making another go at the bollards.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by Greg M

[Greg M]

Thank You all for the likes.  So already discovered one oops and a question.

 

First for the oops.  I had pushed off fairing bulkhead 29 below the Wales until Chapter 2, but with the counter planking being done before the wales, I decided to rough this in as much as possible.  I couldn't figure out why I was having such a hard time fairing the vertical filler pieces and something just seemed off before realizing I hadn't installed the stern rabbet strip.  At least it was a nice easy fix.  This also raised a question about the horizontal filler pieces I saw in some of the pictures, but didn't see on the plans before I found the answer in Rafine's build log.

 

 

Now the question.  When I framed in for the Q galleries, I didn't take into account planking inboard, so I set the horizontal framing along the edge of the window, not thinking that the frame would be 3/16" wide at bulkhead 28, but need to be thinner at the transom.  Probably best to fix this now, so should these be shaved back 3/64" from the edge of the frame or 1/32" (planking+panelling) or some other amount?  Any help would be much appreciated.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Greg M

[Rustyj]

Mike explains it perfectly. See below.

  

On 9/30/2020 at 2:06 PM, Stuntflyer said:

There is something I forgot to mention with regard to fairing the inner hull. If you want the bulkhead paneling to sit flush with the stern frames inner edge, then leave room for that. I left about 5/64". The panel height will not go above the height of the window opening.

 

 

[Greg M]

Awesome.  Thank You Rusty (and Mike).  That's exactly what I needed.

[Greg M]

I've done a ton of work getting ready for Chapter 2. Lots of sawdust fairing inboard.  Still quite a bit to take down, but I now have a smooth surface that just requires a little more shaping towards the bow and stern.  After measuring and re-measuring, there was also still a bit of work to be done on the stern framing.  

 

Moving on to the Wales, I felt that transferring the lines from the plans for the sills had worked well for me that I did the same thing here.  I measured from the gunport sill adjacent to the bulkhead dow to the bottom of the wale and then marked it on the bulkhead.  My thinking here is that this should prevent the planking from potentially getting off kilter by using the gunports as a reference point.  For the most part, they were pretty close to the reference line that were in place, but there were a couple outliers.  I then ran the battens across those pips.  

 

 

After doing this, I measured all the bulkheads from the sills and recorded the measurement.  Comparing port and starboard to each other and then to the plan measurements, I ended up having to make a few corrections to the starboard side, but ended up with nice clean runs that were within 1/128" on each side.  Turns out I had one measurement that was off almost 1/32" which threw off the run for around 6-8 bulkheads. 

 

 

Onward to the counter and then planking.

[Greg M]

I did not realize just how much more fairing was going to be needed when I flipped my Winnie over to work on the counter.  I figured the rough fairing I did previously would have gotten me close, but boy was I wrong.

 

Quite a bit of time was spent trying to work through the horizontal fillers before I found a nice shot that stuntflyer put up in Matt D's build log...so once more thank you Mike.  I figured it would be good to work through the progression of fairing the whole stern.

 

Below left is my starting point with just some tape put over the Wales so I wouldn't accidentally sand off the lines.  I decided to do all work on the port side before touching the starboard side.

Below right I've added a couple pieces of scrap 3/16"x1/4" pieces left over from the sills.  There's about a 3/32" gap between the innermost stern frame and the filler piece.  I then penciled on the horizontal and vertical filler what appear to be the general run of the planks.

 

 

Below left, the stern frames didn't require any fairing except for the outermost frame on each side.  I pulled out the pink highlighter, drew a stripe on the frame and then faired,  I then used a #1 blade to rough carve the horizontal filler.

Below right, I took out the drum sander and had to take quite a bit off of bulkhead 29 to be in alignment with bulkhead 27 and 25 as well as the vertical filler.  After that, it was just a matter of taking out the highlighter on bulkhead 29 and then using a sanding stick to get the proper angle between the filler and bulkhead.  I had drawn a few reference lines on each side of bulkhead 29.  Finally, I took a tick strip to those reference lines and transferred them to the port side to know exactly how much I had to take off of the port side bulkhead.  

 

It's now night and the stern has been fully faired.  The counter will go on tomorrow and then I'll start ripping planking strips.  Really looking forward to putting the sandpaper down for a little bit.

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Greg M

[Greg M]

Thanks for the likes guys.   The first plank of the counter was surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be to put on.  Just no good angle for clamps and when I could get a clamp on it would push the plank slightly out of alignment.  Holding the planks by hand for a few minutes and hope it doesn't pop when you let go seems to be what worked best.  The first plank took 3 or 4 tries to get it aligned and set properly, but once it was done things progressed much more smoothly. 

 

 

I've never ripped planks before, so spent this morning working through a billet for the wales  on the Proxxon.  I wish I could have budgeted for the Byrnes, but the Proxxon was a good deal and it is working great.  I'm using a Malco 90T .03 kerf slitting blade and discovered quickly the two big problems to solve were creating clearance at the cut and reducing kickback.  The fence isn't like the Byrnes where the back side can be kicked out, but I found 2 pieces of painters tape worked great to achieve the same result.  The first piece was place up to the front of the blade and the second at the center of the blade.  When I tried just one piece, it kept the blade from wandering, but it slowed the cuts down.  With 2 staggered pieces of tape it cut like butter.  A couple binder clips solved the kickback problem.  Is there anything painters tape and binder clips can't fix?  Got caught up in the honey do list this afternoon, so hopefully tomorrow I can start planking the wales, but that may need to wait a couple days. 

 

[Matt D]

Greg, I’m curious to know roughly how many 3/64” planks do you get out of each 2” billet?  Thanks, Matt

Edited November 8, 2020 by Matt D

[Greg M]

I got 23, but the last piece I got is rubbish.  Someone who's better with a push stick could probably get 25.

[Matt D]

I can see that I need to invest in a nice miniature table saw if I’m going to go far in this hobby.  I got 11 out of each on my 10” Jet table saw.  Plus, I had to count my fingers after each pass.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Matt D

[Greg M]

Matt, I would say it's definitely worth the investment.  Even with the stock carbide blade, you should be able to get about 15 strips and not have to worry about your fingers.  I've been getting outside the last couple days while the weather has been nice and getting about 20 good strips on average with the slitting blade.  I'm still getting a feel for it, but Chapter 2 will pay for the saw and it's nice to be able to cut whatever dimension I need.  

 

I started on the wales and doing my best to go slow.  Getting my fair share of mistakes out on the first layer due to variance on the wood and just trying to work out techniques on shaping and clamping.  Better to make them now when it will be covered than when I'm working above the wales.  The primary thing I'm focusing on is a straight run that will match up properly to the gunports and sheer.  So far, so good  

 

I pulled out the thumbscrew clamps which are awesome for bending soaked planks, but they mar the wood pretty badly so I put them away after the first run.      

 

I have the first two strakes glued in.  The 3rd and 4th are just wet and drying to shape overnight.  I'm really impressed with how flexible the cedar is.  I found that it will shape to the bow without being soaked, but will still break with a little too much force, so soaking it is.  The wood compressed quite a bit on the lower edge at the first 4 bulkheads from the screw clamps and is quite visible.      

 

While strake 3 and 4 are drying, I measured up against the plans and everything looks good.  One thing that is bugging me; Is it better to sand the first run of the Wales once they are installed or should I wait until the second run is complete?  I have a few spot where I'm getting a bit of a clinker effect here and there (below on the starboard side just outside of BF3 the slight bump out for example).  Nothing too serious, but I'm trying to figure out if it will be better to have a clean run for the 2nd layer or if it's better to keep as much wood as possible for now and sand everything at once.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scrubbyj427]

That’s looking good, I would sand as that will be tapered in flush with the rest of the planking  later on. It will give you a better landing for your next layer. Definitely start practicing edge bending (if you’re not already) as Chuck describes, as the planks will only get harder to lay as you go further down.
 

JJ

Edited November 11, 2020 by scrubbyj427

[Greg M]

Thanks JJ.  That makes a lot of sense and a really good point on getting up to speed on edge bending.  Plenty of scrap to work with and I think before installing the black strake I need to clean everything up and check my measurements before I get to the gunports.  I'm noticing some small inconsistencies starting to creep in and will need to resolve them.

 

For example, I discovered even with all the measuring and remeasuring, when I was dry fitting, the black strake was riding a little higher on the q gallery entrance on the port side.  

 

 

Turns out to have been an issue with the angle on the lower framing, so a tiny wedge has everything measuring up properly now on the stern.  

 

At the bow, it looks like the gap between gunports 2 and 3 and the wales is between 1/32-1/64" larger than on the starboard side, so I have to think through the best course of action.  The measurements are good on the first gunport and from the 4th again, so it's only the space between 4-ish bulkheads.

 

So I can

 

1) shim between the wales and black strake on the port side to get everything in alignment and make up the difference with the second layer.

2) Use a 1/4 plank for the port black strake and taper it into alignment

3) Use a 9/32 plank for the first run under the port gunports and fit it into alignment.

4) Make up the difference in space between the gunports.

 

I'm leaning towards option 3 as that run goes the first 5 gunports and a very gradual taper that is broken up with notches for the gunports should not be noticeable.  I think once the wales are installed and faired, I can take better measurements and see how best to correct.