Nailing the hull Yes or No

[jollymillar]

To all WASA Billings builders. Just planning ahead to finish off the planking on my build and have seen a number of nailed  hulls (with a lot of nails). My kit does not supply nails in any number to complete a hull nailing task. 

(52 nails...whatever they are for ??)  I can order the nails and lay them out on the hull.. time consuming but no problem really. some builds appear to have not used nails at all...... could always use pin holes then varnish which would appear to be nails..... I think...   Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated from anyone... 

Thanks JM

[mtaylor]

Hi JM,

 

I built that kit many moons ago.   As for treenails,  at that scale they will be way to large and make the hull look like it has freckles.  When I built it, the instructions said they were for "holding parts in place" which I took to mean "until the glue dries".   

 

 

[ccoyle]

What Mark said. The brass pins in the kit are intended to hold planks in place until glue sets. Treenails, or trunnels, are the wooden pegs used to secure planking in actual practice. These are simulated on wooden models, and there is a real art to doing them convincingly. There is also some (hopefully amicable) debate on whether trunnels are desirable on a model; on real ships they tend to blend in with the surrounding wood, and at the scale viewing distance from which we observe models, trunnels are essentially invisible.

[allanyed]

JM,

You can try to simulate treenails, but at a scale of 1:75 and assumption of 1 or even 1 1/2" diameter  these will only be 0.013 or 0.02" diameter.   You can make them this small if you use bamboo and a drawplate, but even so, they may appear to give the hull the measles especially if they provided walnut planking which is darker than bamboo.  The smallest hole on a Byrnes draw plate, which is a GREAT piece to use, only goes to 0.016.  It is not so easy to make these that small even with bamboo.  Just one opinion here, but I would forget treenailing at this scale.

Allan

[jollymillar]

On 9/10/2020 at 3:00 PM, ccoyle said:

What Mark said. The brass pins in the kit are intended to hold planks in place until glue sets. Treenails, or trunnels, are the wooden pegs used to secure planking in actual practice. These are simulated on wooden models, and there is a real art to doing them convincingly. There is also some (hopefully amicable) debate on whether trunnels are desirable on a model; on real ships they tend to blend in with the surrounding wood, and at the scale viewing distance from which we observe models, trunnels are essentially invisible.

Thabks for the information Allan... Ihave not done any on my other boats but have seen some on the Corel model, and thought maybe this was the way to go..... I will pass in them..... so the nails are for tacking planks ect...... never gave that a thought as I use my own  nails... so thanks for the tip .. JM

[jollymillar]

On 9/10/2020 at 10:37 AM, jollymillar said:

To all WASA Billings builders. Just planning ahead to finish off the planking on my build and have seen a number of nailed  hulls (with a lot of nails). My kit does not supply nails in any number to complete a hull nailing task. 

(52 nails...whatever they are for ??)  I can order the nails and lay them out on the hull.. time consuming but no problem really. some builds appear to have not used nails at all...... could always use pin holes then varnish which would appear to be nails..... I think...   Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated from anyone... 

Thanks JM

 

On 9/10/2020 at 3:00 PM, ccoyle said:

What Mark said. The brass pins in the kit are intended to hold planks in place until glue sets. Treenails, or trunnels, are the wooden pegs used to secure planking in actual practice. These are simulated on wooden models, and there is a real art to doing them convincingly. There is also some (hopefully amicable) debate on whether trunnels are desirable on a model; on real ships they tend to blend in with the surrounding wood, and at the scale viewing distance from which we observe models, trunnels are essentially invisible.

Mark thanks for the reply.... good comments... JM 

[Matrim]

I use the nails (and a push nail thing which is probably not the right name) on the underlayer of planks (normally limewood?). I never use them on the outer layer as I dont want the holes plus you have a better gluing area at that point so there is less need.