Planking methods

[Charlie pal]

Hello all, hope all are well

    With regards to planning....I have read that you can plank from deck to keel or keel to deck. Is it acceptable to plank half from the deck and half from the keel with the final plank somewhere in the middle?

.....Thanks ...Charlie

[Louie da fly]

The main issue with this is making sure you don't end up with the last plank too wide or too narrow. If you have a look at the planking tutorials they advise dividing the area to be planked into "bands" of maybe half a dozen planks, using either battens or threads running from one end of the ship to the other. And then subdividing the bands into individual plank widths by making marks on the frames, and making sure your plank widths actually align with these marks, to stop "creeping cumulative inaccuracies".

 

As far as I can see, if you do this carefully and methodically there shouldn't be any reason not to start from both sides and end up in the middle.

[Jim Lad]

Charlie, I plank all my models from the deck down and also from the keel up.  Doing it that way means that your last planks are about the turn of the bilge and therefore a nice easy shape to finish up with.  As Louie says, you need to plan your  planking properly.

 

John

[allanyed]

I prefer to do the wales first then work up and down from there.  As these need to be exact, if you work any other way there is the danger of them not being where they belong.  Even a few thousandths creep due to width variations of the other planks can create problems when you get to the wales especially if working from the garboard then up.  When working down from the wales, care does need to be taken as you near the garboard so the advice of measuring carefully is a must to prevent one strake being grossly over sized or under sized in width.  Also keep in mind that each plank also needs to be tapered in width as it goes forward and often widened as it goes aft.  You cannot use planks that are of even width across their entire length which is a huge problem with the material  provided in kits if they are put on as they come from the box and not tapered before putting the in place.  As mentioned above it is great advice to read the tutorials here at MSW on planking, it will help you avoid a lot of problems.

Allan

[Charlie pal]

Thank you all for the information on planking. Your knowledge plus certain books help immensely. Never realized the complexity of planking a ship model, but do enjoy the challenge. Anyway, this is my fourth build. The first three....Eagle, swift and Dallas came reasonably well despite mistakes. Now I started planking "black.Prince".

I was doing ok....probably 8/9 planks from the deck down when, I then decided to plank from the keel up to meet somewhere in the middle for the final plank. I did that, but the keel planking was out of symmetry with the previous planking.  Was thinking of removing the planking from the keel and continue planking down toward the keel.

What say you?

[mtaylor]

These might help you, Charlie....  https://modelshipworld.com/forum/98-planking-downloads-and-tutorials-and-videos/  

 

I'd read through them all and then pick one.  The difference in these is the methods and details of how to do it.

[Louie da fly]

6 hours ago, Charlie pal said:

Was thinking of removing the planking from the keel and continue planking down toward the keel.

 

 

I know that sounds like a drastic step, but it might be the right way to go. Otherwise, years from now, the model might still be sneering at you every time you look at it .

[Charlie pal]

Thank you all for the planking advice.....funny thing...it initially doesn't seem hard to do....but I am learning that every build Is a different adventure. .....Charlie