USS Constitution by Avi - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1:96

[Avi]

Heh I didn’t think of it. They probably would. It means waiting a while to get started planking - I absolutely want to do the wales first - but worth it. 

[Avi]

Yes they have all I need. Worked through how much I need and what with @MrBlueJacket by phone, order will be placed tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion @mort stoll

[KurtH]

Yes. I laid the gun stripe planks first so I could sand them thinner without disturbing the planks which are above and below it.  I get all my planking stock from BJ.

Edited December 29, 2021 by KHauptfuehrer

[Avi]

After a too long hiatus (including travel and a minor bout of Covid), my planks showed up this morning.  I already had the regular planks. These are thicker ones for the wales and the thick stuff above and below the wales. 
 

I’m rather looking forward to getting back to it. I’m going to use the Anatomy and information from other peoples’ Model Shipways hull planking band guides to mark out the bands of the wales, thick stuff above and below, and regular planks, then start with the wales and thick stuff, eventually regular planks topsides and on the interior of the bulwarks. 

[Avi]

I see that there are the following bands of planks, rising from keel to caprail:

• bands "D" up through "B" - regular planks
• band "A" - thick stuff below
• wales
• thick stuff above - top of the wales the bottom sills of the gundeck gunports
• gundeck and spardeck (which can be done in various ways)

The critical element here is getting the widths of the wales, the thick stuff above and below ("A"), and possibly "B" through "D". Even though I will be coppering, and therefore "B" through "D" will be covered by copper (and therefore probably won't be planked, but I might), it helps to position the bottom of the thick stuff and the wales correctly.

 

Unfortunately, BlueJacket's templates and instructions don't really have those measurements. There is a page where it shows that the "wale strakes are 7" thick by 10" wide", which doesn't help all that much, unless you know how many strakes there are, and even then, the width changes as you move from amidships to the bows or stern.

 

Working on some good solutions to this, definitely open to help.

[Avi]

On to my calculations. With thanks to @JSGerson who was helpful, and especially @Tim Murphy from the USSCMSG who even spent time on the phone with me. 
 

i have a copy of the model shipways plans on order, should arrive in the next few weeks to help.

 

Tim had a really good idea. The pages in Marquardt are all to scale. While it doesn’t have all of the belts, it does have the wales, the thick stuff above, and some of the thick stuff below. 
 

unfortunately, each page in the book is to a different scale. That meant calculating the scale for each one, then converting. Unfortunately, they also aren’t quite draftsman plans, so the measurements varied from one page to the next. 
 

I used primarily pages 74-75 (cross sections, especially figure D2/1), 68-69 (external hull, the face on view of the starboard bows and the side view of the same show the belts for the wales and thick stuff really nicely), 64-65 (profile view shows the same belts well). 
 

the really nice thing is that the wales and belt above each holds consistent width from bows almost to stern. Certainly more than enough to get started. 
 

I’ll include pictures of my work with pages 68-69. 
 

Due to the variances in the book (or more likely, my skills with calipers), I came up with widths:

 

- wales: 55.66”-58.9” (3 out of 4 measurements were 57.75”-58.9”)

- thick stuff above: 33.69”-35.3”

 

while that is a few percentage points of variance, once I scale it down to my model’s 96:1, it basically doesn’t matter. Wales of 0.58” width vs 0.61”? The human eye cannot see it. 
 

I do plan to mark the lower belts A-D as well, even though I might not plank them except for A (thick stuff below the wales), but I will mark them and see. For that, I need the model shipways plans that are on the way. 
 

for marking, I’m using art tape. The white art tape I have is a bit wide for the purpose, but nothing that an xacto knife with #11 blade and a straight edge ruler cannot solve.

 

[Avi]

The marquardt book consistently shows 6 strakes in the wales and 3 in the thick stuff above. 
 

My wales planks from bluejacket are ⅛” wide. 6 strakes at ⅛” per gives ¾”. The wales according to my calculation are about 0.6”, or slightly less than 5 planks (0.675”). I’ll either have to do 5 strakes and trim a bit, or trim a lot. 
 

the thick stuff planks are 3/32” wide. Three strakes comes out to 9/32” or 0.28”. My scale calculations gave them as 0.35”, or just smaller than 4 planks wide. 
 

I’ll have to choose between the correct scale, and the correct number of strakes. 
 

i think I’ll go for the number. If I do them both - 3 x 3/32” + 6 x ⅛” - I get 33/32” or 1.03”. Given that I’m looking at 0.95” or so for both of them, I’ll scale it up a bit and make it work. 

[Avi]

Marked off nicely. Next step is to decide if I try to shape a single long plank for each strake, or cut them down and do multiple. 
 

The planks are a little longer than 24”, which just makes it. On the one hand, it seems less effort. On the other, that’s a lot of shaping a single plank, and more of a risk of breakage. Besides, the real ship uses about 30’ long planks, which, at 96:1 scale, is 3.75”. It would be nice to have it similar to the real ship, 30’ long (scaled) planks, and staggered butt ends. 
 

going to mull that one over, but leaning towards 3.75” cut planks. 

[Brian Falke]

Just a thought here Avi.  For the first plank, use one piece that will go from stem to stern.  This will, in my vision, provide you with a smooth flow of the curve from stem to stern for the 3.75in planks to butt up against.  Reason I mention this is that I am planking the interior and used the short planks.  It came out choppy instead of a smooth flow.

[Avi]

Yeah I guess the downside to scale is that slight variances show up more. With a 30’ plank, offset by 0.25” is barely there; with a 3.75” plank, it’s super visible. 
 

thanks for the suggestion @Brian Falke

[Avi]

First strake of wales done, both port and starboard. It will need a tad more sanding to even them out, partially due to the wood not being 100% even, partially due to my own uneven hand, but that’s easy enough. 
 

I used a graphite stick to add some dark colour on all four edges of each, in case anything peeks through, it’ll look like tar. 
 

my copy of the model shipways plans came on Friday. Those are really nice plans. 
 

Interestingly, they have seven strakes for the wales, instead of six. They also have the width narrowing much more towards the stem. I’ll stick with Marquardt and my prior calculations. 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Avi

[Avi]

To add some details that might help the next lost soul (next after me, of course). 
 

I marked the midship line just above the tape marking the bottom of the wales on each side. I then planked going forward to the stem, and then aft to the stern. 
 

Each plank in the first strake is 3.75” long, scale equivalent of 30’. The exceptions are first and last, which need to be cut down to fit the bows and stern respectively. I sanded the width of the foremost plank to allow a taper and more to fit in. 
 

Each plank was soaked in steamed water until it softened, the gently bent into curve shape, held to the hull, and then heated with a dry iron. Most of the planks needed two runs, as the ironing removed some of the curve. 
 

For the stern, I measured out where the planks running athwartships (that is the term?) would be, and then, after curving the aftmost plank on each side, cut to match up. Picture is attached. 
 

For the next strake, I intend to start three plank widths forward. Since each plank is ⅛” wide, that is 3/8”. This should give the correct staggered butts for the ship. 

[Jerry Berenson]

Avi, your model is looking great! Very meticulous! I recently completed the standing and running rigging as well as the 1st of the 3 whaleboats. I rigged the whaleboat today and have enclosed some pictures. 

[Avi]

@Jerry Berenson your ship is stunning. I had thought I was following your build, but I haven’t gotten any notifications about it. Have you posted to your log? Or is it just my follow is broken?

[Avi]

Having actually measured it, of course, I realize that the “three planks between butts” means vertically. Horizontally it would give a tiny distance between them, which makes no sense. 
 

to get 3 strakes vertically between butts, I would need to stagger 3 butts in between, or 4 sections. A 30’ plank in 4 sections is 7.5’ per; at scale, that’s 3.75” for the plank and 0.9375” (15/16”) staggering. 
 

 

Second strake is done. Even though the wales are about as straight and level as we get, even on the second strake I am seeing some of the curving issues that come from both bending and twisting the planks. Sanding sticks are helpful, and I am sure when the entire belt of wales is done, I will need to run sandpaper of the whole belt to smooth it out. Still, loving seeing the planks on the hull!

Edited February 28, 2022 by Avi

[Jerry Berenson]

Avi, thank you. I haven’t been posting . Truthfully I am occasionally somewhat confused how to manipulate thru this site. Yesterday’s was the first one in a long time. I plan on posting upon completion with commentary about what I did do as well as some alterations I made such as painting the blocks etc… wood color and not black. I basically followed the plans with the kit (especially the rigging) augmented by Karl Marquardt’s book. I did not plan to make it museum quality since I do not have that skill level but it is display quality! Keep up your fine work and I look forward to your posts, regards, Jerry

[Avi]

Wales are pretty much done. Six strakes, tapering towards the bows, rising up as well as curving in at the stern. 
 

You can still see a little discoloration and texture, mainly from my fingers as I pressed the planks in. I’ll be painting them in any case, but I’ll be sanding them a bit first, which will even them out, and remove the smudges. It just needs to wait for the last planks to dry fully. 

 

Thick stuff above the wales is next, although it likely will need to wait a week. 
 

 

[Jerry Berenson]

Hi Avi, I completed my build of the Constitution today and just posted some pictures of it. I think It came out quite well. Not museum quality but definitely display quality, I hope all is well in Israel. Regards, Jerry

[Avi]

Excellent @Jerry Berenson  going over to check it out. 
 

actually, I would like to, but cannot find it. Neither search nor under the activity in your profile page. Do you mind linking to it here?

Edited March 10, 2022 by Avi

[Avi]

Moving on to the thick stuff above the wales. Some interesting notations. 
 

first, the slightly thinner planking is materially easier to shape than the wales were, and I haven’t gotten to the regular planks yet. This is nice. 
 

second, soak planks for as long as possible in as hot water as possible. It makes a big difference. 
 

In terms of the strakes themselves. Marquardt seems to show 4 planks amidships and 3 at the extremities (bow and stern). This more or less aligns with what I have on my ship. It also is relieving, as I had remembered 3, and and amidships 3 planks did not come up to the gunports. 
 

I’m doing the bottom strake, right above the wales, straight across, although tapering at the bow. Then I will build up three planks just amidships to get to 4, and then move stern and aft from there. 
 

I’ll do the topmost strake first, and then the 2 becoming one in between the top and bottom strakes. 
 

I plan to taper in both directions, and at some point end up tapering the 2 middle planks becoming 1, giving me the 4 amidships and 2 bow/stern that I am looking for. 
 

 

[Jerry Berenson]

Avi, I just went over to my profile,scrolled down and my posting was 

there. Kurt had replied to it. I am tech savvy but for some reason I find it difficult to navigate this site. I did not want to add my pictures to your blog but if you can’t find my posting I will send them to you. Jerry

[Avi]

Thick stuff above the wales done. It was not quite as smooth as I wanted. There were differences between the port and starboard sides in terms of height, and I had to adjust to having stealers in some places. Still and all, I think it came out well. I will try to get a picture up later.

 

Going to move on to thick stuff below the wales now, which requires finding the bottom of the belt (technically, belt "A"), and then placing the strake immediately below the wales, the strake at the very bottom of belt "A", and then filling the ones in between.

[Avi]

While I am not likely to plank the entire hull - but I might - I still wanted to mark all of the belts properly. This makes it easier to do the thick stuff below the wales, and gives me the option in the future to actually plank everything pre coppering, should I so decide. 
 

My next challenge, then, is marking out the belts. Everyone has their own technique, here is what I did. 
 

First, I took the model shipways plans, which include a cross section at G, right amidships in their plans. I transferred the belt markings to a sheet of paper crosswise, meaning I used a length of string laid in a curve along the plans and marked the limits of the belts. I then took the marked string, straightened it out and laid it along the edge of a piece of paper, where I transferred the markings. This would let me lie the paper curved along the hull,‘with the top of the paper at the top of the keel, the upper edge marking for belt A at the bottom of the wales. I then could just transfer the tick marks to the hull. 
 

of course, model shipways is 1:76.8, while bluejacket is 1:96, so I had to translate the whole thing by multiplying my (96/76.8), or just 0.8 = 4/5. 
 

much to my surprise, the markings were accurate to the ship!

 

This left me with pencil markings on port and starboard side amidships, but nowhere else. 
 

I slid the marking paper further astern some reasonable distance, placed the upper edge of A at the bottom of the wales and marked where on the paper (offset from the bottom edge of the paper), the top of the keel is. 
 

if I divide the original “edge-to-top-of-A” by new “bottom-mark-to-top-of-A”, I have the ratio between the original tick marks and the new one. I multiplied each belt by that ratio (calculator with memory is very useful here), marked it on the paper, then laid the paper on the hull and transferred the ticks. 
 

Before moving to the next section and repeating, I placed the tick paper on the other side of the ship (I worked starboard and then bow, but it doesn’t matter), found exactly where “bottom-mark-to-top-of-A” aligned with top of keel to bottom of wales, and transferred the tick marks. 

 

To save further work, I slide the tick paper forward to the bows until I found a good “wales to keel” match and repeated. 
 

using this process, I was able to get away with only 4 tick mark sets. 
 

The paper (messy now that it’s been used) and hull pictures are attached. 

 

[Avi]

Well, I may not have enough planks. Having calculated the width of the belts, I get 6-9 strakes in the thick stuff below the wales (belt A) and a similar number in belts B & C. "6-9" because it narrows from the middle to the extremities at bow and stern, so it really is "9 strakes that will taper, possibly leading to fewer if it tapers too much." The bottom belt "D" is 9-12 strakes. That actually sounds like a large number, but a quick placement test by hand showed that it is correct. These are all 3/32" wide (except for the wales, but those also are thicker), which, at 96:1 scale, is 9" width; the Museum website says planks are 5-7" wide, so that really is within reason. 🤷‍♂️ I will work with what I have.

 

The standard planking set I got from BlueJacket is ~100 planks at 0.020" thickness, which is a bit less than 3/128". My best estimate is that the inner bulwarks will be 24 planks to a side: 4 at the level of the gundeck gunports, 4 between them and the spardeck gunports, 4 for the spardeck gunports, repeat for the inner bulwarks. Total: 12*4 = 48, about half of the planks I have. Allow for some mistake and some slack.

 

Now calculating the planks I would need to plank the whole ship.

 

Thick stuff: I need 9 to a side, but only have 16 full-length (24")  "thick stuff" planks left, or 8 to a side. That isn't too bad, as I have lots of wales planks left, and those can sand in smoothly (actually, they are supposed to). I was hoping to use the thick stuff planks to plank below the counter at the stern, so may need to adjust.

 

Regular planks: I need for each side belts B (9), C (9), D(12) = 30 to a side, or 60 total. I have 100, take away the 48 (minimum) I will need for the upper section, and I will be short at least 10 planks. I probably can get away with using some wales planks at the very bottom near the keel and sanding them down, but I still will be short.

 

Of course, I might forgo planking belts "B", "C", "D" entirely, but once I am here, well, I want to do it.

 

I might have to pick up some more. Nothing like that near me, but both BlueJacket and Model Shipways sells them, and I have found MS to be super quick about shipping. To be continued.

[Avi]

The promised pic. After using the wales planks for the first strake of the thick stuff below the wales - which required quite a bit of careful sanding in both width and thickness - I decided to build up (technically down, but the ship is inverted for this part), to get to the bottom of the belt. Since I did it all amidships, these planks required no tapering, which made it easy. 
 

next I’ll extend the strake at the bottom of the belt (top in the picture) to the bow and stern, tapering as I go, so I can remove the tape. After that, it’s just a question of filling in the strakes in the middle. Hopefully it will be all tapering with minimal usage of stealers. 
 

[Bill Morrison]

On 6/6/2021 at 6:53 AM, Avi said:

I will say, I was not overly pleased with how tightly the CA held the wood of the various parts (stem, keel, sternpost) to the hull. Both were sanded down very smoothly (I used ~400 grit for final passes on everything). It also was a newly opened bottle of fine CA, so not likely to be that it "expired". Without the pins, I am fairly convinced it would not have come close to holding.

 

I am open to advice on the matter, including links to more I can learn about using CA properly, or properly selecting brands (if it matters).

I have always used white glue on my wood ship models.  Any contact glue will work well. It's much better that CA when attaching wood-to-wood parts.

 

Bill

[Avi]

Three bands of planking done: wales, thick stuff above, thick stuff below. Will post a picture when I get a chance.

 

Next will be the band below. Even though it will almost totally be covered with copper, I really do want to plank the whole thing. I have enough planks, or will have, once the next shipment of materiel arrives.

[Avi]

I haven’t posted in a while. It’s been busy in life. But I’ve gotten a lot done. Finished not only the wales and the thick stuff above the wales and thick stuff below the wales (band A), but also the three other bands below: B, C, D. Also did the stern, below the counter. All of the planks need some proper and gentle sanding to smooth them out, remove the marks, and taper from the thick stuff below into the regular planks. I’ll post pics of those once I’ve done those, but in the meantime, here’s the planking. 
 

 

next up is planking topsides from the bottom of the gunports (top of the thick stuff above the wales), up to the caprail, as well as interior. I might not have enough planks left for that, but an order from bluejacket is on its way. Then I can sand, add the bolts (lots of those little tacks in the order), then painting and coppering. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Avi

[Avi]

As I start to plan the next phase, I’m not quite sure how to do it. Planking topsides is straightforward. Planking inboard is less so. I’ve got to think about two decks (gundeck and spardeck), and especially about how the planks and knees and decks meet. I’m also thinking about how to do the waterways.

[Brian Falke]

I am in the process of planking the interior.  However, I am doing the entire ship from the keel up.  At this point I have planked from the keel to the bottom of the gun deck on both sides.  After I finished sanding and painting the interior sides, I will then install the decks (orlop and berthing).  Before moving on to the next deck, I have to finish the deck below.  Once you start on the deck above, it will be a challenge to correct something in the lower deck, so make sure it is to your satisfaction before moving on.  With that in mind, my recommendation would be to plank the interior one deck at a time.  Start at the top of the gun deck up to the top of the spar deck.  Then finish the guns, hatches, galley, painting, etc, before moving on to installing the spar deck.  In Marquardt's, the cross-sections illustrate that the planks are between the knees and timbers indicating the planks were installed before the planks.  As for the waterways...let me know how you plan on doing that.  I have been bouncing ideas through my head and come up blank.

 

Overall, the project is off to a great start and this being your first build...very impressive.