Wales, diminishing thickness at the bow

[allanyed]

This subject has been discussed lately in several build logs as this feature appears to be missing in many builds, kit and scratch both.   One of our astute members suggested posting this in this forum as well as the logs where this was discussed.

 

What precipitated this discussion for me many years ago had to do with the fact that unless the wales and thickstuff was thinned at the bow it could not seat normally in the rabbet.  While the shape of the rabbet is dynamic it is not stepped to allow for different thickness plank ends so the thick planks such as the wales and the few strakes of thick stuff above and below the wales have to diminish.   There are photos of contemporary models where this can be seen, but I have never found mention of this in any books that I can remember or, in the case of English ships, the Establishments or the scantlings in The Shipbuilder's Repository or The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture by David Steel.  The lower wale of a 50 gun ship built to the Establishments of 1719 through 1750 was 5.5" thick.  The strake above and below was 4" thick.  The plank below the thickstuff was 3" thick.  Wales and thickstuff should taper to 3" thick at the rabbet.   

 

If anyone has any contemporary based information on this subject, that would be great to see.  Photo below is the Royal William (100) 1719 showing the wale being the same thickness as the thickstuff and plank of the bottom at the rabbet.  The thinning seems to begin at about the area of the cant frames.  Based on the 1719 Establishment her lower wale would have been 10" thick, the strake  above 8" thick and the seven strakes below the wales starting at 8" thick and ending to match the plank of the bottom which was 4" thick.  This was a diminished thickness of 6 inches for the wale.  

Allan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by allanyed

[Jaager]

Ouch! as far as accomplishing this.

[allanyed]

9 minutes ago, Jaager said:

Ouch! as far as accomplishing this.

Hi Dean

 

Do you mean finding the information or performing the task? 😀  Performing the task is pretty simple.  I usually just thin the last 1/4" or so  to the proper thickness so it will seat in the rabbet and leave some room to work once glued and treenailed in place.  Once all the planking is done I have room to  file and sand the heavier strakes as needed.

 

Allan

[Jaager]

In my head,  I am seeing the wales as being Holly dyed black.  All sides.  So, I would have to plane the back to get the taper. 

Reducing the outside would be a routine process, but having to soak in more dye and keep it on just the wale.

I am over seeing aqueous dyes as having any advantage at model scale, so by using alcohol as the solvent - there is no swelling of the grain.  But the lower viscosity(?) of alcohol - more lateral spread - makes keeping just where it is wanted is more of a challenge.

 

I do have a backup plan using steel wool dissolved in vinegar on tannic acid treated wood to get the black - 

from a traditional Tarheel furniture maker on PBS.

 

It looks like knowing about the taper is another on of those art of the process things learned on the job.

[allanyed]

I typically dye the wales with black ink ahead of time but invariably have to touch up, including where the wales are thinned at the bow.  I have used holly for decks but not on the hull so this act differently.  I typically use Castello with no issues.  For touching up, first step is to seal the strakes above the wale and black strake, and the thick stuff below the wale with whatever finish I will be using later.  This is usually an egg shell finish clear coat. Then a little tape over that once the clear coat is dry and fresh ink where it needs to go.  I little fuss, but no muss.  

Allan

[glbarlow]

All of us Winchelsea builders are familiar with this and following Chuck’s instructions have thinned the wales at the bow.  In fact I also did it, for the first time on my 11th model, Cheerful.  It’s simple enough to do and does in fact add value to the appearance of the model. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by glbarlow

[allanyed]

6 hours ago, glbarlow said:

All of us Winchelsea builders are familiar with this and following Chuck’s instructions have thinned the wales at the bow

Hi Glenn,

You and the Winnie builders are among a lucky (and well informed) group.😀

I still wish someone could find a written description, especially if based on contemporary information describing this feature.  It is an obvious feature  on contemporary models, but it would be great to see this described in old documents.

Allan

[Thukydides]

7 hours ago, glbarlow said:

All of us Winchelsea builders are familiar with this and following Chuck’s instructions have thinned the wales at the bow.  In fact I also did it, for the first time on my 11th model, Cheerful.  It’s simple enough to do and doe in fact add value to the appearance of the model. 

I also did this for my alert, though I wouldn't really recommend the way I did it (I stopped the first layer of the wales a bit short of the stem which allowed the second layer to bend into the space). I probably would have been better off just sanding it down. It is one of those small things which does add I think to the model.

[druxey]

Unfortunately the standard works such as Steel's Naval Architecture or the Shipbuilders' Repository are silent on this detail. However, I think one can be confident from model evidence as well as the practical issue of easing the process of bending heavy timber. 

[Martes]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unnamed_Portuguese_182ft_74-gun_Third_Rate_two_decker_(no_date)_RMG_J3059.png

 

Maybe this plan can provide some hints.

The wales seem to be narrowing towards the bow, but they are still extending slightly beyond the surrounding planking when reaching the keel.

[allanyed]

The enlargement below might help as well.   Thanks for posting this Martes!!  It is very clear that the thickness is diminishing, and seems to be slightly thicker than the surrounding strakes at the rabbet.   That being the case, how does it sit in the rabbet?  Must it be carved to sit in the rabbet with a little sticking out or is the rabbet chiseled to accept the full thickness of the end of the wale?   I realize at our scales this will be barely, if at all, noticeable.    

 

Allan

[Martes]

2 hours ago, allanyed said:

 That being the case, how does it sit in the rabbet?  Must it be carved to sit in the rabbet with a little sticking out or is the rabbet chiseled to accept the full thickness of the end of the wale?

I suppose the first case, "carved to sit in the rabbet with a little sticking out".

 

[Nearshore]

Hello all,

 

Allen directed me to this link on my build log of the HMS Bellona- Corel 1:100 scale and i hope to get some insight on the tapering of the wales. I have labeled the plank thikness on the plans for the second layer of planks and i am not understanding the plank directly under the gun ports. It is showing the thickness of that plank being 0.6mm. I labeled the delta of the corresponding plank thicknesses and I just can't seem to make sense of it. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks 

Nearshore 

[Gregory]

Regardless of what the kit plans call for, the goal is for the wales to fit into the rabbet at the bow.

 

Quote

And one other thing I would like to mention.  The wales and black strake would fit into the rabbet at the stem.  It wouldnt stand proud as is shown on most kits and models these days.  Its another typical oversight.  To fix this, I simply reduced their thickness gradually up to the rabbet so it looks like it fits into the rabbet.  I used a sharp chisel and some fine sandpaper.  

This post from Chuck's Winchelsea illustrates it nicely.

[Jaager]

Just now, Nearshore said:

I labeled the delta of the corresponding plank thicknesses and I just can't seem to make sense of it. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. 

Go to the RMG site.

enter ZAZ1357

You will see that your ? is the top of the main wale.

The red lines are internal structures - if 3 red lines are tracking close together  they are bottom of deck at side - bottom of deck at midline - top of deck at midline - often there are cross sections of beams.

 

When I loft frames, I only locate the bottom of the wales and other raised decorative strakes.  It would not matter where I drew the top.  The width of the wales that I apply will determine the top.  Drawing it is wishful thinking.

[allanyed]

4 hours ago, Nearshore said:

i am not understanding the plank directly under the gun ports. It is showing the thickness of that plank being 0.6mm.

Based on the scantlings for a 74 in both the Shipbuilder's Repository 1788 and Steel's The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture 1805 the lower wale is made up of four strakes of planking.  They should be about 10 to 12" wide (0.1" at your scale of 1:100) which makes it about 40 to 48 inches wide in total.  These were likely made up of anchor stock planking, not straight pieces, but that is for another day.  The SR,  gives a thickness of 8.5" and the EPNA gives a thickness of 8".   At your scale of 1:100 the total width is thus just under 1/2" wide (10-12mm) and 0.08-0.085" thick (2mm) .  The planking below are gradually thinner, reducing over several strakes to 4", or 0.04" thick (1mm).  The strake above the main wale is the black strake and is about 6.5 to 7" thick.  The strake above the black strake is 5"thick.  Both are 12" broad.  I hope this makes some sense.   Hopefully the following sketch will help a little

 

Allan

Edited July 22, 2023 by allanyed

[allanyed]

17 minutes ago, Jaager said:

Go to the RMG site.

enter ZAZ1357

Dean points out a great drawing as Dragon is a sister to Bellona. This drawing can also be found in very high resolution in the WikiCommons site.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ship_plans_of_the_Royal_Museums_Greenwich  It is 127.6 mb so does not attach here.   

Allan

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by allanyed

[Martes]

It should not be, however, taken as a universal rule.

The plans for the Dutch Utrecht, for example, definitely show the wales to explicitly protrude over the planking at the rabbet:

 

https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/4.MST/invnr/57/file/NL-HaNA_4.MST_57_deelopname02?eadID=4.MST&unitID=57&query=

 

https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/4.MST/invnr/58/file/NL-HaNA_4.MST_58?eadID=4.MST&unitID=58&query=

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Martes

[Martes]

On the other hand, on the Danish ships, at least later ones, where the wales were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the planking (the planking became gradually thicker towards the wale) the line of the wales at the rabbet was uninterrupted, with, apparently, all planks brought to uniform thickness on the ends:

 

 

So it really depended on the construction school and period.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Martes

[allanyed]

3 hours ago, Martes said:

It should not be, however, taken as a universal rule.

Hi Martes,

I totally agree with you.  It seems that very little in ship building in those days, and perhaps more modern times as well,  should be taken as universal, especially across national borders.  My fault for not mentioning I was originally only referring to English ship build logs where the overly thick wale is a predominant feature.  

Allan

[Nearshore]

Thank you for all the great information. I will be following these guides when applying the second layer of planking.

 

Nearshore

[druxey]

Not only different countries but different dates will confuse the issue. In post #16 the drawing is English, but post-1800.

[Martes]

Just now, druxey said:

In post #16 the drawing is English, but post-1800.

Exactly. I just wanted to mention that the British ships after 1800 also went in the direction of smoothed wales, take the Unicorn for example:

 

[allanyed]

From the above photo there appear to be no wales at all.  Another photo is below looking similar to the photo you posted Martes.   A planking expansion ZAZ2156 that RMG Collections has for Unicorn 1824, Latona 1821, Diana 1822, et al, shows what appears to be wales with anchor stock planking so the planking in the photos may be from refurbishing in later years.  Any ideas?  The description at RMG does mention it shows alterations for Latona, Diana, and Fox and they give a date of 1820-3; March 1823

Allan

[Martes]

Why, there are wales, they are just barely visible. But you can see the top border:

 

 

And see how smoothly they are integrated into the planking:

 

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-81777

 

I chose the starboard side because there was no plumbing obscuring the intersection with the rabbet.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Martes

[Jaager]

There was a time when I had approximate dates for this:

First - the wales stood proud above the planking

Second - there was a transition from the bottom planking to the bottom of the main wale, but a ledge at the top

Third - there was a transition at the top as well as the bottom.   There was a wale -but it was not visible.  The cross section was a mid waist bulge. 

 

The 17th century featured an insane number of wales - one for every full gun deck.  By the mid 18th century, the Georgian I II early III  liners were reduced to two wales.  Or so it appears to me.   I forget what the single raised strakes of carved moulding are named.

 

digression or expansion :

 

The waist has a heavy rail that sits on top of the top timbers.  At the forecastle this rail jogs up.  There is often an additional decorative rail above it.  Are the stanchions that hold up this rail extensions  of the actual top timbers?  Or is the main rail left intact and various carpenters devises used to seat the short stanchions? 

The same aft?

If the main rail is cut thru, its function of keeping out water from the timber end grain is impaired.  If the top timbers are continued all the way to the decorative rail, the shape is set.  The Station lines usually end at the bottom of the highest decorative rail.

 

The fitting of a main rail with a series of square holes that each has to be precise is more work than it is worth for a model- seems to me.

 

[dafi]

The same thing happened to Victory: Build with classical wales "the wales stood proud above the planking" (love the formulation!)

 

In the 1860 to 1880 Victory was plancked flush, I would have said for economical reasons, as a harbour ship she did not need that extra strentgh any more.

 

The actual wales were only reintroduced in the the 1920, when the Trafaolgar condition was restored. But even then, these were no thick planks, but normal thick ones fixed with spacers underneath ...

 

XXXDAn

[allanyed]

15 hours ago, Jaager said:

Are the stanchions that hold up this rail extensions  of the actual top timbers?  Or is the main rail left intact and various carpenters devises used to seat the short stanchions? 

Dean,  Are you referring just to the Unicorn mentioned above?  If so does the framing drawing help?   https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-81761   

 

15 hours ago, Martes said:

And see how smoothly they are integrated into the planking:

Martes, this is important and it did change over time.   The thicknesses of the wales and planking above and below varied with size of ship and era even within just the English Navy.

 

Examples below show the variation from the 1719 Establishment through the scantlings given by Steel.  Additional details can be found in various contracts as well. 

 

Allan

[Jaager]

21 minutes ago, allanyed said:

Dean,  Are you referring just to the Unicorn mentioned above?

No.  I am essaying RN ships - mostly 50 gun and above - from 1719 to 1775.   The problem is where to cut the top timbers. 

Many of the Body plans - and I use only the Body plan to define the timber patterns - continue to the top of the highest rail.

My top timbers are a solid wall.  I COULD use the appropriate members to support the highest rail at the quarterdeck and forecastle. 

I will not because I do not wish to chisel square holes in the main rail.  I am wondering how the actual ships were constructed to support the highest decorative rails at the forecastle and quarterdeck?

I have the same questions about monkey rails on clippers?

Where did they stop the top timbers?

 

My interest continues to 1860 in general,  but my current focus is earlier - when the ships were elegant - not purely functional artillery platforms.  Unicorn is post 1815 - besides - I already lofted a Leda class to get HMS Shannon.

 

One exercise is to explore all of the classes of true 74's  starting with L' Monarque  up to 1775.  with the exception of the Bellona class - which is too crowded for me.   Monarque/HMS Monarch will be a challenge.  The officer who took off the lines of that capture only drew the absolute minimum number of stations.  The work to get the timber patterns will be less, but the frame sections will be very fat - too fat actually.  I will probably subdivide by replicating stations and then have a lot more shaping of the joined sections.

[allanyed]

Dean,

I don't know if these will help but there are high resolution drawings of the framing of Vengence (74) 1774,   Venerable (74) 1784, and Revenge (74) 1805 on the Wiki Commons site of plans (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ship_plans_of_the_Royal_Museums_Greenwich ) .    I set up a file of the 800 or so high res drawings from the site with subfolders by ship size.  I added key drawings in some subfolders from elsewhere in low res if they were missing on the Wiki site as well as contracts where I could find them.   I wanted to have these available for all members in the articles data base or elsewhere but the file is 45GB so apparently cannot be done.  Attached is a contract of a 74 from 1781 that may shed some light as framing is described in some detail in general and the top timbers in more detail on pages 7 and 9. 

 Hope this helps at least a little.

Allan 

74 gun 1781.docx

Edited July 28, 2023 by allanyed