Vigilance of Brixham (BM 76) by FlyingFish - 1:32

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Andy

 

I'm no guitar expert, but that's a gorgeously classic shape. Understated & well proportioned indeed....

[FlyingFish]

19 hours ago, Mark Pearse said:

classic shape

Thanks Mark; its based on the old Martin 'Orchestra Model', with sitka spruce soundboard and rosewood sides and back. Its a great project, and I'm looking forward to hearing it played.

Thanks for the likes etc, especially from @Wintergreen - great to hear from you Hakan; my very best wishes to you.

I am laying down a preparatory shellac bedding for french polishing the guitar, and then doing a load of sundry pre-winter jobs before getting back to the planking on Vigilance.

All for now.

[KeithAug]

On 9/7/2024 at 8:56 PM, FlyingFish said:

probably never be seen, but just in case.

A man after my own heart.

[FlyingFish]

Update

Thanks for the views, comments and 'thumbs up'!

Well time in the shop has been limited recently; a prolonged spell of dry settled weather has allowed me to get on with several jobs outside that needed doing – a pair of new shed doors, clearing out downpipes and fixing gutters etc. Not to mention a few bonus fishing trips. All unexpected but very welcome.

A change to colder weather brings me back on task.

During this time, Vigilance No. 1 took on a mild twist. That’s what comes of leaving a framed boat un-planked for too long, despite leaving her well held in the building jig..  It wasn’t much but would have thrown things out of kilter later on, so took the time to fix it.

It necessitated taking off the shelves and clamps, stringers and the haunch timbers, hitching her back into shape and re-gluing. A pain but it’s done.

I will say that C/A glue is actually a whole lot easier to unstick than PVA – a quick wipe with acetone on a brush. Leave a few minutes than pry carefully apart.

Anyway, onto the next step.

 

 

A preamble to planking.  [Skip this section if you want to avoid my inane ramblings – I’m simply planning aloud].

I had naively assumed that I could plank both versions simultaneously. A moment’s thought shows that version 1 (cutaway); ‘plank on frame’ and version 2 (fully built); ‘plank on station or bulkhead’ requires different approaches, even if the intention is that the resulting hulls will look the same.

Even if the planks are identical, the positions of the frames (V1) and stations (V2) are different, and hence the ‘tick strips’ or whatever needs to be original to each version.

Additionally, version 1 has frames at 6° to the heel, whereas version 2 has stations perpendicular to the keel.

I think it will become confusing to try and log these together, so let’s concentrate on what’s common to both for the moment.

 

The method described is that used originally, and by the shipyard, so far as I can see.

Once the frames are roughly faired, battens are placed at sheer and at intervals down the stem to the rabbet line on the keel, as shown, all adjusted to create fair lines.

These create bands of planking to be filled in stages, starting with the garboard & sheer. The distance between the battens is divided to give the planking width in each band, although in practice, planks are put on at each ribband position first, then the gaps filled with shutter planks spiled as necessary.

The position of the battens is decided when designing the line-off plan, and by consideration of what they do to the plank width.  Convention is that a plank should not reduce by more than half it’s width, and that where possible stealers etc should be avoided. This whole subject is vast, and open to all sorts of interpretation. I don’t pretend to know very much about it, but the principles are straightforward enough – ‘do what looks good and works with the wood’. In other words, keep it fair and avoid too much edge setting. There are many excellent tutorials around, including several on this forum to which I can add nothing.

The simplest method is to measure the length of each station’s girth from sheer to keel and divide it by the number of planks required. This gives the width of each plank at each station. However, for some hull shapes (including Vigilance) this may not work when the lines are pinched or stretched at either end of the boat, and the widths are either too narrow or too broad, necessitating stealers, broadstrakes or suchlike.

For such boats one method involves drawing one or more lines along the hull, made by stretching a string along its length so that it proscribes the shortest path from stem the stern. A dead straight plank lays perfectly on this 'Magic' line and will need no edge setting, because it is a right-angles to the hull at every point. This becomes the ribband that defines the point above which planks are identical in shape (other than the bevel). By which I mean they will have the same width at each station. Below this line the planking requires a different approach due to the more acute shapes below the waterline. (Credit due to Mr Sauzedde for the explanation).

So back to practicalities and how to line off Vigilance, starting with what we know about her.

The photograph of Vigilance at Newlyn shows her with 21 planks not easily discerned, edged yellow below. Planks 10,11,&12 at the turn of the bilge were thicker, as were the three topside strakes. Strakes 1 – 7 were wider over the deadwoods at the sternpost to allow the narrower planks to fall more fairly under the counter.

Over the years and several re-plankings later, she still had 21 planks when she arrived at the yard in August 2023.

Planks10 11 and 12 were thicker, as were the top three strakes. Planks 8 and 9 reduced into one plank at around frame 5 or 6 on both sides at some time – unsure if this is original, but to be avoided in the plan.

Planking was 2 3/8^” thick ; planks 10, 11 and 12 at the turn of the bilge are thicker at 3”, as are the three topsides.

The garboard is 7” wide at the midpoint frame 18, and the sheer and the four topsides below it are also wider than the bilge band at the midline by about an inch.

As mentioned, the planking widens over the aft deadwood section, another shot of this below.

 

As the planks come under the counter at the stern they first terminate onto the sternpost, then as they go above the sternpost onto the stern tube each butts the opposing plank at the centreline, as shown in the image. Plank 8 marks the intersection of the stern post and the counter, and is a good place to consider marking a fair line above which the planking is all of similar widths at each section, as previously described.

The battens below show how the planking bands work under the counter, and how the planks butt above the stern post.

To create a fair line from the bilge to the intersection of the sternpost and stern tube it is necessary to widen the first 6 planks above the garboard from the keel as they run over the deadwood and up the concave surface of the frames.

This can be seen in the final image below, the bottom edge of plank 7 marked.

So the idea is to mark the position of the batten at the sheer and the next ribband on the line just described joining the 7/8 planks junction at the point where the stern post enters the counter planking at the stern tube. It’s a bit arbitrary; one could equally have used the planks 8/9 boundary (as I think the yard did),  but keeping the seven lower planks together works well I think.

The last decision is where to terminate this line at the stem.

The planking has equal widths from the garboard to the sheer at the stem, so this really takes care of the last position we need to map out the first band of planking. 

Using the sectional plans of the frames at key points the position of the top of plank 7 (as determined by division of the frame length) can be mapped onto the boat in CAD. Putting all this information together we can plot the batten line we need as shown (line with dots along it). Below these the lower 7 planks are faired.

Interestingly when checked on the model this line does correspond nicely to the ‘magic’ line where a plank sits straight without edge setting.

I found a picture of plank 8 being fitted and you can see it needs no bevel and little or no edge setting. Lou would be pleased.

Above this line planking is divided equally into further bands using battens.

From the CAD plans it’s possible to measure the distance up each frame that the planks cross, at least at key points like the top of plank 7 and the other batten lines. The ability to accurately measure the length of a curve on a plan is an unexpected bonus of using CAD.

These can be transferred onto the model with a bit of care, and planking can progress from the garboard to the ‘magic line’ then downwards from the sheer. I may well have another band somewhere in the bilge area, but I want to avoid having to spire in more than necessary.

So that’s my happy task ahead.

If you’ve followed all this so far you deserve a medal. Or like me, a nice little glass of calvados, a momento of a recent trip to Brittany.

 

All for now!

 

 

Widen planks in this area

Edited December 9 by FlyingFish

[AJohnson]

Thank you Andy for your (not at all inane) ramblings and great photographs of the principles shown on a real boat!  You deserve that drink! 🍹

[Keith Black]

 Andy, thank you for taking the time to explain the process. 

[wefalck]

Thank you very much for those insights into real wooden ship-building processes!

[FriedClams]

 

19 hours ago, FlyingFish said:

Skip this section if you want to avoid my inane ramblings – I’m simply planning aloud]

 

Fascinating post on planking, Andy.  Please feel free to "ramble" with abandon.  Very interesting stuff!

 

Gary 

[KeithAug]

On 11/20/2024 at 8:16 PM, FlyingFish said:

Vigilance No. 1 took on a mild twist.

Andy - good catch - I have seen many less successful correction attempts. I do think that it is good of the shipwrights to build a full scale boat for you to copy.

 

Oh there's sober men & plenty
And drunkards barely twenty
There are men of over ninety
That have never yet kissed a girl
But give me a rambling rover
Fae Orkney down to Dover
We will roam the country over
And together we'll face the world
 

[FlyingFish]

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

good of the shipwrights to build a full scale boat for you to copy.

Ha! not only that but they frequently comment on this log and put me right. Couldn't do it without them!

However I think my roving days are over....

[Dr PR]

Kieth,

 

Excellent advice. I found a rambling rover - she's a fearless Jeep girl - and we have rambled to some beautiful places.

[FlyingFish]

More ramblings...

Planking - setting out the battens.

I’ve set virtual ‘battens’ every three planks – as the Yard did and set a width for the garboard and top five planks at each of six frames down the length of the boat. Then added the positions/decisions determined in the last post (magic line) we end up with the following lines, this on Vigilance I.

 

I’ve flipped this photo to allow a rough comparison view, (the hogging is now obvious even if the angle is not quite right!). Maybe run of planking in the stern quarters is a tad wider, but it’s marginal.

 

 

Designing the planking under the elliptical counter is challenging and required a bit of head scratching, as discussed in the previous posting.

The planking twists as it passes aft under the counter, particularly the sheer strake which has a severe twist of almost 90° for the last few feet. It requires some very creative clamping. The inside face is bevelled flat to provide a surface which is level to the cover boards.

Then we know plank 13 terminates at the top of the sternpost centreline as below; so planks 14 to 20 terminate along the sheer from the centreline back to the sheer strake along the counter sheer line.

 

Mapped all this int CAD to try and get something to transfer key points onto the boat.

Care needs to be taken that the sheerstrake is not allowed to terminate too far forward (as it would like to do as it twists) as this would expand the area for plank 14-20 to fill.

Triangulating from the plan view, and profile view onto the sectional at frame 34 it's possible to plot how the planking passes under the counter over frames 36-40. It will need fairing as we go, but at least it is a rough guide to work with. I’m grateful to Stirling’s Shipyard Manager, Richard, who helped with some useful reflections on how they did this. There’s no textbooks or tutorials on counter planking so no-one knows how this was done by Uphams. Presumably just passed down from one generation to another.

After a little tweaking we have a satisfactory set of lines.

Then copied all these lines onto the profile framing plan of Vigilance II so that I can plank both hulls together.

Stock planking is from timber we planted in 2000, and since thinned. One is maple, which is pale, hard and fine grained. The other is poplar, which is faster growing, but still very clean, straight grained and stable. Both have been seasoned for 4 years and dried in stock lengths for a further year inside. They measure 11° on the moisture meter.

They were cut into stock size on the band saw, then cut to size on the micromark table saw before thicknessing down to 1.9mm and 2.15mm.

So now over to the model to lay some planks on the frames to test the plan we’ve come up with before finalising it. ('At last!' I hear you all say...)

Started by transferring the lines using a combination of direct measurements with the dividers, and then filling between the batten lines with tick marks in the usual way.

The garboard is dry fitted first, then the first few up over the deadwoods to establish the lines.

Nothing glued yet, but tick marks at the batten points can then be checked for fairness. It’s looking OK at this point, but very slow progress. This image is of Vigilance II, which is the easier of the pair, and I can copy the planks to make a second set which can be used for Vigilance I which is sitting in the background. It's been a long time coming, but some real progress at last.

All for now!

 

 

Edited December 9 by FlyingFish

[Wintergreen]

Andy, I had to backtrack you build log because suddenly I was all confused of version numbers on the hull(s). Clever approach though.

And I also read through your (not so) inane mamble ramblings about planking, putting my own non-scientific way of planking to shame. I have no doubt that the end result will be very pleasing!

My problem with planning is that I have an almost pathological aversion to too much pre-planning. In my work profession I do big, complex datasystem updates which needs to be planned down to the very minute detail, and I do not bring that way into my shop. As an example, for a job that takes 1-3 hrs when executed (failing is not an option) we spend about 40-80 hrs planning. But that is only partially why I don't do much drawings and stuff. When I build something, be it a new kitchen table with benches, or a smart storage box for my 1:1 sailboat, the only drawing I have is usually a wrinkled paper with a rudimentary skiss and some measurements. The rest I make up as I go. 

Of course I know the con's of such an approach and I am glad not all are like me, so we actually can learn something from those (like you) that takes a fair bit of time to plan and explain.

 

Keep it up!

[FlyingFish]

22 hours ago, Wintergreen said:

I have an almost pathological aversion to too much pre-planning

Well it certainly doesn't show in Atlantica Hakan! Your work sounds very exacting, so I understand where you are coming from when it comes to relaxing in the workshop, but your joinery is so skilled, you are clearly a very talented woodworker.

I do spend ages researching - maybe because this build is all about absolute fidelity to the original - it will be the only model of the original as she was built, so I want to do my due diligence. I have some experts looking over my shoulder! 

This does mean slow progress, especially as I am far from expert myself! Once the planking is done, it should all speed up a bit. 

[FriedClams]

Nice progress, Andy, and planning is part of the build process be it minimum or extensive. I would be intimidated as all get-out if I had those ship builders watching my every move, so for that reason alone, I understand your determination for the utmost accuracy.

 

I remember that the wood for this build came off your property, but I didn't realize it was from your own plantings. Very cool.

 

Gary    

[FlyingFish]

On 12/11/2024 at 3:28 PM, FriedClams said:

ship builders watching my every move

To be fair they have been very generous with their time and letting me visit the Yard occasionally, and very supportive. Couldn't do it without that access, for sure. The timber supply was serendipitous - we had a new drive to the house build through a stand of shelter belt trees we planted when we moved here in 1998. I have enough drying for many more builds yet!