18th Century Merchant Man Half Hull Planking Kit by Jim M - NRG - 1:48

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice work, you won't regret redoing those planks. I also had trouble at that particular bulkhead and found I had to fair it a bit more.

[Jim M]

Good evening, a quick update on this project.

 

Monday I tried creating the second bow plank, and it was an absolute failure. After three hours, and at least five attempts I put up this project.

 

 

I was using a french curve, and i think it is just to aggressive. So I decided to whip out my amazon account and order some ship curves. At the same time I ordered some card stock.

 

I decided to switch tactics, and use the scribing method, but then transferring to the card stock.

 

 

This allows me to create the plank and pre fit it better than trying to do it after cutting the plank.  Once I felt it was ready then I cut the plank and did some final fitting. 

 

 

Not I also pre bent the curve using my plank bender and water. The benefit of using the card stock I found I can get the plank the correct length. This was one of the challenges I was facing on Monday along with the plank breaking.

 

Next I tackled the third row, and I scribed the two long planks. I had previously cut the plank so you can see that is matching the scribe. Also I used my new ships curve to flatten the curve into a smoother curve.

 

 

Below I am trying to make the next curve much more uniform than the previous plank.

 

 

 

After drawing the curve it is definitely better, but the join at A will need to be addressed on the forth plank. Next I cut the plank and did a dry fit.

 

 

I followed the same procedure as before, but I was to aggressive with sanding the tip of the plank, so I recut it using my template as a guide.

 

 

Below all planks are now gluing in place.

 

 

 

I had to much a gap at the F between the stern plank and its adjacent plank, so I recut it so I can fit it better, and then re glued it in place.

 

 

Finally created the templates for the bow and middle plank on row 4 before being called to make lemon bars, and beef stroganoff for the family dinner. 

 

 

Will continue tomorrow with the stern plank and then start figuring out the steeler. It looks like I will need at least one or two drop planks too, as I am starting to get the smily face.

 

Cheers

 

 

Edited February 3 by Jim M
fixed images

[RossR]

I will be starting my half hull in a few months, really appreciate the level of detail you are sharing, plus the tip on using card stock.  Keep up the good work.  
 

 

Edited February 4 by RossR

[Jim M]

1 hour ago, RossR said:

I will be starting my half hull in a few month, really appreciate the level of detail you are sharing, plus the tip on using card stock.  Keep up the good work.  
 

 

thanks. you need to prebend the planks as the material is thin. 

Edited February 3 by Jim M

[Jim M]

Good evening 

 

A little update from today.  I was finally able to get the first belt done. 

 

 

I am debating adding the steeler between rows 5 and six so that i can get a nicer mount point on a bulkhead.  I will make that decision tomorrow. 

 

Cheers

[palmerit]

1 hour ago, Jim M said:

I am debating adding the steeler

I used steelers and drop planks, not just because I needed them (I did) but also to use this half hull to get practice doing that.

 

(When I screwed up and sanded too much, I also used it as an opportunity to try to remove planks and redo them.)

[Jim M]

12 hours ago, palmerit said:

I used steelers and drop planks, not just because I needed them (I did) but also to use this half hull to get practice doing that.

 

(When I screwed up and sanded too much, I also used it as an opportunity to try to remove planks and redo them.)

 

@palmerit

 

I agree, I plan on doing both on my project. I think I have removed more planks than I have put on. I have a lot of planks that i cut and did not like either....

 

[palmerit]

57 minutes ago, Jim M said:

I think I have removed more planks than I have put on

I had to buy more basswood because I ran out because of the number I cut, sanded and shaped, and then didn't like, and started over.

[Jim M]

Good afternoon, 

 

Yesterday I was able to get back to the project, and I focused on getting a stealer in. I decided to place the stealer between the first two belts, so I had to remove the stern plank on row 4 from the first belt. Then I recut the plank and glued in a filler between G and F bulkheads.

 

Next I created my stealer using my card stalk. I ended up dry fitting the stealer where I wanted it got get an approximate size, but I still left a little at the stern to be trimmed. Next I took the stealer mapped out the cut for the plank, and I cut the plank followed then glueing the plank in.

 

After fitting, I cut the stealer out of the wood.

 

 

Here I am dry fitting the stealer. I did soak the plank and stealer to dry in place to get a pre-bend.

 

 

Next I glued in the stealer.

 

 

Final result.

 

 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice work! I found it tricky to figure out how to add the stealer.

[Knocklouder]

Look at all those numbers  wow, I could never do that. Great work it looks like it supposed to.   

[Jim M]

11 minutes ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Nice work! I found it tricky to figure out how to add the stealer.

 

@JacquesCousteau thank you. I spent 3 days thinking how I was going to add the stealer, and having the template, that I made i will make the fitting of row 5 easier.

[Jim M]

2 minutes ago, Knocklouder said:

Look at all those numbers  wow, I could never do that. Great work it looks like it supposed to.   

 

@Knocklouder thank you. I could not work in the imperial system very well, so I ended up converting to metric (I grew up in Canada) that is more familiar. In the future though I think I will create a spreadsheet to keep track of the rows etc.

[Jim M]

Saturday I was able to make some progress with the planking tutorial.

 

My template process is as follows:

 

First I created the templates for all three planks.

 

 

Then I fitted stern plank.

 

 

Then I transcribe the templates to the board.

 

 

Finally I fit the planks after cutting them out.

 

Here is the stern plank.

 

 

Next the bow plank

 

 

Notice the odd dips and odd shape on the planks below.

 

Finally I glue in the planks

 

The bow plank

 

 

And finally all planks in the gluing stage.

 

[Jim M]

Good morning, and major update. Yesterday (Sunday) I removed the clamps from Saturday's work and I noticed that the I made a some major calculation errors at the bow. The plank ends are to large for the belts. My bow was well into the third planking belt, after finishing the first row of the second belt. You can see there is about 3 planks before I hit the whale.

 

 

So I decided to remove the three bow planks as indicated with an X

 

 

How ever I really was unhappy with shape of the bow, the curve should be more smoother. This led to me removing all my planks, and then re-faring the model.

 

After removing the planks you can see some dips in the bow that need to be sorted.

 

 

After an hour or so of hand sanding I was able to smooth out the hull, and also remove any on the bulkheads. I am much happier with the outcome this time around. One lesson I learned, is that be diligent with faring of the hull. Also, step away and then double check everything and only when happy with the job, proceed.

 

 

The bow after faring. You can see all bulkheads are even.

 

 

And the stern. If you notice the notch is bigger, this is because when I removed the garboard, the isopropanol did not release the join correctly and chipped caused a small error. I will fix this with the garboard, and extend that notch. However, my calculations will remain to the original placing of the notch. I had to clean up the notch with a chisel to make it smoot.

 

 

 

Another view of the fully fared hull.

 

 

Here I am dry fitting the stern garboard. I did use a little water to help with the curve int the stern.

 

 

Next I am dry fitting the bow garboard, again I used some water to help with the curve into the bow.

 

 

Both boards now being glued into place.

 

 

Finally yesterday, I was able to create the template for the first strake.

 

 

Although this was a setback, I am really happy I made this decision. The foundational planks fit much better which should make a better model.

 

Cheers...

 

 

[palmerit]

Yeah, this model really needs to be fared pretty aggressively at the bow and stern (at least compared to what I had to do on the Sherbourne). Even after an aggressive faring, I realized later that I probably could have (should have) done a bit more, especially near the counter at the stern. 

 

Having the thin basswood for the planking has the advantage that they're easy to bend and shape. But it also has the disadvantage that, because they're thin, they cannot take much sanding. If the faring is not done right and there are bulges or pockets you cannot fix that by sanding the planks - as I learned when I sanded through and had to replank in places. (I can hold my hull up to the light and see some places where the planking is nearly paper thin.) 

[JacquesCousteau]

54 minutes ago, Jim M said:

This led to me removing all my planks, and then re-faring the model.

Undoubtedly a hard decision, but one that will pay off in the end! I definitely had to fair the bow and stern quite a lot on mine, it's a tricky hull. It's good practice, though--after having done a lot of sanding and shimming on the Half-Hull, I felt confident in dealing with similar issues on my Lancha Chilota scratch-build.

[damaartenman]

Buy one model and build it 2x 🙂 But it is a very brave decision and it shows how much you can repair or change on wooden models. I am happy to be able to learn from you guys.

[Jim M]

11 hours ago, damaartenman said:

Buy one model and build it 2x 🙂 But it is a very brave decision and it shows how much you can repair or change on wooden models. I am happy to be able to learn from you guys.

 

Thank you @damaartenman.  I am just a newb at this and this is a complete learning process.  

[Jim M]

On 2/17/2025 at 10:25 AM, JacquesCousteau said:

Undoubtedly a hard decision, but one that will pay off in the end! I definitely had to fair the bow and stern quite a lot on mine, it's a tricky hull. It's good practice, though--after having done a lot of sanding and shimming on the Half-Hull, I felt confident in dealing with similar issues on my Lancha Chilota scratch-build.

 

Thanks for the encouragement @JacquesCousteau