18th-Century Merchantman Half-Hull Planking Kit by Dan Poirier - NRG - 1:48

[Dan Poirier]

I hope to improve my planking skills by doing the Nautical Research Guild's 18th-Century Merchantman Half-Hull Planking Kit.

 

The first challenge turned out to be gluing the plan to a piece of foamboard. It was my first time using spray adhesive, and I discovered that there's no room for error - once the glued paper touches the glued foamboard, it's pretty well stuck. It did seem for a few seconds that I might be able to carefully peel the paper off and reposition it, but in no time I had completely destroyed my paper.

 

Luckily, I was working with a copy of the original plans. I was able to make another copy and try again.

 

This time I stuck the left half of the paper in place with post-its, then folded the right half back over it. I sprayed the back of the right half and the right half of the backing board, waited a minute, then very carefully unfolded the right side and smoothed it down starting from the fold. Then I folded the left half over the right and repeated the process. It worked so much better.

 

(No pictures, since the plans are proprietary.)

[Jim M]

@Dan Poirier i am so glad i have some company with this project. Very excited to see your finished product along with your log. 

 

jim

[Dan Poirier]

I'm starting on carving the rabbets to receive the plank ends. First marking 1/32" from either side of the edges of the keel and stem pieces, then starting to sand down, forming half of the 90 degree socket at a 45 degree angle that'll receive the plank ends when the two keel pieces are joined.

 

[Dan Poirier]

I continued cutting the rabbets. In this picture you can see how cutting angles on the corners of the keel and keelson created a place for the edge of a plank to rest when the two pieces are joined.

 

 

At the bow, the angle of the planks to the stem gradually changes from 45 to 90 degrees. The top end of the stem has a flat-bottomed rabbet to receive the ends of those planks.

 

 

With the rabbeting all done, the keel and stem pieces were glued to the backing board.

 

 

 

[Dan Poirier]

Before installing the bulkheads, the notches in the keelson needed to be deepened.

 

 

Then the bulkheads were glued in place, using part of a carpenter square to make sure they were upright and at right angles to the keel.

 

 

[Diver]

I am struggling with the planking on my Sanson tug.  I had no real issues planking my Syren Medway long boat but I think this project will be on my to do list. I believe it is an excellent tutorial.

[Dan Poirier]

I'm having to extend a few bulkheads so they go high enough to line up with the bottom of the top rail on the diagram underneath.

 

 

I'm also going to have to move a few of the spacer/supports between the bulkheads a little bit lower, so I can trim those bulkheads down to line up with the top rail.

[Dan Poirier]

I've abandoned this project, having realized that planking is not something I'm equipped to do well.  But I thought I'd post a few comments on the work I did on the kit.

 

First, I tried to build it on foamboard. If I were starting over, I'd use something that was quite rigid, like 1/2 inch plywood. It doesn't have to be overly large. The project doesn't need a lot of extra margin around the actual hull, and keeping it smaller would have made it more manageable.

 

I'd try to figure out a way to transfer the pattern to the board, rather than trying to build on top of the paper glued to the board.

 

I'd dry fit everything short of the planking itself, as much as I could, before I started gluing things together. Some of the supporting boards I had to undo the glue and move more than once, because it wasn't clear early on that the positions of the supporting pieces were much more important than the instructions suggested.

 

Finally, I'm wondering if I've missed something about the method described in the instructions for figuring out how to shape each plank. I was supposed to put masking tape over the last installed plank, overhanging the edge, and trace the edge on the tape, then move the tape to the thin board I'm cutting planks out of and use it to guide cutting the edge of the next plank. I used Tamiya yellow tape, and a 3mm HB mechanical pencil, and trying to mark the edge of the plank exactly where the tape is falling off the edge of the existing plank seemed impossible.

[JacquesCousteau]

Sorry to hear about the build. I definitely found some aspects of this model to be a little frustrating, especially that fairing the hull took so much sanding. For whatever it's worth, if you decide to pick it up again in the future, I found it helpful to use the markings on the tape more as a rough guide to cut out an oversized plank beyond the lines, and then to sand the plank, with numerous test fittings, until it fit well against the previous plank.

[palmerit]

I definitely made the planks wider than needed. It was a lot of shaping via sanding. I was never able to just trace a pattern that was the right size. It really was at best just a rough estimate. I cut to the right length using my Ultimation cutter. But width was lots of “carving” to the right shape with a sanding stick.