Tapered teck planking

[The Bitter End]

Good Day to you all

 

I have a question which I know for sure I am going to struggle to articulate, but I am hoping one of you patient geniuses will be able to help.

 

I am planking the gun deck of the USS constitution. This involved first running 2 sets of 2 thick joggled strakes onto my carrier(I think this was probably a stupid approach to the planking order but the point of planking this hidden deck was to learn a thing or two about a thing or two). Please excuse the state of this planking. It is made from very rough cut planks and I used glue mixed with wood stain for the caulking so it looks like a train wreck but does clean up nicely once scraped and sanded back.

I then planked between the strakes using tapered planks which followed a standard planking pattern. and left the very center strip of planking for last.

 

 

My problem is this. The planking in the center section is interrupted by the hatches Am I meant to continue to use tapered planks as if the planking was run in one continuous tapered strake or must I treat each new section independently and therefore end up with a different number of planks per section as the space between the thick strakes narrows.

 

To try and clarify...if I plank the area between the 2 center hatches this can be done with 7 standard planks. I could either continue this right to the bow and stern and have 7 tapered planks between the thick strakes a lot the whole length of the deck, or I can get away with using as little as 5 planks in the narrowest sections.

 

I hope this makes some sort of sense.

 

I will post the results once I have tidied up this mess so that I can sleep at night

 

Cheers

 

Haiko

 

[Marcus.K.]

I don´t KNOW what was done in those days.. and I guess we will never know that.

But I guess I would follow the tapered scheme here too. It just seems more logical to me. 

 

How did you manage to do that "tapering"?

Did you cut each planks width individually??

 

And:

if distances between hatches or other obstacles can be filled with only one (typical) plank, don´t try to follow the planking schematic beside the strakes. A longer single plank is always preferred - as it is more robust than 2 planks meeting on a deck beam. 

 

I am curious how it will look after sanding the surface. I am pretty sure it will look just perfect!! 

Can´t wait to see the result. You are doing a great job here!

Edited yesterday at 11:56 AM by Marcus.K.

[The Bitter End]

16 hours ago, Marcus.K. said:

I don´t KNOW what was done in those days.. and I guess we will never know that.

But I guess I would follow the tapered scheme here too. It just seems more logical to me. 

 

How did you manage to do that "tapering"?

Did you cut each planks width individually??

 

And:

if distances between hatches or other obstacles can be filled with only one (typical) plank, don´t try to follow the planking schematic beside the strakes. A longer single plank is always preferred - as it is more robust than 2 planks meeting on a deck beam. 

 

I am curious how it will look after sanding the surface. I am pretty sure it will look just perfect!! 

Can´t wait to see the result. You are doing a great job here!

Hello Marcus

 

Thanks for your input. I am on the fence about this, it is frustrating!

 

I measured each section to be filled, I then checked the maximum number of complete planks that would fill that section and then divided the width of each section at each beam by that number. I then transferred that measurement to the plank and cut each taper individually using a steel ruler and a surgical scalpel. 

 

I can't wait to see these results either! I really hope they are ok. What I can tell you is that many lessons were learned for the spar deck planking/

 

Cheers

 

Haiko