A deck planking problem - shaping narrow grooves between adjacent planks.

[Dr PR]

I have been planking the decks on my MSI model and ran into a challenging problem.

 

 

The planks are pretty thin (1/16 x 1/16 inch or 1.6 x 1.6 mm) and flexible. They are nibbed into a nibbing strake along the edges of the deck. The deckhouse sides are not parallel, so the planks have to be tapered to fit along the house sides. Planking at the bow and stern is pretty simple, but these deck sections meet along the house sides. Keeping the decking pattern straight and parallel to the centerline was pretty tricky in this area!

 

The planks have 0.005 inch (0.13 mm) black paper "grout" glued along the edges.

 

The last plank between the forward and aft planking is nibbed into the nibbing strake and sandwiched between two neighboring planks. Because it is the last plank it has paper grout along both edges.

 

It is a very tight fit into the groove between the neighboring planks. And because the planks actually varied quite a bit in width it was a problem getting the last plank to fit into the groove.

 

Here are a couple more photos to illustrate the problem.

 

 

 

QUESTION: How would you go about widening the groove so the last plank would fit? This is a pretty narrow groove!

 

The small file shown in the pictures was 0.055 inch (1.4 mm) thick, only slightly thinner than a plank. It didn't remove much material and I had to be careful not to foul the opposing top edge of the neighboring plank. And it tended to remove more material from the bottom of the groove (not good) than along the sides.

 

What other method would you suggest to remove very small amounts of wood from the sides of the planks along the groove?

Edited Tuesday at 03:46 AM by Dr PR

[Thanasis]

Hi. Did you try with a suitable finger nail file or with folded sandpaper...?

Thx

[druxey]

If I understand your problem correctly, I would use a sanding surface. Rubber cement the paper to a flat surface. You can then gently sand the plank edge, holding it at a slight angle to produce a subtle wedge-like cross section. Test fit until the plank almost seats all the way into the space it needs to occupy. Then  you can glue and press it all the way home for a tight fit.

[Dr PR]

Thanasis and Druxey,

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

I don't want to shape the plank - it is already shaped to the desired width, and has the paper grout glued to it. I am looking for ways to widen a narrow groove, preferably keeping the more or less vertical sides of the groove.

 

I suppose I could glue sandpaper to a thin enough stiff object so it could fit down into the groove.

[CPDDET]

Not sure if you want to make the investment but you can purchase chisles that small.

Dockyardtoolsusa.com

[amateur]

Just thinking aloud: can you scrape the sides of the groove using an x-acto 11 blade (preferably one with its tip broken of, to prevent the knife catching in the bottom of that groove.

 

Jan

[Dr PR]

Good ideas!

 

If you look at the second photo in my original post you will see two hobby knives with #11 blades. The blade on the right has been ground down to make a narrow chisel about 1/2 plank width.  I used it to make the initial cut in the nibbing strake where the plank end is nibbed into the strake.

 

I also used the sides of the "chisel" to scrape the edges of the groove to widen it. It did work, but it was slow going. On the other hand, I did want to remove material gradually until the plank just fit into the groove with a slip fit. So slow was good.

 

I didn't mention this at first because I didn't want to bias answers.

 

I do have a set of wood chisels that I use to remove material from grooves (but none as narrow as 1/16 inch). Usually I use a saw to define the width of the channel and a narrower chisel to gouge out material between the saw kerfs. I don't know that I have a steady enough hand to work a plank width chisel between the adjacent planks and keep a straight edge along the sides of the channel.

 

Any other suggestions?

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

I don't want to shape the plank - it is already shaped to the desired width, and has the paper grout glued to it. I am looking for ways to widen a narrow groove, preferably keeping the more or less vertical sides of the groove.

 

  Perhaps the suggestion from Thanasis was misunderstood.  There is a groove space, and the last plank has paper grout on either side - so at present it is a tad too wide for the groove.  His suggestion was to cautiously sand  the edges of the plank held at an angle, so the wear will not be seen from the top, but merely reduce the width at the bottom of either side of the plank - hence the "wedge" shape if you could see the plank in cross section.

 

  With a narrower bottom, the plank should start to go into the groove before getting tight halfway in.  Several trial fits and further adjustment may be needed until the plank will drop in 2/3rds of the way into the groove. Then there are 2 alternatives:  1.) Put a small amount of glue into the bottom of the groove and press fit the 'wedged' plank so that it will compress its width only near the top.  2.)  Use a 'riffler' file (one that has a bend in it - a handy tool for ship modelers to have) to cautiously work a little from either side of the groove near the top.  Just a little will do, and the friction between the slightly wedge shaped plank and the reverse wedge of the groove will be reduced so the plank will need little compression.
 

 

[Dr PR]

Johnny,

 

I think Thanasis' suggestion to use sandpaper is a good one. If the paper was wrapped around something a bit narrower than the groove, so the sandpaper was a slip fit into the groove, it would remove material from both sides in equal amounts, keeping the sides more or less parallel lengthwise. That is a potential problem because I want the planks/grooves to have straight edges and more or less the same width through their entire length.

 

Making the grooves "\_/" shaped runs the risk of having different widths at the top edges (edges not straight), and that would be visibly noticeable in this application (deck planking).

 

For what it is worth, I did file the bottom edges of the paper "grout" to make the bottom of the plank a bit narrower. This helped get it started in the groove. But I didn't want to make it too tight because the paper is easily distorted if you force the plank into the groove, pushing the paper up and possibly out of the groove. If that happens you have to start all over again to replace the distorted "grout." So you really need a groove wide enough for the plank to easily slip fit in place.

 

I should also say that I really didn't have this problem when planking my topsail schooner deck because the planks were 5 mm (about 1/4 inch) wide. They did not bend easily. These 1/6 inch planks bend like wet spaghetti! And I was able to place straight runs of planking that were nibbed only at the outboard edges - no tapering to fit around a deck house with non-parallel sides. The MSI built posed some new challenges.

Edited Tuesday at 08:00 PM by Dr PR

[Thanasis]

Thank you all.

What I meant was to make any modification only on the sides of the groove.

I would never touch the already shaped and pre-caulked plank..

My suggestion with the folded sandpaper is what you see in the (photoshopped) below photo. 
You can keep a strip of folded sandpaper between a " Bulldog clip" and use the folded edge in the groove.

Keep the jaws of the clip as close to the folded edge...
Thx

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:13 AM by Thanasis

[druxey]

If the paper 'grout' (caulking!) were to be added to the penultimate planks before installing them, then the last plank can be carefully sanded to fit as I described.

 

I would be reluctant to mess with installed planks. If I slipped while modifying them, then I'd have to remove and replace them. It would be a mess!

[Dr PR]

Thanasis,

 

Good idea! The metal clip makes a good handle to control the sandpaper. The one problem I see with this is that the grit along the edge of the fold can remove material from the bottom of the groove, making it deeper. With the deck planking application it really won't matter much if the plank is a tight fit into the groove. I put glue on the bottom of the plank (you could put it in the groove) and press the planks into the groove most of the way. Then I use a wooden stick to press the plank down so the top of the plank is level with the tops of the neighboring planks. So the plank won't slide too deep in the groove.

 

Druxey,

 

You have hit upon the thing that worried me the most. There are several ways to widen the groove, and most have the potential to remove too much of one of the planks on the side that would make a very visible curve in the grout line.

 

However, one method to widen the groove hasn't been mentioned yet, and it is just asking for trouble! I did use a new #11 blade to remove wood from the sides of the groove! I held the blade flat against the edge of the planks on the side of the groove, and then rotated it slightly to get the sharp edge angled into the wood - like the blade of a plane. Then I carefully shaved very thin slices off the plank edge, moving in the direction with the grain so the blade wouldn't cut too deep. This was a "high pucker factor" operation. But it worked!

 

One of the problems I had with the thin planks was that they bent very easily, and if I didn't get the nibbing in deep enough into the nibbing plank the plank would develop a slight curvature. This happened a couple of times and I didn't notice until I had installed another plank or two. Looking along the length of the planks the curvature was obvious - the planks were supposed to be parallel to the centerline of the deck.

 

I had to rip up a few planks and then "plane" away excess material from the remaining planks to straighten the edges. Nasty! A few of the planks do have a slight taper toward the nibbed end, but because the entire batch of planks varied in width so much you would have to look very closely to see it.

Edited Wednesday at 03:59 PM by Dr PR

[Wawona59]

I must agree with Jan's suggestion in post #6 above.  By using a used/broken x-acto blade you can take minute shavings an "sneak up" on the desired width of space needed.  Try using the back of the knife blade to avoid cutting deeply into the adjacent plank.  You could also put a small burr on the back of the blade using a hardened steel shaft of a small screwdriver or the handle of a small file.  There are also many different shapes of knife blades available to suit your purpose.  You could also use a small bulldog clip similar to the one shown in post #10 above as a handle.  A small metal ruler could be used as a fence to keep the edges straight.

 

Good luck!  Every modeling challenge can be overcome with some thought and ingenuity.

 

 

[Dr PR]

John,

 

Thanks. I did use a modified #11 blade as a scraper and it does work.

 

I used an example of a deck planking problem, but the more general problem is making any type of narrow groove. There have been several good suggestions so far.