Hull Planking Calculator

[MintGum]

Hello,

 

In the interest of aiding in the creation and printing of tick strips and planking templates for wooden model ship hulls, I have created a hull planking calculator.

 

 

This is free (as in beer) desktop software for the Windows OS, created simply out of curiosity and research into model wooden ship hull planking.

 

If you are interested in checking it out or testing it please download the latest release from GitHub using the link below.

 

There is no install just an .exe that can be placed where desired.  I usually keep it on my desktop.

 

Download and unzip to your desired location.  You may be asked by Windows to allow the .exe to run on your machine.

 

Repository: GitHub - mintgum/HullPlankingCalculator: A calculator to print tick strips and plank templates for wooden model ship hulls.

 

Download: https://github.com/mintgum/HullPlankingCalculator/releases/download/Release/HullPlankingCalculator.zip

 

Please read the included help text by clicking the large (?) icon on the right side of the form.

 

Any feedback is welcome and I will do my best to answer any questions.

 

Thanks,

Mint

Edited Friday at 07:30 PM by MintGum

[MintGum]

Here's an example hull and the generated tick strip and planking templates which can be printed on any standard home printer (Letter or A4 size paper):

 

 

Tick Strip Page:

 

 

First page of the plank template:

 

Second page of the plank template:

 

 

Third page of the plank template:

 

Edited Friday at 03:31 PM by MintGum

[Some Idea]

I think that this is a great idea especially for first time builders.  I cannot download the files as I run a Mac but as I understand it you simply put the length of the frame and how many planks are required and it gives you the dimensions at each station.  Then you can print out the ticker tape and apply it to your model.  Well done MintGum.

[MintGum]

1 hour ago, Some Idea said:

I think that this is a great idea especially for first time builders.  I cannot download the files as I run a Mac but as I understand it you simply put the length of the frame and how many planks are required and it gives you the dimensions at each station.  Then you can print out the ticker tape and apply it to your model.  Well done MintGum.

 

Thank you!  You are correct.  This takes the place of a planking fan and the tedious transfer of the plank heights at each rib to the plank itself by providing printable tick strips and plank templates, allowing the modeler to concentrate on lane fitting/fairing and curving, shaping and fitting the planks for each lane.  This is done by inputing the lane height at each rib (rib heights) and the space between each rib (rib spacing) in the lane being considered.  "Lane" being a faired  (i.e. smooth and evenly shaped) division of the entire hull height being planked.

Edited Saturday at 07:02 PM by MintGum

[Loracs]

This indeed look quite useful. The printable template is a good idea to transfer the shape/bevel to the strip. Will definitively try it out. Thanks!

[MintGum]

19 hours ago, Loracs said:

This indeed look quite useful. The printable template is a good idea to transfer the shape/bevel to the strip. Will definitively try it out. Thanks!

 

Great!  Thanks for giving it a try.  Hopefully those that try it out are able to give feedback (both pros and cons).

[iMustBeCrazy]

I gave it a try, I think it has potential.

 

On my prints it prints to scale vertically but not horizontally. So the tick strips and the plank widths are good but the strake lengths and rib positions are out, 18mm spacing prints as 21mm.

 

"Extra" seems to add a length to the stern but there is no allowance for the bow, I added an extra 'frame' the same height as frame 1 with the spacing being the distance from the stem and shuffled the frames along so 1 became 2 etc.

 

Some enhancements I'd like to see:

 

Make the print default to landscape. And perhaps a print dialogue that allows you to select pages (I had to print 4 pages for each test when I only needed to print page 3).

Add text to the strake printout labelling the bow and/or the frames.

Add an 'overlap' option for lapstrake/clinker planking.

 

Anyway, a good start and a thumbs up from me. I'm looking forward to v1.1.0.0.

 

Edit, I forgot to say I'm printing on A4 and proportions and scale are correct when printing from CAD without needing any adjustments.

 

Edited Monday at 03:30 AM by iMustBeCrazy

[MintGum]

15 hours ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

I gave it a try, I think it has potential.

 

On my prints it prints to scale vertically but not horizontally. So the tick strips and the plank widths are good but the strake lengths and rib positions are out, 18mm spacing prints as 21mm.

 

"Extra" seems to add a length to the stern but there is no allowance for the bow, I added an extra 'frame' the same height as frame 1 with the spacing being the distance from the stem and shuffled the frames along so 1 became 2 etc.

 

Some enhancements I'd like to see:

 

Make the print default to landscape. And perhaps a print dialogue that allows you to select pages (I had to print 4 pages for each test when I only needed to print page 3).

Add text to the strake printout labelling the bow and/or the frames.

Add an 'overlap' option for lapstrake/clinker planking.

 

Anyway, a good start and a thumbs up from me. I'm looking forward to v1.1.0.0.

 

Edit, I forgot to say I'm printing on A4 and proportions and scale are correct when printing from CAD without needing any adjustments.

 

 

Thank you for putting the time in to test!  It may be necessary to share the .hll file you're using to test if you continue to experience measurement issues.  Strake length measurements without the extend feature were precise.  The extend feature did have a bug which should be fixed in the update.  Strake length measurements with extend should now be accurate.

[MintGum]

Version 1.1.0.0 is live and can be downloaded from the link in the first post.

 

12/22/2025

• Landscape printing is now the default.
• Enabled printing All, Current or a Range of pages.
• Entering an "Extend" value should now distribute the space evenly along the entire strake.
• The bow and stern have been marked on the printed strake by the letters "B" and "S".
• Each rib on the printed strake is numbered, starting with 1, from bow to stern.

Future features:

• Lapstrake/clicker planking

Comments:

 

The Extend feature elongates the strake by distributing the extend amount evenly along the entire length.  Marked rib positions may no longer align when using the Extend feature.  This feature takes the place of tediously measuring the height at each rib/plank intersection to facilitate the calculation of the arc length of a 3D Spline or Bezier curve.

 

First page of plank template:

 

 

Second page of plank template:

 

 

Third page of plank template:

 

Edited Monday at 08:32 PM by MintGum

[iMustBeCrazy]

1 hour ago, MintGum said:

• Landscape printing is now the default.
• Enabled printing All, Current or a Range of pages.
• Entering an "Extend" value should now distribute the space evenly along the entire strake.
• The bow and stern have been marked on the printed strake by the letters "B" and "S".
• Each rib on the printed strake is numbered, starting with 1, from bow to stern.

Future features:

• Lapstrake/clicker planking

The changes look good, everything to scale. That was my due to my misunderstanding of the extend function ( and I'm still not sure about it). 

 

Extend doesn't accept a value of zero. Again, this may be me misunderstanding.

 

 

[MintGum]

17 minutes ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

The changes look good, everything to scale. That was my due to my misunderstanding of the extend function ( and I'm still not sure about it). 

 

Extend doesn't accept a value of zero. Again, this may be me misunderstanding.

 

 

 

No worries, friend.  Leaving the extend field blank is akin to assigning it a value of zero.

 

This is all fairly new to me and I too am curious as to the value of the extend function.  It's intent was to elongate the plank for extreme curvatures at the bow or stern where the linear length from one rib to the next isn't enough to "make the curve".  How well that works in practice remains to be seen.

 

I appreciate your feedback and the resulting enhancements.

[iMustBeCrazy]

25 minutes ago, MintGum said:

It's intent was to elongate the plank for extreme curvatures at the bow or stern where the linear length from one rib to the next isn't enough to "make the curve".  How well that works in practice remains to be seen.

The 'rib spacing' must always be 'as the plank lays'. At the bow strakes tend to curve out as well as up (to the bow) so adding a millimetre or two (depending on scale) to the first spacing is probably the easiest.

 

It's never going to be perfect so we shouldn't be too pedantic.

If the hull is convex we need to add a little to the breadth of the strake to allow for bevelling, if it's straight or concave we don't. This would be difficult as it depends on the strakes location.

[MintGum]

2 hours ago, iMustBeCrazy said:

The 'rib spacing' must always be 'as the plank lays'. At the bow strakes tend to curve out as well as up (to the bow) so adding a millimetre or two (depending on scale) to the first spacing is probably the easiest.

 

It's never going to be perfect so we shouldn't be too pedantic.

If the hull is convex we need to add a little to the breadth of the strake to allow for bevelling, if it's straight or concave we don't. This would be difficult as it depends on the strakes location.

 

Ahh, that explains it.

 

Adding or subtracting from the appropriate spacings until the plank lays properly would suffice.

 

That would render the extend function obsolete or perhaps it has use elsewhere.  I'll leave it in for now but may remove it on the next revision if no use can be found for it.

Edited Tuesday at 12:56 AM by MintGum

[iMustBeCrazy]

1 hour ago, MintGum said:

Ahh, that explains it.

Yes, in the example below I've only measured the diagonal whereas you actually need to measure the curve, but you can see the difference.

 

[MintGum]

This is the arc length of the 3D Spline or Bezier curve formed by the plank, that I had eluded to in #9.

 

Over the length of the hull, depending on the degree of curvature, true arc length could be several millimeters or more than the straight measure.

 

After initial rib spacing measurements (on the diagonal), an iterative process adjusting the rib spacing by using the plank templates should get close to the actual arc length.

 

This is best done per rib space as you mention in #12.  The extend function distributing this extra length (or space) over the length of the plank would not represent the same curve.

Edited Tuesday at 01:51 AM by MintGum

[Loracs]

Hello @MintGum, the last few ships I was doing calculation manually... but like I say before this tool could both ease the process as well as provide more accuracy.  Now the PLEASE excuse the beginner question:  What is the purpose of the first page, the tick strip?  I'm not quite clear about it. I must be missing something obvious.

 

EDIT: To mark the frames... I knew it was obvious! A night sleep make wonder.

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:39 AM by Loracs

[vvvjames]

What a fantastic tool you've made, I'm looking forward to testing it once I'm back in town and modeling again. If it works well IOU a beer next time you're in Denver. Thank you for this.