splice hull plank.

[Janne]

Hello all of you!

Im new member here and I need advice of the best way to splice hull planks. My new project is 1,2 m singel planking hull ( not started). I have 1 m long planks of 3x10 mm lindwood, but I dont know the best way to splice the planks so it looks as good and realistic as possible. Do anyone have any advice? Sending some photos of the project later.

/Janne

[amateur]

Hi Janne,

 

Welcome to MSW!

 

I dont know what you mean by ‘splicing planks’, but in real life the length of the available planks was ‘tree length’.

Depending on time period, country, type of ship the actual length varied.

 

Getting it right, therefore depends on those factors, and, ofcourse, the scale of your model. Long story short: you gave us too little info to answer the question.

 

Jan
 

[barkeater]

Janne,

What scale is your project, and do you mean taper when you say splicing.

Rich

[Dr PR]

Janne,

 

Planks were always shorter then the actual hull length except for very small boats. So it was necessary to use several planks along each strake (a line of planks is a strake).

 

For fairly regular surfaces like decks, planks were laid in a repeating pattern. The ends of the planks were fastened down over deck support beams so the fasteners would have something to fit into. Two planks came together at these butt joints. The planks were laid with several unbroken planks in between each butt join. Where two planks met end to end there would be some number of unbroken planks laid side by side before the next place where two planks met end to end. If there were two unbroken planks between the pattern was called 1 in 3 (one joint and two unbroken planks).

 

It would look something like this where "---" is the plank and "-|-" is the butt joint:

 

----------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|------------------

---------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------

--------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|----------------------------

----------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|-------------------------------|------------------

 

It could be 1 in 2, 1 in 3, 1 in 4 or whatever. There are some more complex patterns, but they are not as common.

 

Hull planking as similar, but the curvature of the surface often called for  "creative" planking that did not follow a 1 in N pattern exactly. However, there was an attempt to stagger the butt joints in a regular pattern with several unbroken planks in between. This increased the strength of the hull. Two butt joints were never placed side by side in adjacent strakes.

[amateur]

Hi Phil,

 

Although you are right, for eg earlier Dutch shipbuilding, this ‘regular pattern’ planking is not rigidly applied. Same holds for smaller ‘coastal’ or inland’ vessels: in those cases hulls can  have single plank strakes. Take a look at the wrecks found (including Vasa): available planks were not shortened for the sake of a nice pattern, nor were short planks laid aside.

 

Jan

[Janne]

Thank you for the answers. The new project is a 1/8 Monteray clipper, scrathbuild with rc-radio and a M91 hit and miss engine. The project are at the beginning/planning state.

[amateur]

American ships are outside my knowledge base  

Keep us posted on you project. And please, don’t forget to introduce yourself in the ‘new member section’!

 

Jan

Edited yesterday at 11:54 AM by amateur