HMS Pegasus by Landlubber Mike - Amati/Victory Models - Scale 1:64

[Martin W]

Mike -- I followed the butt pattern of TFFM pretty closely for the wales.  The lengths actually made quite a bit of sense as I worked out the angles of the T&B pattern.  It really wasn't as tricky as you'd think, or as I thought before I started doing it.  In fact, I felt so cocky that I had dreams of doing the top rows of planking below the wales in T&B as also shown in TFFM, but once I got underway with the spiling that dream faded prontissimo.

 

Really, once you work out what the widest part of the plank will be, and what the narrowist part will be, you've basically conquered the process.

 

A few weeks ago when we were having our bathroom remodelled, the contractor saw my earlier build and spoke flatteringly of it, so I showed him my FLY. When I tried to point out the T&B planking of the wales, I realized that with the black stain, that pattern was virtually invisible.  Maybe I slathered the General Finish stain on too thickly. (But it's taken some bruising during this planking.)

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

Edited July 4, 2015 by Martin W

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Martin, I'll give it a go  I saw that TFFM had top and butt patterns below the wales as well - looks awesome, but I think I'll first start with the wales and go from there.

[Landlubber Mike]

So I finally got the wales done.  I used 2mm pear planks, rather than two separate layers of 1mm planks.  I went ahead and used the planking pattern from TFFM, with a top row of straight planks, and the remaining two rows using top and butt planking.  The Swan class is very curvy, so I took my time with the planks.  All planks were soaked and pinned, and then when dry, beveled (bottom two rows) and shaped to fit (the stem end planks got an initial soaking and drying in the jig I posted earlier).  I originally thought about using the miter jig on my Byrnes table saw to cut the various top and butt planks, but since each of these planks were generally different in sizes and tapers, I cut and sanded them each by hand.

 

 

 

The stern end of the wales is a bit different from the wales on my Badger, which was a single plank and just ended along the side of the ship.  According to TFFM, the bottom aft end of the wales curves around and under the stern a bit.  After a few rounds of soaking and bending, I managed to get the last plank on using 2mm planks.  TFFM suggests, because of the shape, to take a thicker piece of stock and carve and sand it to shape - the approach Martin took on his Fly.  It didn't seem too tough with the 2mm planks.  The space under the planks will be filled when I add the hull planking in the area between the end of the wales and the stern counter.  Here it is after some rough sanding - I plan on eventually sanding it into a more pleasing curved shape.  I left the piece a little longer so it tucks probably a bit more under the stern than it should, but I plan to carve and sand it back probably a little bit.

 

 

 

So the wales are done, with the initial sanding.  Once the hull planking goes on, I'll do a final sanding with finer grades of sandpaper, and work the stern end of the wales a bit more to add a finer curve and end to it.  Took me a lot of time, but I think it's critical to get the wales in the proper position.  I actually redid the first row of the wales when the line wasn't a smooth run between planks.  Was frustrating at the time to do that, but, in the end, I'm glad I took them off and redid them as I think the current wales look a lot better.

 

Now for some fun spiling the lower hull planking!

Edited July 18, 2015 by Landlubber Mike

[Beef Wellington]

Very nice wales Mike, looks great.  Definitely agree that its important to get these correctly placed, and I'm mulling over how I want to approach this on 'Jason'.  Looking forward to more planking going on!

[Landlubber Mike]

Hi Jason, thanks for checking in.  I was pretty happy using one layer of thicker planks for the wales, rather than go with two layers of planking.  One benefit is that you only have to do the planking once.  Another is that with two layers, you don't run into seeing slivers of the lower planking if the top layer of planks doesn't line up completely with the lower planks.

 

Being thicker, it takes a little more time shaping the planks, especially at the stem.  Beveling the planks is much more critical too so you don't have gaps between planks.

[riverboat]

looks real good Mike....... So you're going to spil the planking, I think you'll really like doing that.... look at Chucks tutorial  on spiling.

just make sure you take your time in lining off the hull, thats very important. have fun Mike!!

 

frank

[pnevrin]

Looks great Mike. Like the colour of the stern and wale timber! Are you painting your Pegasus at all?

 

- Per

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Frank.  Since I'm going to cut my planking out of pear sheets, I'm going to try spiling. Because I'm going to copper the bottom, I actually don't have to spile all that many rows of planks.  It will also give me practice for my Lyme.  I'm studying Chuck's tutorial and the Model Expo pamphlet on planking also.

 

Thanks Per.  I'm not going to be using paint at all on the build, at least that's my goal, but I will use stains and dyes for colors.  I'm planning on staining the wales and planking under the wales down to the waterline in black.  The planking above will be a mixture of pear stained a bit darker brown, pear or boxwood stained blue for the friezes background, and I'll be using redheart for the uppermost section of the hull planking.  At least that's the idea right now

[mtaylor]

Nice work, Mike.  The planking looks to be going well.  I had that problem with wales and double layers and I won't be doing that again.   I'd rather fiddle with the thicker wood than trying to line everything up. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Yeah not sure I'd do it with ebony, but 2mm pear wasn't bad at all to work with

[mtaylor]

Ah, yes... ebony.  The bane of model shopbuilders.   Lots of heat as soaking doesn't do much...  lots of extra wood to deal with the breakage..  I'm going to try and get away from it even though I just love how it looks.  Maybe stain or dye next time around.

[Martin W]

Great job, Mike, those wales look fantastic, and I'm glad you decided to take on the challenge of carving that aftermost pair of planks.  You're absolutely right about the quotient between frustation during the installation phase and the satisfaction in a job well done in the post-installation phase -- if it ain't right, it's never gonna be unless you fix it!!

 

And from what I've heard about ebony, it dulls your tools, and its dust is toxic.  Plenty of reasons to avoid it.  I had planned on using it for my wales, but went with less troublesome stock.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Landlubber Mike]

Well, other summer hobbies, kids, work,  and life in general got in the way, but I'm back on my Pegasus.  Even though I'm going to copper the hull and stain black the lower hull between the wales and the copper line, I figured I would try to plank at least the visible part of the planking using the planking pattern in TFFM.  Not only does that involve spiling, but also the top six rows use top and butt planking (at least in the middle of the hull).  Quite challenging, but it will give me practice for future builds.  The rest I'll just go with the full walnut planks since they will be covered with the copper plates.

 

The blue tape below marks the top six rows and the top 9 rows.  I figured I would go with these for my planking bands because the top and butt planks are used in the top six rows, and the top nice rows fill out the line of planks to the stern counter.  

 

Haven't gotten too far yet, but did get one of the top and butt planks laid.  Martin, if you're reading this, I haven't figured out how to use the chisels yet but hope to do so.  This plank was pretty much straight, so an x-acto and a straight edge was all that i needed.

 

 

[ianmajor]

Mike,

 

That is coming along very nicely - you are going to have a very attractive model there.

 

Like you I have found life getting in the way of modelling - but hey ho should make progress soon!

[Martin W]

Hi Mike -- It's great to see you back at it.  I'll be very intrigued to see your t&b planking, which makes for a stunning hull.  The blue tape you have down shows the curve of the hull nicely, and will make for a good guide as you work out the widths of the planks.

 

As for the chisels -- you might just think of the sharp edge as a knife edge.  That way if you set a plank that needs trimming in a vise, you can simply push the chisel along the edge of the plank to shave off what you need.  Voila! it's that simple, and these chisels are delightfully sharp.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks guys, it's great to be back.  I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to approach the planking, probably too much thinking and not enough doing.  I feel like I always get stuck, if not almost a type of paralysis, when I need to start a new tool, technique, section, etc.  As in those other times, I figured I needed to just jump in and start working.  With one plank on, the others don't seem so intimidating    

 

Ian, hope all is well with you and that you and your wife are spending lots of time with the grandkids.  I've been doing some more thinking about the Lyme, and will turn back to her once the Pegasus is planked.  The Pegasus kit is so well done that it's giving me a good template to learn the construction techniques, since as we know with the Corel kit, a lot of scratch building is needed.  I've been taking measurements along the way and comparing them with the NMM plans and the plans in TFFM, and the kit is spot on.

 

Thanks Martin, so that's how you use the chisels!  I'm very embarrassed to say that I was trying to use them like an X-acto blade and wasn't very successful.   Your technique with the vice makes much more sense!  Your Fly is looking really great.  Have you decided on whether you are going to paint the areas above the wales for the friezes?  Your planking is so nice I'd have a hard time deciding whether to paint the upper hull or not.

[Beef Wellington]

Vey nice planking there Mike, would love to see how you spiled those top and butt planks.

[Landlubber Mike]

Vey nice planking there Mike, would love to see how you spiled those top and butt planks.

 

Thanks Jason!  I'm still trying to figure out how I will do that  The first plank didn't really need any spilling, so I thought that was a good one to start with.  My thought is to treat each row pair of top and butt planks as its own mini planking band.  For the Pegasus, there are three such row pairs.  It gets a little tricky because in the top-most pair, the two rows converge to one at the bow and stern.  The top plank is a bit shorter, and then the bottom plank needs some customization to continue the line and fill in for the top plank (I forget the proper name - hook plank perhaps?).

 

When I used top and butt planks for my deck, it was easier than I thought it would be.  It's all about triangles, so as long as you have two of the sides, it's pretty easy.  I'm not sure if the two sides are curved in any way for the hull planking, but at 1:64, I hope that I can get away with relatively straight sides and just spile the longer side.

[Landlubber Mike]

I've been a little busy lately, but one week later, I spiled my first plank  I tried the tape method in Chuck's tutorial, but I found it a little difficult - it might have been the tape I used, but it ended up striking me as easier to use a compass like in the Jim Roberts pamphlet from Model Expo.

 

It's a bit tricky because not only did I need to spile the plank, but I needed to spile a top and butt plank.  Since the top and butt planks are mostly in the center of the hull needing little spiling, my approach will be to keep the top and butt angles straight and sharp, and spile the long side of the plank.  We'll see how that goes.  If you don't have the Robert's pamphlet, the cliff notes on the approach are:

 

1.  Cut a wider plank than your full width plank.  My full width planks, accounting for the top and butt planks, are 6mm, so I cut 10mm planks.

 

2.  Position the plank along the wale as tightly as possible, but don't overlap the plank above it.  So, that means that there will be a gap between your plank and the wale in some spots.  Mark on the plank the position of each bulkhead.

 

3.  Adjust the compass to slightly wider than the widest gap between the plank and the wale.  Then, using the wale as a guide for the point end of the compass, trace onto the plank the outline that will define the edge with the wale.

 

4.  Transfer the plank widths at each bulkhead to the plank, and connect the points using a french curve.

 

5.  Cut the plank and sand to fit.

 

It sounds a bit more complicated than it really is, but the technique works very nicely.  Anyway, here is the first plank.  This is the plank that will go on the starboard side right under the wales forward of the plank I already have in place.  It stops just short of the stem as a drop plank, and the second row will pick up the gap.  You can see how much of a curve the plank has on either end.  For my first build, the Badger, I just tapered the end of the plank as it approached the stem, but you can see how that way still doesn't give you the curve you need without forcing the plank laterally against its width.

 

 

 

 

 

As Chuck says in his tutorial, it takes longer, but is well worth it.  The plank fits so neatly against the hull and against the wale without any twisting or other forcing actions.  I can see how using this technique will lead to much better planking and avoid the need for a first underlayer planking.

 

I don't think it's worth (in time and in pear wood) planking the full hull this way, as I'll be coppering the hull.  My plan is to do two complete first rows which will get me over the copper line for most of the hull, and then add the remaining 4 or so rows at the stem and probably close to 10 at the stem.  Then, I'll just use the kit walnut to fill in the remaining areas.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Landlubber Mike

[Beef Wellington]

Thats a very nice spiled plank Mike.  I shied away from the top and butt but I'll take my hat off to you!  I used a slightly different technique (because I don't have any french curves) which seemed to work OK, but I'll stick that in post in my log later....

 

I don't think it's worth (in time and in pear wood) planking the full hull this way, as I'll be coppering the hull.  My plan is to do two complete first rows which will get my over the copper line for most of the hull, and then add the remaining 4 or so rows at the stem and probably close to 10 at the stem.  Then, I'll just use the kit walnut to fill in the remaining areas.

 

Definitely agree with the above, "Jason" will soon be looking even more like Frankenstein's monster for the same reason.  I've got a real mix of stuff going on right now that should come out OK in the end.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Beef Wellington

[Martin W]

Well done Mike!  Even if you do 2 rows of T&B, they'll look spectabulous, and make you all that much more proud of your build.  Bravo!

 

Martin

[donrobinson]

_{Very nice Mike, Where does one find Chuck's tutorial? My next build is single planking and I am very interested in anything that may help. I have tried your way once before but it was my first time planking and it was not explained as well you have done therefore did not turn out so well. I may just copy your directions and try again, if you don't mind.}

 

[DBorgens]

Don,

On the MSW main page scroll down to "Shop Notes, Ship Modeling . . ." then down to "Building, Framing, Planking . . ." and open the first  pinned entry "Planking Tutorials". This post contains a link to a page full of tutorials. To quote Ed McMahon "Everything you could possibly want to know!" is certainly there. Happy hunting.

 

Mike, my Pegasus is awaiting completion of the English Pinnace first. Your log is one of my chief research sources. Yours is beautiful by the way.

 

Dave B

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks very much guys for the kind words.  Martin, I can see how adding the second planking to your Fly took a while - especially since you did the full hull!

 

Don, glad Dave was able to pitch in and help.  I have to say that it took me a while to understand the technique - it really wasn't until I took the compass and actually did the work that I could comprehend what the Jim Robert's pamphlet was getting at.  Chuck does a much better job distilling the concept in his tutorial, though he takes a different approach using tape rather than a compass.  Glad my five step Cliff's Notes were helpful.  Give it another try.  

 

Dave, thanks for the compliment.  It's nice to hear that my log is of some help.  Happy to answer any questions once you start the Pegasus, though, by the looks of your Bluenose, I can probably learn a lot more from you than the other way around

[Landlubber Mike]

So, I managed to get the first line of planks under the wale completed.  It wasn't so bad, and I think it came out pretty well.  The nice thing about the spiled planks is how easily they sit on the hull.  It also shows you just how complicated the curves are on a hull.

 

 

I'm about to start the second line of planks.  The first line ended in a drop plank at the stem and stern, so the planks on the second line ending at the stem and stern are going to be even trickier to pull off.  

 

I still have to shape the bottom corner of the wale at the stern.  I feel like it curves too deeply across and under the stern counter.  The shape of the plank seems correct when i look at TFFM, but it looks a little funky on my hull when looking at it from the stern side.  I almost feel like I have to change the contour of the end of it as indicated by the red lines in the picture below.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

 

[riverboat]

Very nice work Mike...... could you have made those planks a little longer to sweep up to the bottom of the counter at the stern?

 

Frank

[Landlubber Mike]

Hey Frank, thanks for looking in.  I'm following the planking pattern in TFFM, which has the first row of planks stop short of the counter - essentially, it's a drop plank so that 10 rows of planks end up converging into 9 rows at the counter.  We'll see if I can pull it off

Edited November 28, 2015 by Landlubber Mike

[mtaylor]

Mike,

 

Looks super.   I think you should have continued the planks around and into the counter like what you did with the first layer.  If I recall right, David says that area might be better done with a short plank cut to fit in there.   I'll have to re-read TFFM, though.

[Landlubber Mike]

Mike,

 

Looks super.   I think you should have continued the planks around and into the counter like what you did with the first layer.  If I recall right, David says that area might be better done with a short plank cut to fit in there.   I'll have to re-read TFFM, though.

 

Funny, I was just looking the model, and realized the same thing.  For whatever reason, I stopped the second/middle row of planks for the wale short of the counter.  The third/bottom row I think is supposed to stop short, but it looks awkward now with the way the second row is    I think the easy fix is to custom fit a little piece of pear for that area, and then work a nice curve down through the bottom plank.  Thankfully it wale will be dyed black so it will be hard to see my boo-boo.

 

Frank, after re-reading your post, I think you were saying the same thing Mark was.  Sorry for the confusion, I thought you were talking about the first strake of planks under the wale.

[mtaylor]

I think you're right, Mike.  We both said the same thing.   I think you have a viable plan.