Vol. 63, No. 3 autumn 2018 216 The hull


T e hull is always, probably, the best place to start. I chose to use plank-on-bulkhead construction with a backbone of solid 3/8-inch lumberyard pine and bulkheads of 1/8-inch plywood. I am no carver so I elected to build the hull and add a false keel and stem pieces aſt er it was fully planked rather than trying to carve rabbets into fully formed pieces. I set up the bulkheads on the backbone aſt er allowing for the plank thickness, which I chose at 0.080-inch, basically a scale one inch. (Figure 6) Centerlines and bulkhead locations were marked on a 4-foot long piece of melamine-covered particle board shelving. T at material is stable, fl at, and cheap and I use it a lot for building boards, and jigs and fi xtures, too.


In the course of measuring the boat, we had a careful look at the planks and measured the widths of several of them at a few points: the bow, stern, and a number in between. T ere were no stealers in the hull and all the planks seemed to be pretty uniform, with the exception of the sheer plank, which was wider.


I tend to use a lot of a wood seldom seen (I think) in ship modeling: red alder, and I fi nd it is an excellent planking material. Alder is in the birch family and has a uniformly fi ne grain with extremely small pores; it is light tan to reddish brown in color; about as hard as poplar, it machines and sands well and, importantly, is easily bent and twisted if soaked for a while in warm water. (Figure 7) Alder is not particularly expensive and clear pieces can be found on the internet, at many hardwood lumber dealers, and in some cabinet shops, where it is much used for kitchen cabinets. It fi nishes well and, when a clear- coat is applied, it looks a lot like scaled down cedar. I have a thick piece I got from a hardwood dealer some years ago; I bandsawed slabs off the edge and sanded them to model thickness with a drum sander in my drill press. (Figure 8) A shop made fence facilitates this; I have pushed hundreds of feet of wood through this sanding system and if one is careful to use a consistent feed rate the results will repeat within a few thousandths of an inch.


7. T is piece of alder is 0.080-inch thick and just under 3/8-inch wide (it is a piece of planking stock); soaked in warm water for a minute or so and hand twisted, no steam needed. T e ends were clamped so it would not spring back. It held this twist aſt er a day of drying.


With the exception of the sheer plank and the one just next to it, I made all the planks identical. Duplicating pieces of wood like this is easy if one uses a pattern sanding drum like the one in Figure 9 (look for “pattern sander” or “robo sander” on the internet to fi nd sources). Simply create a wood pattern the exact size of the part to be duplicated, attach an oversize piece of stock to it with double sided tape (I use the transparent Scotch variety rather than the thicker carpet tape which can, sometimes, squirm around) and start sanding the edges until the plastic disk on the drum contacts the pattern. T is will make an exact duplicate of the pattern every time. It worked out that there were nineteen planks per side and this tool made quick work of making them. I planned on actually applying a fi ller between the planks to simulate caulking so I spaced the planks apart by the thickness of a standard playing card, 0.010-inch, clamping them in place with the home- made clamps shown in Figure 10 and gluing them to the bulkheads with medium viscosity cyanoacrylate (CA). Near the stern the planks took a fair twist and required some edge bending to fi t properly. Hot water and hand-forming took care of that as alder also edge-bends fairly well. T e planks were clamped in place on the hull to dry before bonding. With the planking complete the seams, which were not quite uniform (Figure 11) needed to be widened to their fi nal scale 0.020-inch (¼-inch actual) width before caulking. T at was tedious work, which I did with an


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