Disaster!
I don't know why I just blindly follow the instructions. Not only are they vague, sometimes they just lead to a terrible building strategy. Coupled with my lack of skill and impatience, I got a very poor result planking the first couple of strakes of the hull.
Planking
The instructions show installing the ceiling planks first and that there are 2 1x3 strips to complete the ceiling that includes some laser cut pieces. That doesn't work out. It needs at least 2 strips per side with one cut to shape.
I decided to do the outer planking first instead. I started doing it, using the top of the frames midship as a guide. Here's why I said "disaster!". The distance between deck and top of frames for port and starboard are different distances. Here's where more care and not just blindly bumbling through the instructions would have paid off. Along with using the guides, I should have double/triple checked the distances between the top of frame and the guide where the same on both sides. Not taking this into account made a big difference, almost 5mm difference between the two sides (I am a scientist by trade and metric makes more sense to me when you are looking at relative distances). Mix in the confusion of trying to get alignment with the inboard planks, and you have a mess. Also, I rushed, what a mistake. I was making such good progress that I tried to bull through it. The top strakes and the first three full strakes had been committed before I realized how bad it really was. My clue on the misplaced strakes were the scupper holes on the third full run, they were just too low on the port relative to the deck. At least I paid attention to that.
Glue
To make it worse, this is the first time I've planked with Titebond Thick&Quick. I have been increasingly unhappy with this adhesive as I have gone through this model. It started with my glue-ups of the frames. Using the Dremel drum sander as a spindle sander was pretty tough. The grit kept getting charged with resinous dark goo that I couldn't get out with an eraser or crepe stick. I was flying through those drums. In retrospect, it was the gummy glue mixing with char that was sticking to the drum, coming from where the pieces were glued together. Of course the surface can't cut much after that, leading to a lot of frustration and many sanding drums.
Then I noticed that my glued in half frames were a bit spongy with some lateral force applied. I started noticing it in other places as well. And extra glue was very boogery and difficult to remove, although it softens up with IPA faster that regular PVA glue. Finally, I did the planking. It was nice that the glue grabbed on quickly, especially in places where the clamping was more precarious. CA glue is nice like that two but has lots of drawbacks, least of which is screwing up a natural finish. But the glue that squeezed through ended up being very difficult to clean up with a brush and water or even IPA. It was sticking to everything. And it doesn't sand well, more likely to booger up.
I still need to re-install the forecastle deck which I am dreading, especially getting the height right with the ceiling planking. I just had to hang up the model and move on to another that I've had on hold for a while. I was stuck in "thankless task" mode with that one, trying to get a fiberglass finish on a wooden planked hull (bondo putty, primer, sand bondo putty, primer, sand, etc...). But somehow all the sanding didn't seem so bad after the disaster that struck Hayling Hoy and the lack of a plan to address it. And the biggest disaster of all is that I felt like I had to cut some timbers to fit. I still have replacement frames from earlier in the build, but what I major hassle and difficult to sand back down in the end. I was in such a rush to make progress, now I am looking at weeks of recovery. And in taking off the strakes, they broke in places, especially at the simulated butt joints. And they were just too boogery from the glue, I would have been very luck to get any kind of consistent finish. So I left dry dock and went on to another job. For a while.
