MSW USS Constitution

Now things get a little tricky. Planking the aft side. Since the stern is narrower than mid ships, the planks will need to be tapered at the stern.
Thus far I have used 21 planks for the mainhatchway. From the edge of the hatchway to the waterway, there is 2.7 cm. Each plank is 0.3 cm so there are an additional 2*9= 18 planks.

Next you have to measure the width at the stern from waterway to waterway. In my case the measurement is 8.6 cm. Since I want the same number of planks at the stern as midships, then I have to divide the 8.6 by 39 which gives me 0.2 cm plank width. Thus I will have to taper from 0.3 cm to 0.2 cm.





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Tapered deck planks? How unusual. First time I’ve encountered that.

I wonder why they didn’t do something similar up at the bow.

You piqued my curiosity so I looked in Anatomy of the Ship by Marquardt. He shows the bow planking very clearly as parallel but there’s no diagram at all of the deck planking at the stern. Most annoying!
 
Smithy said:
Tapered deck planks? How unusual. First time I’ve encountered that.

I wonder why they didn’t do something similar up at the bow.

You piqued my curiosity so I looked in Anatomy of the Ship by Marquardt. He shows the bow planking very clearly as parallel but there’s no diagram at all of the deck planking at the stern. Most annoying!
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I thought so too. I didn't do this initially but since I am redoing the deck planking I figure I would follow the instructions. We'll see what it looks like. I should be ok. It's the same logic as when you plank the hull.
 
So next we move on to creating planking bands. I will follow the instructions and create 4 planking bands as it applies to my ship. In order to lign up the planks, I put a little stick against the stern waterway with marks at 0.2 cm intervals.

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Here is a pic of a couple of planks installed from mainhatchway to stern. Notice the framing for the masts. I loosely installed them such that I can move them more to the center of the plank that runs through the center of the ship.

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Jack Sparrow said:
Here is a pic of a couple of planks installed from mainhatchway to stern. Notice the framing for the masts. I loosely installed them such that I can move them more to the center of the plank that runs through the center of the ship.

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It appears from the photo that the centreline plank doesn’t line up with the grating and neither of them line up with the mast socket. It might be a misleading photo though.

This would be my thinking. Is the amount of error enough to bother me now and later? And is it possible to make corrections?

If the answers to both questions were ‘Yes’, I’d make changes. If either answer was a ’No’ I’d carry on regardless.
 
Smithy said:
It appears from the photo that the centreline plank doesn’t line up with the grating and neither of them line up with the mast socket. It might be a misleading photo though.

This would be my thinking. Is the amount of error enough to bother me now and later? And is it possible to make corrections?

If the answers to both questions were ‘Yes’, I’d make changes. If either answer was a ’No’ I’d carry on regardless.
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it is centered. i checked. as for the mast framing, that is by design it hasn't been adjusted yet. I wanted to wait until the center plank was put in. I hate my phone camera. It seems to show things exaggerated. I must be doing something wrong with it.
 
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Jack Sparrow said:
it is centered. i checked. as for the mast framing, that is by design it hasn't been adjusted yet. I wanted to wait until the center plank was put in. I hate my phone camera. It seems to show things exaggerated. I must be doing something wrong with it.
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That's good. I thought the (apparent) misalignment was what you intended to show to us. I'm sorry I doubted you.

Phone cameras are usually quite wide angled so there's often a lot of distortion in close up shots. When I take a picture of my dog's face his nose is HUGE!
 
Smithy said:
That's good. I thought the (apparent) misalignment was what you intended to show to us. I'm sorry I doubted you.

Phone cameras are usually quite wide angled so there's often a lot of distortion in close up shots. When I take a picture of my dog's face his nose is HUGE!
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No worries sir. I appreciate the feedback. Especially with this monster. It's looking a little ugly since I had to rip off all the old decking, but I am working on it. I think I can make the deck look ok.
 
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Smithy said:
Tapered deck planks? How unusual. First time I’ve encountered that.

I wonder why they didn’t do something similar up at the bow.

You piqued my curiosity so I looked in Anatomy of the Ship by Marquardt. He shows the bow planking very clearly as parallel but there’s no diagram at all of the deck planking at the stern. Most annoying!
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I think the bow's geometry is such that you don't need to taper the planks.
 
Smithy said:
Tapered deck planks? How unusual. First time I’ve encountered that.
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Smithy,
Longridge shows the deck planks parallel as you say, with snipes. I then looked at The Master Shipwright's Secrets, The Full Framed Model, and photos of contemporary models in the Kriegstein collection and the Rogers Collection and all of them showed the planks being tapered as they ran aft and none were sniped.
As with so many things, perhaps both methods were used depending on the shipwright and yard, era, and nation.
Allan
 
AllanKP69 said:
Smithy,
Longridge shows the deck planks parallel as you say, with snipes. I then looked at The Master Shipwright's Secrets, The Full Framed Model, and photos of contemporary models in the Kriegstein collection and the Rogers Collection and all of them showed the planks being tapered as they ran aft and none were sniped.
As with so many things, perhaps both methods were used depending on the shipwright and yard, era, and nation.
Allan
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That is an interesting point. The model of the Brig Syren had sniped deck planks yet the Constitution did not.
 
Jack Sparrow said:
The model of the Brig Syren had sniped deck planks
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Hi Marc,
Sorry to ask, but to which Syren are you referring? There were eight in the RN and four in the USN. I found photos of contemporary models of Syren 1773 that indicate tapered planking on the QD, If this is the brig USS Syren 1803 could you post photos? I cannot find any contemporary plans or models of her so far.
Thank you very much for your help.
Allan
 
AllanKP69 said:
Hi Marc,
Sorry to ask, but to which Syren are you referring? There were eight in the RN and four in the USN. I found photos of contemporary models of Syren 1773 that indicate tapered planking on the QD, If this is the brig USS Syren 1803 could you post photos? I cannot find any contemporary plans or models of her so far.
Thank you very much for your help.
Allan
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Oh sorry. I was referring to the models by Model Expo. I assume they are historically acurate.
 
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