Planking - New Method for me

[Namabiiru]

I just added the caution about linseed oil spontaneous combustion because it seems like a lot of people these days aren't aware of the dangers of it. A lot of the general knowledge about such things that used to be routine can't be taken for granted these days. I think a lot of people have become entirely too dependent upon the "nanny state" regulations that have led them to assume that everything they can buy in a store is safe without any further general knowledge. Nobody seems to read the labels on stuff anymore, either!

We had a guy in Newport a few years ago burn his garage down. He had been refinishing a dining table in there. The fire started against one wall where the trash can full of used rags was. Fire inspector said the cause of the fire couldn’t be determined….

 

[KingDaddyo]

The trick is, all rags go in a metal can thats sealed. Can gets dumped outside in trash at night before you finish. No used rags left in work area overnight. Simple rule, many don't follow!! Cause of fire sometimes can be tricky. Depending on the size and makeup of the construction, burn patterns can be overlapped hiding the progression path of the fire. An all wood structure can burn enough that reading patterns is impossible. Most investigators I met, who were not diligent, always blamed electrical if they weren't sure. I even met a really lazy guy who actually carried a melted copper wire in his camera case. If he couldn't figure out what caused a fire he would lay that wire in a burned panel, say it was an electrical short, take pictures of it and then put the wire back in his camera bag for the next fire he went to!! That wire was probably identified as the cause in dozens of fires during his career. Now thats lazy and crooked!!

 

[Bob Cleek]

How did you accumulate all the wood working or shipbuilding knowledge you have?

A lifetime lived with an intense interest in ships and the sea, I suppose. I grew up in San Francisco which, at that time, was still a bustling seaport city. My father worked his whole working life in the maritime industry as an accountant, first for Dollar Steamship Lines and, after the War, for its successor, American President Lines. I was probably six or seven when he first brought me to the maritime museum to look at the ship models. He was also a woodworker and all-around craftsman whose motto was, "If you can't fix it yourself, you shouldn't own it." (That was back in the days when a man could actually live by that motto. Not so now!) I was fascinated with tools from an early age and learned a lot of woodworking skills from him. I worked summers in high school for APL in the home office. I was frequently aboard the APL ships when they were in port and all over the Embarcadero running errands. The fathers of kids on my block were longshoremen, tugboat captains, and bar pilots. I learned to row and sail in grammar school in small boats and by the time I was 22, I had my own gaff-rigged ketch and a few years later a Giles Vertue sloop that I kept for over forty-five years until I got too old to keep up with working on her. I worked part time for a few years selling classic yachts in a local brokerage and got to sail a lot of famous old wooden boats, including a few with square sails. I spent my spare time working on my own boats and hanging around boatyards. A local master boatbuilder who'd done a real old school apprenticeship before the War took me and a couple of other young guys under his wing and over a couple of decades taught us a lot of the tricks of the trade. I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time when the traditional maritime trades were dying out and there were still old timers, some still working, who were willing to teach the few young guys who were willing to learn the old ways of wooden boats. Before then, tradesmen kept their knowledge to themselves because it was their "rice bowl" as they'd say, their stock in trade. They'd still tell guys who'd ask how to do something that they'd be glad to do it for them at union scale, but when they'd see a kid who kept his mouth shut and his eyes open trying to learn, they'd drop a helpful bit of advice here and there and that's how we'd learn from the old timers.

I always read voraciously and collected books on boatbuilding and ship modeling. Anything anybody would ever want to know is in a book somewhere. I took drafting in high school and later in life taught myself to read lines, loft, and the rudiments of naval architecture, all from studying books. When I wasn't working on full-sized wooden boats, I was building models. Back in the pre-internet days, the only place you could learn about ship modeling was from books and there wasn't anything near as many as there are now. Actually, knowing how real ships and boats were built was how I learned to build models. It's just the same, only smaller and a lot less work.

There's a community of guys who immerse themselves in the maritime life anywhere near the sea. They join yacht clubs, get drunk, and talk about boats, while other guys watch football games. You just pick it up by osmosis. I also had a strong interest in maritime history and became something of an authority on San Francisco Bay Scow Schooners. I gave lectures on them at the J. Porter Shaw Library and consulted on the design of a model kit of one (which, because they didn't follow all of my suggestions, had some glaring errors... like most kits.) I worked with a number of noted local maritime historians over the years doing research on the San Francisco Waterfront and I was one of the founding board members of the Master Mariner's Benevolent Association, an organization of classic and historic yacht owners. If it had anything to do with the water and history, I was up for it and still am, but at 76, my days on the footropes are over. Like Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

 

[RussF]

The trick is, all rags go in a metal can thats sealed.

Might I add - a metal can half full of water.

 

[KingDaddyo]

Well said. On the boiled linseed oil. After application, is there any hand finishing after it dries or do you just make sure you wipe the excess on when applying and then give it 24 hours between coats?Your story explains a lot. I want you to know I appreciate your advice and suggestions and will try to apply them as I build more.

Thank you sir!

 

[KingDaddyo]

Got my boiled linseed oil!! Probably stupid question, do you ever plank the deadwood or just use the oil on it?

 

[KingDaddyo]

I know I'm praddeling along but I guess questions are the only way I'm going to learn. Besides some research. I got the planking done, got the temp bulkheads out and sanded the interior down to a reasonable finish. I also sanded the partial bulkhead surfaces down so they will be level and even to receive the decking. As for the outside of the hull. I sanded it down with 120 grit and thought about going finer to get the surface "down to a babys butt smoothness" but then I stopped. I thought real ships probably aren't finished down to a fine finish on the exterior planking. Likely just to a "reasonable finish". Am I thinking about this correctly or should it go to a finer finish?

 

[Bob Cleek]

Got my boiled linseed oil!! Probably stupid question, do you ever plank the deadwood or just use the oil on it?

That depends on the design of the hull. The keel rabbet will run parallel to the bottom of the keel and then turn upwards at the bow and stern. The run of the rabbet aft should be indicated on your lines plan. The plank ends are rabbeted into the deadwood along the indicated rabbet line and the planks should run into the rabbet and the face of the planks should fair with the deadwood face at the rabbet seam.
Note in the diagram below that the rabbet line curves aft at the top of the stern rabbet and comes to an angle at the bottom of the rabbet at the keel. The curve accommodates the shape of the hull at that point. Note also that many naval architects prefer to round out the "corner" where the rabbet turns upward, rather than bring the angles to a point. The thinking is that the curve is easier to caulk.



In many hulls, the sternpost and deadwood will narrow as their sides run aft, keeping a fair run aft across the faces of the planking and the deadwood and sternpost. The narrowing rabbet and deadwood are classically shaped with a shipwright's lipped adze. See the diagram below:



Note how the aft plank ends lay into the wide rabbet at the deadwood and sternpost. (Ignore the black nail heads! No full-scale boatbuilder would leave nail heads unplugged on a planking job as nice as that one!



Check out Allan's post at: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/27725-planking-the-aft-deadwood-area/

 

[Bob Cleek]

As for the outside of the hull. I sanded it down with 120 grit and thought about going finer to get the surface "down to a babys butt smoothness" but then I stopped. I thought real ships probably aren't finished down to a fine finish on the exterior planking. Likely just to a "reasonable finish". Am I thinking about this correctly or should it go to a finer finish?

Full size ships aren't finished like Steinway pianos, of course, but when you cut them down to scale, 120 grit is plenty rough. To make a model look real, it's got to be finished as flawlessly as possible. If you have sanded it fair down to 120 grit, with no open grain or seams, I'd say take it down with 220 grit. Then fill any imperfections and sand it down to 320. After that, you can start hand rubbing the linseed oil. Remember, at 1/8" scale, every detail is 1/96th life size. Smooth as a baby's butt is exactly what you want to try to achieve.