Royal James sloop

thank you guys

I do want to stress these are methods I developed over years of trial and error, they are not always the conventional methods and some builders may be scratching their heads thinking huh! why?
This is more art than science and builders sort of "personalize" their own methods.
 
with the top timbers in place it is time to install the gun port sills. The sills sit on top of the waterway and extend out to the outer edge of the waterway and extend to the inside of the top timber. First i cut over size sills to give myself enough for tweaking the fit between and behind the timbers.

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When i have a nice fit to the timbers then i can cut off the extra length and round off the corners. Now i have the sides and the sills of the gun ports setup and everything is fitting nice and tight. The top cap rail will form the top of the ports.
The wood i am using is Poplar it cuts, sands and works so nice i am able to get tight joinery.

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I have seen a number of ways to build the gun ports some methods use joinery and set the ends of the sills into the side of the frame timbers. This is indeed one method. Not all gun ports are actually built that way on ships the size of the Royal James and most of the war ships built on the Great lakes with open decks and gun ports the sills were set on the waterways.
Here is an example of how gun ports were built, as you can clearly see the sill sits on top of the waterway


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lets take another look at a gun post sill.

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sitting on the waterway is an anchor scoop behind it is the sill painted red.

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lets put them on the model i milled out a 24 inch strip of wood a bit wider than the bulkward and to match the port sills.

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it was just a matter of cutting off lengths and fitting them between the post sides


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when i glued them to the waterway i left an overhang

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when i sanded the waterways, top timbers and sills i have a nice band of solid wood running the length of the hull.

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with the sills in place it is now time for the final run of planking above the wales, but first I have to do the stern molding because the hull planking butts against it.

here are some examples of the stern molding, they can be very simple to elaborately carved.

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where the molding on the side meets the cap molding is up to the shipwright here the cap molding extends all the way down to the lower section and fits into the wale.


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here the lower section sits at the end of the wale.

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here the lower section ends at the stern molding and the carved scroll work sit on the lower molding

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the shipwright got a bit creative and carved the molding

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the idea behind the molding is to cover the ends of the stern planking and the timbering that makes up the stern. In this model there is no stern timbering because the stern is made up of blocks.

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Starting with a cardboard template i roughed out the shape of the molding


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looking at the pattern from the stern you can see it overlaps and covers the ends of the stern moldings

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a problem builders have is understanding the fitting of this molding. It actually is not a flat piece sitting against the side of the hull. The hull is curved and the stern also has a curve to it. These pieces are to small to try and bend so they are carved to fit. first the curve of the hull is done and you can see by the thickness you can cut the block to the blue line or get fancy and carve the outer surface

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here is how the molding is done it is first fit to the hull like this

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at this stage of the job you can see how a shipwright can get creative and carve the block

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in this case i am not going crazy just simple shaping the molding

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here is how it looks from the side, all the planking is in place but pay that no mind. I will show how the final planking was done next.

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and here you can see the molding overlap of the stern

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and now for the bulwark planking
first thing to do is figure out the width of the planks from the top of the wale to the center of the waterway which is shown by the blue arrows

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when i have the last plank in place i will now bend the sheer molding along the hull. This molding covers the waterway and sills securing the sides of the ports and the waterway and sills together

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you can see what I mean looking at it from the inside of the hull

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here you see the sills and the sheer molding running along the outside. The sides of the ports are supported on all 4 sides

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from the outside you have a sweet curve of the sheer molding running along the hull.



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the bulkwark is planked inside and out
remember that sill painted red back in post #147 well here it is on the model

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I started this as a build log for the pirate ship the Royal James, well as it turns out it morphed into a "how to plank a hull from keel to cap rail so here is the final hull planked starting at the keel and up to the cap rail . I could continue on and install the cap rail, finish the planking at the stern and add the upper section of the stern molding. I stained the sheer molding just so it stands out so you can see that sweeping curve that ends the hull planking.
because of lighting the Poplar planking looks white in real life it is a soft tan color that i was going to weather.

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because I am not going to finish this as a model of the Royal James and leave it as a tutorial on hull planking

I thank all those who left comments and followed the build so with that I say

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Just came across this Dave, great stuff! Am now looking at your previous build logs - a wealth of hints and tips. Thank you.
 
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