The Mighty Panokseon (Plank Board Ship)

[Na Daeyong's Apprentice]

Mini update: I may have underestimated how tedious this step would be.

Far from perfect, but it will hardly be visible anyway and I’m getting an education in the process. Only about 150 more of the planks to go ( I estimate).

 

[Na Daeyong's Apprentice]

This is going to get wordy, and for that I apologize, but it's been a saga this week with some ups and downs.

The planking for the lower deck is finally done. Or at least as done enough. It's not perfect by any means, but as previously stated, at absolute most, only about 10% of this will even be remotely visable on the final product once the rest of the superstructure is compete; primary only the areas close to the doorways. I havbe decided to make this a semi-full interior, with the officers quarters, railings and stairways to the other decks, anchor, and the two officers cabins at the stern. The unifished squares I left for the interior support beams to fit in.


While I was letting this dry outside after applying the stain, my upstairs neighbor decided (for some reason) to dump water off her balcony, soaking the deck. My wife, bless her heart, noticed and brought it back inside soon after. I had to stack a few reams of printer paper on it for a while to work out the warp that was starting to form.

Following this, I returned to the hull to start preparing the hole for the rudder shaft. Initially, I was planning to have the shaft be exterior, as the hisorical painting of the ship, and several modern reproductings, depict it this way.


Now, this might be a but presumptious of me, but it began to strike me that this set up is historically inaccurate. Firstly, many paintings of the panokseon show that it's two masts could be lowered, presumably during battle and storms. In all that show us such, the masts are lowered toward the stern, where the rudder tiller would be, which doesn't make a very much sense. Furthmore, in another painting from the 17th or 18th centry, that is a bit better quality to the former, no tiller is present on the upper deck. In the painting below, the forward mast remains up, while the aft mast is lowered onto a support where the tiller would (supposedly) be located.

Another reason why I think it would be implausible for the rudder shaft to run along the exterior, with its tiller on the top deck is because it completely contradicts the entire intent behind the design of the panokseon. On early fighting ships of the Joseon navy (including the panokseon's most immediate predecessor), the fighting and rowing would all occur on the same deck. The panokseon was designed not only to give the fighters a more elevated platform to fire on the enemy from, not only to make the ship harder to board, but also to keep the oarsmen protected on the enclosed lower deck. To have the helmsmen, someone who is so vital to the ship, located on the fighting deck, or even the rudder shaft exposed on the exterior, contradicts this intent to keep those responsible for the ships movement and operation safe and out of the way. So I must assume that the rudder shaft ran through the interior, with its tiller on the middle deck with the oarsmen.

So, with this in mind, it was time to bust out my drill. This part was slighly nerve racking as, if I got the angle wrong, it could screw up the stern to such an extent that I have to scrap the entire hull! Luckily, it didn't go so bad, and the exterior hole did come out almost exactly center. But the entry hole on top must have been slightly off (the drill bit probably shifted while I was trying to get it started), so the shaft is not perfectly verticle. It emerges the exterior going fairly noticibly to the starboard. There might be a way to fix this, so I'll leave it alone for now until something comes to me. If anyone has some ideas, I'm all ears.


And then there's the next battle; the heavy horizontal timbers that the verticle supports will sit on. Because of the fairly extreme curve at the bow, I need to apply some extreme bending as close to the shape as I can as I don't want the wood to be constantly stressed by focing it into place and just locking it in with glue. For the timbers, I'm using two pieces of basswood, about 4 cm x 4 cm. I don't have the appropriate apparatus to steam these properly, so I've had to resort to having them soak in boiling water and then bending them. I've even applied a hot iron while they were being bent to help the wood form, but the results were...modest is probably the most generous term.

Again, if anyone has some tips on best practice here, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I'll just try to continue to soak, bend, and iron multiple times over the next few days and home it gets a little closer each time.

 

[Na Daeyong's Apprentice]

A much shorter update this time: I found a way to bend the squared dowels. I just had to make a jig that could hold the shape in place and let it dry over night. (Just declare me Captain Obvious of the USS Amateur, I suppose.)

I still have to work more on the shape to get the whole thing to actually rest along the deck, maybe requiring a larger jig, but the process at least does work, so the other 3 should go more smoothly.

 

[Na Daeyong's Apprentice]

Apologies for the delayed update, but I'm finally done! The finished panokseon in all her glory!

Well, okay, this is my daughters version of it. I felt bad that I couldn't let her help me on mine, so I showed her how she can make her own (maybe we'll start with wood and power tools once she's in 3rd grade.)

Now onto the real thing. The small jig worked, but I ultimately needed something bigger, so I grabbed a left over piece of wood from a shelving project, cut it up with some small dowels, and a few drill holes later, I had a jig all ready to get some wood bent into shape.

With that, both strips just needed to get their first coat of dark oak stain and then some wood glue with gental, consistent pressure.
There may be a few gaps, but nothing I can't fix with a bit of wood filler later on, and they're all in sections that will be nearly impossible to see anyway. Now it was the next few steps that gave me the most anxiety: subtractive process. Significant mistakes here can really set me back and this was why I was so delayed on the updates. I needed to work up the nerve to move forward. First, I needed to shave little notches on the underside of the parallel beams so the perpendicular support beams could rest inside them.

This proved to be easier than I thought, just requiring good technique with the hobby knife and a file that was exactly the correct width, then they were all set for the support beams.

Really, much of this work won't even be visable, but I'll feel good knowing they're there. Now, I need to go back to the hull and begin to get it ready to be fixed to the deck. This will require more subtractive process, which again, is making me nervous.
Similar to the support beams, I'll need to cut notches out of the gunwhales so that the horizontal beams rest nicley in them. I already know how I'll do this, I'l just have to measure once, measure twice, and then a 3rd time before I do any cutting. I'd hate to have to redo the upper planks if I screw this up! Wish me luck.

 

[Na Daeyong's Apprentice]

So I have gotten the notches carved out of the gunwales, so the deck will sit relatively flush on it. (They kind of look like castle crenellations) Unfortunately, I did get a little overzealous with some areas, but it'll try to patch it up with stainable woodfiller once I get everything fully glued down. I'm just dry fitting at this point.

On a more positive note, I made some more progress with the ruddershaft feedthrough. I might try to adjust it further, but it's a lot more vertically strait than it was before.


For the next step about the hull, I'm kind of of in a bit of a debate with myself, so I might post a poll on it later on for additional feedback.

 

[Roger Pellett]

Nice Work!