Note, This decking was an act of madness, it took forever, will mostly be hidden and the carefully cut and measured hatches are totally hidden by the hatch covers.
I have gradually chipped away at the planking a strake or two at a time. This deck will largely be hidden by the bulwark and the deck above so I can live with the issues. I am, however, glad that I went through this laborious process as I learned a lot from it. Knowledge which I hope to transfer to the building of the far more visible spar deck.
On plank width I settled on a maximum width of about 10 inches at full scale (3.1mm) I decided to taper the deck planking as this appears to be the most historically accurate method of planking for 1797 (I think, but please correct me if I am wrong). I tried to avoid tapering any plank to less than half its original thickness and staggered the planking as per the following drawing which came off another post on the site, I will find it and reference it shortly. This was actually slightly confusing due to the varying distance between deck beams and having to work around the thick strakes. but I got an acceptable result.
Lessons Learned
1. It is almost certainly better to work from the center outward instead of laying the thick strakes first and then laying the standard planking between them. It became very difficult to get a perfect fit of planks between the thick strakes.
2. The planking must be totally dry before laying. This wood was cut from pear trees which were lying on my firewood pile, and they appear to not have been totally dry, this means that once the deck was assembled it began to curve severely. I could address this by heating the whole deck with steam, but that resulted in the opening of seams when the deck was pressed flat.
3. The caulking between decks created using glue and wood stain produced unimpressive results, I believe I can live with this as the planking is quite varied already, but it is worth consideration.
The process.
Once I had rough ripped the planks and then thicknessed them back to 3.1mm x1.5mm(roughly) I began the process of getting the planks fitted and tapered.
1. I numbered every beam on the carrier deck so as to have a reference number to return to when logging the spacing in deck sections
2. I then measured the width of the section that needed planking at every beam using a vernier
3. I then transferred these values into Excel
4. Next, I calculated how many planks would fit into that section at the widest part of that section
5. Divided each measurement at each beam by that number (this gave me a value of around 3.1mm to 1.6mm depending on which beam)
6. Wrote the value onto the carrier at its beam. (here is a terrible photo of how the values were transcribed onto the carrier deck) If you look very closely you can see the values written on the planking, these are the widths that the planks need to be at that point.
7. Placed the plank I was working with at its position and cut to length to establish which thickness corrections were relevant
8. Used a vernier to score the width of the first and last beam that the plank would land on onto the plank(for example the forward aft end of the plank would have a line scored onto it at 2.7mm and the forward end would have a line scored into it at 1.6mm.)
9. I then did 1 of three things.
a. 1 for very slight tapering I have a offcut piece of square aluminum tube with 180 grit sandpaper glued to it, I would use this to just sand away until I get to where I need to be.
b. I would just hold a flat metal ruler onto the 2 marks and then take a very shark surgical scalpel and gradually cut through the plank in several passes by gently dragging the blade along the straight edge over and over until it cut through the plank(low pressure is the key) I purchased a pack of 200 number 11 surgical scalpels and a blade holder for something like 5 euro
c. A method that I sometimes use is to take 2 strong clamps and clamp the ruler onto the plank that I am cutting before cutting. This would be stronger and more consistent than my hands but takes some effort to align and clamp. This can be further improved(but again it is more fiddly to align) by first placing a ruler flat on your cutting mat, then you put your plank against that ruler so that you know it is not warped or bent in any way and then camping a second metal ruler on top of the plank you want to cut in position on top of the marks you made before cutting.
10. When this is done, I pass the plank over the sanding block or scrape it with a blade a few times to square off any edges that are not as straight as they should be.
The final tip is to spray the plank with alcohol-based hand sanitizer. This softens the wood and may help. I have had mixed results depending on the application, but it is worth a shot.
11. I then took this tapered plank, applied the stained glue and held it in place until it set. I found the Tite Bond and wood stain combo had very good holding properties and 30 seconds was generally enough to keep the planks in place. I did initially use little spacers to jam the plank into position, but it was not needed.
When planking, I did the outside planking first and then worked toward the middle finally leaving a single strake out down the center of the deck to allow me to cut and fit the carrier in its position on the gun deck. I did roughly mark the positions of the masts and hatches so that the planks did not have joints between deck penetrations.
The deck was then sanded back to remove all glue and unevenness.
and split down the center to allow fitment.
Once the deck was cut it was shaped and adjusted to fit and then before final fitment, I marked out the final locations for all the hatches and masts as per the Waldo deck plans available on the USS constitution museum website and cut them into the deck. Based on all the evidence available, I believe these plans to be accurate.
Note the center strake is not yet installed and the deck curving as mentioned before.
This was finally then steamed to flatten, installed and clamped into place. The final center strake was then added and the worst of the imperfections patched. The deck was then sanded a final time producing the following result.
Wolf cub for scale...
It can clearly be seen how the seams opened when the deck was flattened producing uneven caulking...a lesson learned
The deck does however look a lot better when it is wet (i sprayed it down with surgical spirits to pick up the fibers before final sanding.) So, I hope then when I get to the varnishing stage the appearance will be similarly improved and not look like a dull grey situation with poor caulking...anyway, live and learn.
Next up I need to figure out how to make cannon so that I can align the gun ports. This is my chosen next step so that I have a clearer idea of which details to include and exclude from the gun deck based on what is visible through the gun ports.
Any tips on how to improve the next deck…or anything else for that matter would be swell?!
Also, any views on how to improve the appearance of this deck would be great, I don’t know if a slight stain would add or detract from the appearance but I do kind of like how this very varied pear wood hi lights the individual planks.
One final word of warning, if one is very interested in historical accuracy, I think that the level of the gun deck beams on the model shipways kid is too flat. The gun deck should not quite run parallel to the curve of the spar deck but there should be a slight curve to the bow and stern. Hogging, sagging, errors and time make it very difficult to truly say how it should look but I feel comfortable with a slight curve on the gun deck which is not entirely parallel to the spar deck.
