Framing and Planking the Hull
First, I needed a plan and decided to use the lines from the Model Shipways plan as a basis for building the hull. A set of lines gave me the three views needed. I enlarged the lines to the scale I was to use, and by duplicating and tracing the half-breadth plan, I drew up an outline of the hull showing planksheer and main rail outer lines. Then I divided up the outline to show the frames and spacing I calculated.
I calculated the frame spacing ("room and space") of the model as follows. Since I decided to use commonly available 3/16" thick plywood for the keel and frames,I looked for and found some "whitewood" faced plywood at a local Lowes that was pretty close to that thickness and used it. The material mic'ed at 0.190 - 0.193", which I found acceptable. The original frames of the Flying Fish were 14" thick with 1" spacing, giving 4 full frames per every 5 feet in the midsection. In scale, this would be a frame thickness of 7/32" with a space of 1/64" for a total of 15/64" room and space (or 0.234375"). Four frames thus would be 4 x 0.234375 = 0.9375 = 15/16". For ease of working with material available, adapted this room and space to use frame width of 3/16" and spacing of 1/16", for a total of 1/4" (.25") and simply drew up a revised framing plan layout using this dimension. Beginning at the center frame and working forward and backward I laid out the full frames. In the bow, I didn't need to use cant frames as I planned to use hawse timbers. The stern required cant frames, and I laid them out so the outer side of the frame was roughly perpendicular to the planksheer and rail lines. I ended up with 154 Frames, not counting the hawse and transom timbers to be added later.
Here's what the framing plan looked like.
Once I had the framing plan drawn up, using the lines, I drew up each frame. Since I planned to build the model upside down, on the Sheer Profile View and the Body Plan, I extended all the lines up to a new line, a distance of 9 inches above the keel, representing the location of the building board. Then, when I drew up the keel, which included the stem post, stern post and deadwood, I extended the stem and stern posts to this new line. Also at that time, I marked the location of each frame on the keel. When drawing up the frames, each was similarly extended to this line. In addition, I marked on each frame diagram the location of the planksheer and the main rail. These marks were later transferred to the frame itsel, on the oouter edge, after the fames were cut. Once I had drawn up all the parts, I used water soluable glue to glue the patterns to the plywood. I cut the frames and keel from the 3/16" plywood with a bandsaw. The keel and stem/stern posts of the ship were thicker than 12" (corresponding to the 3/16" plywood thickness) but I planned to plank the hull first and then build out the keel and the posts by cladding them with basswood to bring them to proper dimensions. This way, I did not have to bother rabbeting the keel or carving out bearding lines.
Then I glued the framing plan to a plywood building board and set up the keel (posts) and frames using the location marks on the framing layout and on the keel to position the frames. I inserted a 1/16" thick spacer at six locations on each frame, do each was self-aligning as it set up. I did use a small square from time to time to check that the frames were plumb, and bar clamps to apply pressure until the glue set. When I got to the extremities of the full frames, it was difficult to insert the frames and I lacked a long enough bar clamp, so I had to make a simple clamping device, which consisted of two plywood panels the size of a full frame with cut outs for the keel and four holes in each near the corners. I then threaded rope through the holes and could apply clamping pressure by tightening the rope.
Once the full frames and cant frames were set up, I made up the transom frames and the hawse timbers out of the same plywood. I didn't install the knighthead timbers at this point. They will be added later.Here's a photo of the framing set up. There are a couple of extra frames in the foreground. You can see how they were extended to reach the baseline when building upside down. In this photo, I have already installed a 1/8" x 1/8" strip to form the outer part of the planksheer and have also installed the first garboard. Once those are in place, I will divide the planking into four "belts", and use battens to make certain the planks will run fair and lie flat against their frames without needing to be twisted.
Using the marks on the outer edges of the frames as a guide to the position of the planksheer, I glued a 1/8" x 1/8" strip to the outside of the frames. There is one pecularity in the design of this ship (and her sister) in that the main rail rises slightly from the foremast to the bow. This is probably to compensate for the flare of the bulkwarks toward the bow as otherwise this outward flare would result in a decline in the rail in this area. The planksheer follows this rise in the rail although the waterway and deck do not as will be discussed later. This means that there is an increase in the height of the planking below the planksheer from the foremast to the stempost. I chose to do this by using a "filling strake" which ran from the front of the fore channel to the stem post and tapered from 1/16" to 3/16" in width. The planksheer was above this final partial strake (below on the upside down model) when the planking was done and gave the desired rise.
Once the planksheers are installed, I measured the distance from garboards to planksheer at the center frame and divided it by the width of the planking I wished to use. The actual ship was planked with wood 3.5 to 4.5 inches thick, so I planned to use 1/16" x 3/16" basswood for planking. Corresponding to 4" x 12" planks. The distance (6 3/4 inches) corresponded to 36 planks, or 4 belts of 9 planks each. Then I used battens to rough out the 4 belts at multiple locations on the hull. Then I calculated how wide each plank would need to be at that spot. It turned oout that each plank would need to taper slightly foreward and aft, and there would need to be two or three stealers in the last six or so inches aft to accomodate the flare of the hull in that area. Overall, the planks would be pretty simple in shape, just tapered. Another nice feature of this hull shape, and something probably pretty deliberate as the designer of the ship knew this would save building time and material. Here's a picture of the hull with garboards installed and the planking belts drawn on the frames.
With all the frames and spacers glued in spacers, the hull was very stable so I did not have to worry about distorting it with my planking. I did still plank alternating sides, out of habit. But for a model that is being planked over bulkheads, the upside down system is particularly advantageous. It prevents distortion of the keel and makes planking much easier as everything is more visible. And lets the builder pound in fasteners if needed. In the past, I have planked with oak, maple, yellow pine, or white pine, and fastened each plank to the frames or bulkheads with glued wooden pegs, gently hammered in. With the model of the Flying Fish, I used basswood for planking, which I thought would likely split using the pegs, so I used pins when needed to secure the planks in place until the glue set. By building with so many frames and paying attention to the run of the planks so that there was minimal distortion, there were not many pins needed. And with basswood, pin holes are easily removed by moistening the wood before sealing.
Ships were planked with the longest boards available, and each plank was one element of a "strake", which referred to the run of a single plank from stem to stern. Strakes were terminated only at stem or stern except when it was necessary to add a stealer - either to convert two narrowing planks to one of full width to continue on, or to convert one plank into two planks when additional width was needed. Planks on the hull were generally not reduced in width more than half the original width and were always terminated on a frame. Joints (butts) of planks were staggered, and there were rules for how they should be placed. Much the same as for decking. Since planks were not of standard length, the joinings were somewhat random, but still obeyed the rules:
No butts are to be closer than 5 feet of each other unless there is a strake between them when they can be 4 feet apart.
No butts can be on the same frame unless there are three strakes between them.
Some photos of the planking in progess and complete. Lower channels are placed just below the planksheer and are most easily added when the upper belt is installed. I planked the upper belt, then the lowest, then the next upper, and last the next lower. That way, any blunders in my planking would be covered by the copper. For the same reason, I installed the needed steelers in the lower belts. Once the hull was planked from garboard to planksheer, I planked the bulwarks with 1/16" x 1/8" basswood and added the outer part of the main rail. When installing planks above the planksheer, I glued them to the previous plank and only minimally to any frames. This because the frames will later be removed from just below the planksheer on up, and stanchions installed from the planksheer to the main rail instead.
This process was similar to that used in construction of the model of the Flying Cloud, the differences being that the Flying Cloud used a reduced number of frames (by half) through doubling of the room and space dimension, and the planking was with pine, so wooden pegs could be used to fasten the planks.
Once the planking was complete, I painted the hull black from main rail to just above the waterline and then applied the coppering. Two additional advantages of building upside down are the ease of drawing the waterline, since the keel is a measured distance above the building board, and the ease of doing the coppering. This stage is also a good time to fabricate, copper, and install the rudder, done much as described on the Flying Cloud page. I also installed the 2 brass rods which will be used to mount the hull on a display board. I glued 3/16" brass rods into the keel, then covered them with 1/4" brass tubing to be cemented into the mounting board. For the board, I used some Rhodesian Teak from my scrap wood collection.
Coppering was done much the same as with the Flying Cloud and the techniques used are described in that page. Here are a couple of photos of the coppered hull.
Once the coppering of the hull was completed, I cut the model off the building board at the point of attachment of the frames and stem/stern posts and set it up on the display board.
With the model off the board, I marked the frames at the level of the planksheer and trimmed them about 1/4" below the marking. Then I glued a 1/8" x 1/8" basswood strip to the planksheer to form the inner half of that timber. The large waterway will later be glued below the planksheer. In this model, I am gluing the waterway to the planksheer and to the hull planking, so I am using a wider strip than would be authentic. The other way to do this would be to trim the frame thickness to actual scale and fasten the waterway to the frames, which is how the actual ship was constructed and also how the Flying Cloud model was built.
Here's a couple of photos of the model at this stage. The first shows the un-trimmed frames, and the second shows the frames trimmed and the planksheer installed inside.
The next steps are to trim frames on the other side and install the planksheer, then the upper deck waterways. Deck beams will mount below the waterways and attached to them and a deck clamp will install below the beams. At this point, I am still deciding whether to finish off the interior of the hull in the area of the main hatch as I may wish to create a diorama of the ship loading cargo dockside at a later date.
With the frames trimmed, I could add the deck beams, waterways, and other timbers and then plank the deck. Then it was a matter of building the deck furniture and adding details such as the windlass, pumps, and deck pads for masts and capstans. I turned the capstans from lignum vitae at the same time as I turned stock for the deadeyes and turned the stanchions for the quarter deck railing. The order of doing things was pretty much as usual, guided by excellent plans from Scott.