Sunday 25th January 2015

Having looked again at these false decks I thought it might be fun to have a play around with a planking effect even tough in theory very little of this will be seen through the final grating of the upper decks. The instructions would just have these pices glued in place with no details of planking them.

The intention was to have a little play to try and produce a suitable caulking effect between the planks and to produce an effect of the treenails.

The wood for the decking supplied in my kit is unfortunately a little rough edged and having looked at it too much work to sand so I ordered replacement Maple strips from an online supplier. I keep the size the same as that supplied in the kit which is 5mm x 0.5mm

1. In order to cut the 1000mm lengths of maple down to a a suitable plank length I set up my "Chopper" with an stop to ensure all the planks could be cut to the same length.

2. Having cut our planks we end up with a nice little pile of wood strips to work with.

Sunday 25th January 2015

Ok, so having produced a set of deck planks that are "pre-caulked" its time to set them in place.

As I mentioned at the start of this update these lower decks are in effect next to impossible to see so my planking pattern is nothing special on this level.

1. To produce the treenails I made myself a small jig to try and ensure
the 2 nail holes per planks have some sort of consistency. Its just 3
pieces of scrap wood with a 5mm space between. I have then end
drilled a further 5mm thick scrap in order to fix 2 plank nails.

This little tool allows me to end stamp each plank with 2 small holes
ready for drilling later.

2. I use my favourite Titebond II glue to carefully fix the planks to
the false decks. I like this glue as its thick, has fast grab and on
such thin planks does not cause any issues with the thin planking
wood curling.

3. When the planks are dry its a case of trimming around the false decks to remove excess deck strips.

Sunday 25th January 2015

My final and still to be completed update for this week centres on the preparation of the 4 parts that will make up the upper deck levels.

Again had issues with the wood being very warped in my kit so having damped the parts they have been clamped up between 2 very heavy granite chopping boards, of all things, for the last 2 weeks and this has resolved the problem.

1. For these upper decks I am going to attempt a slightly more accurate
planking pattern and have opted for a "3 Butt Shift pattern". There
is no indication or full direction for the planking in the Occre
instructions other than one of the instruction pictures showing the
deck having a measurement of 65mm marked. It really does not explain
what this refers to.

2. As I am going to be cutting a slightly longer plank then a longer
cutter is the order of the day so I have switched to my "Chopper III"
for this purpose.

2. Having done some simple calculations I decided that a better fit
would be a planking length of 64mm. For my chosen planking pattern I
first divided the deck evenly in to with a pencil line. From this
line I then measured out further lines spaced at 15mm apart.

I have pinned a scrap plank down the centre of the deck and will work
my way out using the same style of pre-caulked planks that I have
already described.

3. The final picture in this posting is as far as I have progressed so
far. This decking piece now needs to be treenailed and the hatch
opening needs to be squared up. While it appears I have cut back the
corners of the planking at the left hand edge exposing the bulkheads
below this is not an issue as this will not be seen on the final
model as a further "wall" is positioned on the deck area.

4. The next decision I have to make is do I leave the decks in natural
light finish or do I stain them a light oak. That decision will be
made over the next week as I progress with the planking of the
remaining 3 deck pieces.

Many thanks Andy

Steve

Thanks for looking in and the kind comments.

Excellent work Tony and some great useful tips there too....

Regards

Alan

Hi Tony.
Very nice work. like the idea with the fishing line.
Ian

Hi Tony,
Thank you for posting and showing us how you are progressing with your build,that's an excellent marking jig you have made which works very well, looking forward to your next post.

Regards
Trev.

Sunday 15th February 2015

Well after my last post I sat and looked at my attempts of planking the main deck and to be honest was far from happy with my efforts.

So out with the scrapper and off with the planking. Even with a scrapper this took a while and although I could of soaked the planks off after spending an age trying to get the warped deck flat I was not going to take chances.

Some of the deck sections have a number of cut outs that once planked over are not opened up again. The pictures of the "beak" bow section demonstrate this and you can see from the following pictures exactly what needs to be opened up once planked over.