Also if you look at Tomick's sketch the lengthwise overlap between rows is less than 50%.

I am currently building the Caldercraft Victory and my only raised eyebrow so far, is that they show the copper plating arranged with a 50% overlap like a brick pattern. However, I have a long way to go before I get to that stage.

I have also discussed with Yotika what effect overlapping the edges has on the number of plates required. I have been told that about an additional 50% may be needed i.e. 3000 instead of 2000! in the case of Victory. However all that is to come in the future, I'm still first planking.

Mike T

Teach me to quote without checking, actually the parts list quotes 2600 plates which come in two packets so that is why I was kind of thinking a round thousand in each packet! The conversation I had with Jotika suggested that to overlap the edges would require about another thousand plates overall. I shall probably buy those extras to ensure authenticity when I get that far. It's like the fabled ha'peth of tar!

- only copper

Mike T

Hi Wilfy,
The cross section is actually a DIY job, I thought about getting the kit but it was a different scale and I want to use the figures we get off DeAg, the other thing was the length of the kit meant minimising the ratlines (rigging) and lastly, as I've never done anything like this before I thought the experience of doing a scratch build alongside the main one would be a good learning curve, I hav'nt loads of tools or materials so I'm using whatever comes to hand, there's bits and pieces of this build scattered throughout my post's, when I get the chance I'll 'cobble' them together and put them in 'Victory builds'

A quick one about the overlapping copper plates, on tommick's sketch the bottom plates overlap the ones above, I would have thought top should overlap those below (like 'clinker build') but looking at photo's I took of the 'Trincmalee' at Hartlepool you can see Tomick is right although the overlap is barely discernable, so it would possibly be a bit OTT to bother with the overlap on a model of this scale??
Here's the photo's of the plates on the 'Trincomalee'.



Jeff

Longridge also points out that overlapping the bottom plates over the top is a characteristic of ships of war. Commercial vessels were coppered with the top plates overlapping the lower ones!

I take Tomick's point about butting versus overlap, I just hope when I get to that stage I will have the incentive and patience to do the longer job. It's up to individual choice in the end!

Mike T

And if you want to go for the 'weathered' look the below photo is of an actual Victory sheathing plate