Planking

I'm building the Corel Ranger. When I run the battens fair and where I"think" they should fit I run into the issue/problem of the planks just below the wale actually going over the wale, tThus I'd need to cut them at the wale.

Is it ok to have a plank end below the wale and not at the stem? Thanx for any help you can offer.

SMH Responds--The Corel Ranger was an American Cutter built early in the 19th century and I doubt its original builders of this ship had half the problems you will likely run into trying to plank you scale model.

This was the most difficult part of building a plank-on-bulkhead model of the HMS Beagle and I never learned until much later why shipwrights had it easier than today’s modeler.

They had a plan for planking, in other words they knew the run of planking because it had been worked out and not left to chance. As much as we’d like to believe differently, planking is not parallel, every plank has its own shape.

As you may have gathered by now, there is a lot more to ship model building than I can cover here, you need to tap into some specific guidance.

You need a resource where you can discuss ship modeling with other ship modelers. One great source is the Ship Modeling Forum at www.shipmodeling.net .This is a website devoted to handcrafting model ships.

Another invaluable resource I used was the paperback, “Planking Techniques for Model Ship Builders” by Donald Dressell. Sorry, I leant it out and it never found its way back, but it really helped.