Deck Planking

Here is the bow having been 'touched up' to make it ready to accept the veneer strips.

However the instruction say to do the deck planking first, so here we go.

The deck has been fully rubbed down and smoothed so as to make a good surface to receive the 0.6mm thick veneer strips.

They are going to be alternate light and dark planks.  The dark being Sapele and the dark Ramin.

The ramin appears a lot more delicate than the sapele and is much more likely to split or splinter so keep that in mind if you ever do a wooden model as they are often used woods.

I have drawn a line just off centre so that 100mm lengths of the sapele can be laid exactly down the centre.  The instruction are that the deck planks should be 100mm long.

I used cyanocrylate glue for this more for speed than anything else so I could carry on quickly.  Just some advice, but I don't use the normal thin cyanoacrylate that you normally get in the tubes and bottles.  I use a gel which doesn't soak into porous materials and can be used much more accurately.

When having to cut a number of the same length strips it is good to set up some sort of system to make life simple.  All I did was glue a scrap bit of wood to the bench, remembering that this a replaceable sheet of mdf affixed to my computer desk.  Then I drew a line  100mm from the wood so I had a line to cut to and something solid to push the wood against.  The other extreme would be a miniature guillotine you can buy to cut these strips.

So with quite a few of both woods cut to length I made a start using the solidly glued central strip as guide.  I also drew lines across using a set square, the first at 50mm for the half length planks, then the next at 100mm, then 100mm apart for the full lengths.

This photo shows the beginning of the bow end showing the 50mm lengths of the light wood and the 100mm of the dark as the first down, then 100mm lengths of both to continue.

You can use a contact adhesive for this but I prefer the extra bit of time my tacky white glue gives me.  I don't spread a layer and then lay the planks like tiles, you could do it like that if you kept your hands clear but I like to do it a plank at a time.

Here is the finished deck just awaiting total drying before trimming the edges and then sanding and smoothing.  Go very gently with the sanding, remembering the veneer is very thin.

The dark lines you see are actually pencil and are drawn in to represent the caulking that would be between the planks.  There is a lot more of that to do.

Also notice that the holes in the deck to accept further building have been cut out of the planks.  I do this as I go along as I think it is easier personally.

The next posting will show the planking of the hull which will be done entirely of sapele.