I'd feared it would happen for a while, but because I went against the instructions and did individual planks, I ran out of wood before I had finished the planking! I have a large pile of offcuts that would do the job, but hey are all too short and I want it to be perfect so am considering my options about getting some more wood to finish the job!
Just to show how close I came, here is the area that is left to be planked:
Other than that, deck planking has gone pretty well since my disaster with the wonky planks. The port side of the ship is completely planked and trimmed flush. I have a few small planks to trim flush on the starboard side but apart from that, I just need to wait until I get more wood to finish the deck and then I can give the whole thing a good sanding.
One trick I discovered half way through doing the job was to flip the ship upside down when trimming the planks at the edge of the deck. This means that you can easily see how much of the plank needs to be trimmed and whittling the plank away with my craft knife was a lot easier. However, one word of caution, don't make the silly mistake that I did of trying to file/sand the plank flush while the ship is upside down. I temporarily forgot about gravity and when I started to file the first plank this way, it promptly fell off! Much better done with the ship the right way up me thinks!
Some quick pictures of the ship in it's current state:
And now I think it's about time for a terminology diversion.
A terminology diversion
For no other reasons than the fact my girlfriend and I were curious, and because I've used the terminology above I thought a quick definition and explanation of the words Starboard and Port were in order. Before ships had rudders they were steered by a special type of oar located at the back (stern) of the ship. Since most people are/were right handed, this oar was located on the right hand side of the ship (for someone looking towards the front/bow). Starboard comes from the old English word steorboard, which means literally the side of the ship which is steered. Since this steering oar was located on the right side, early ships would also dock into the port on the left side, to avoid crushing the steering oar. Hence, the left hand side of the ship is referred to as port. Incidentally, anyone who has read James Choi's wonderful build log of the surprise will notice he refers to the port as the "larboard" side. This is just another word for port which again came from an old English word meaning the "loading" side of the ship. It was changed to port because it sounded too much like starboard!
Well, enough of the lexicon lesson. It was largely stolen from wikipedia anyway, since that was where I looked it up. It could therefore be very wrong, so I welcome corrections!
Back to the build...
Cutting mast holes
Right, the only other thing that I have done on the model is to cut out the mast holes. Since the AL instructions just say "draw in the mast holes before covering them planks" and "cut out the mast holes" with no indication as to how this might be done, I once again to did what I could with what I had! So another "How I did it" guide to cutting mast holes out.
Firstly, while I was planking I marked the holes as I covered them. The best way I found to this was to mark two points of the circle at opposite edges onto the first plank I laid. Once the hole was planked over I then measured the distance between these two points to get the diameter of the hole, and then simply used a pair of compasses to draw of circle with this diameter. I end up with the hole marked like so:
To cut out the hole I started by using a hand drill to make a small hole in the centre:
I then used a small needle file to open this hole up a bit:
Now comes the messy, and probably inefficient bit where I attack the hole with my trusty craft knife! This step was simply to open up the hole enough to get the larger round file in. I imagine this could be better achieved by continuing to open the hole with the needle file, but I found my method quicker, and the mess will get tidied up in a minute!
Next I get a round file, and slowly open up the hole, filing the edges until it it completely open and finished! I usually gave them a quick once over some sandpaper to get rid of any scruffy edges, but there you have a vaguely neat looking mast hole.
One thing to note is that since the middle plank is being split into two, I found with all the holes that both sides of this plank invariably came unglued when cutting and filing (as below). This wasn't a problem however, as I was careful not to damage them, and could then simply glue then back down when I had finished.
Anyway, I think there is quite enough in this post already so I will leave with an "action shot" that my wonderful partner (Marie, who is incidentally a far superior photographer than me, and is responsible for all the "in progress" photos in this blog) took while I was struggling away with the needle file. I particularly like the obvious tension in my left hand...a common symptom of my sheer terror when taking any sharp edge anywhere near my model!
Happy building everyone!Jonny.
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