Got the last few planks down tonight. Should be able to start sanding tomorrow. Going with a sort of vintage '70's style with darker cedar at the sheer lightening to white at the keel. Fingers crossed that I can even it all out without popping through... there are a few sticks that are pretty thin already. Gulp...   Aloha!

Slow but steady. I'm adding about two planks per day on most days, when I'm up to it. :-P I'm using epoxy between the planks which is one reason why I'm going so slowly. Most don't use epoxy and instead use CA or Titebond. I just like the really long working time that I have with epoxy, the waterproofing that the hull gets, and, I feel, the added strength that epoxy gives the hull. I could be wrong though and if so could be going a lot faster if I just used Titebond III. Here's where I'm at today... For anyone new to this hobby, yes, it looks very rough right now. Yes, that's excess thickened epoxy on the outside. I use thickened epoxy on the end frames to make sure that the planks have sufficient contact. I also use it to fill some gaps as needed. It will all be sanded off when I sand the entire hull after planking.  If you ask ten wooden model boat builders what they do about the keel plank(s), you'll get twelve answers. I don't ha...

Planking my Vickers V8 IOM RC sailboat has started. It's going... okay... I guess. It just seems that I'm seeing a few more bows and wows than I had hoped for. Most of them ought to sand out fine when I fair the hull, but I just expected that because I'm using the original files as they were drawn that the planks would fit better. It could be that the V8 may have been drawn in 2D instead of 3D which might account for that, but I don't know. There is an obvious flat spot amidships that just looks a bit tooooo flat and not fair. We'll see how it sands out. Regardless, it's going okay. I am having to be creative with the planks from the sheer rail down to the hard chine at the transom. There is barely enough room at the transom for a few thin planks so I decided to try to place the chine rail on by sight. Fingers crossed that they will work. Here is a keel-plank centering jig that I made up. I made four. Each one perfectly fits into the limber holes of ...

We've had a lot of snow in Seattle, which is pretty rare, but it's allowed me to work on the Corbie 5 IOM. Last night I finished the planking. This morning I sanded and shaped the hull. Then I fiberglassed it with 1.4 oz. cloth. Here's how it looks now. I'll trim the excess cloth in about 3-4 hours when it reaches the "green" stage. It cuts very easily with a hobby knife at that point. Will let it cure, and then tomorrow I'll lightly sand it and then add a second coat of epoxy. Looks OK. The cedar is really nice and dark. But my planking... Gawd. Even my keelson plank isn't perfectly straight. I'm going to continue to make this hull, but probably as a practice one. I'll use it as a learning experiment, especially for the planking, the keel box area, and the foredeck. After that I may set it aside and make a better one if I have the energy for it! Aloha!

It's a snow day! We only get a day or three of snow here in Seattle each year, but it completely shuts down the entire city. Way too many steep hills here. So it was a good day to epoxy down more planks. In the past week I also epoxied down the keelson plank. I'm going to make this hull work, but it's not going to be pretty! Here's where I'm at now... closing in on the keelson. The bow is by far the most challenging. It's nearly impossible to get the very front of the planks to twist into place. I've got strong clamps and tons of down-pressure from rubber bands. I've even wedged in some bits of scrap to try to further leverage down the planks, but just can't get them to twist the last little bit. The outside will easily sand down to form the proper shape, but I'll most likely have very visible openings between the planks. Sigh... Might be able to finish planking in the next week, but it'll be one plank at a time from ...

Planking continues. I'm awful at it. But I'm getting better. Still terrible, but better than when I started. And yes, I'm still using the stationary sander instead of the planer that the pros suggest. I just can't get it adjusted well enough to work for me. My plank making has improved though. I'm now ganging several planks together and sanding them as one. It's working well. My most recent attempt was six planks ganged together with clips. Here's my progress so far. Don't look too closely or you'll laugh. But when sanded out and glassed it'll look better. Only the pros will notice, and to them the rookie planking will be obvious, but to most people it will look fine. The building jig and clips I made for each frame are working really well! Much better than my actual planking.  You can be very creative with the rubber bands to put pressure wherever you wish. It really works well. Will probably need to consider doing t...

Haven't had too much time for planking this week, but have managed to get a few more planks on. Just added the final plank right at the turn of the chine. Had to bevel it, and the bevel had to vary over the length of the plank, but I think it turned out okay. The planks look awful messy, but that's because I'm using epoxy instead of Titebond, and I'm not cleaning it up much except to wipe it flat. It'll sand easily later on, and I'm obviously not worried about staining because the entire hull will be covered in epoxy later. My planking skills however leave much to be desired! You don't have to look too closely to see that my widths aren't very consistent. Yikes... oh well, it's my first planked boat with tapered planks. Gotta learn sometime! In this first picture you can see the bevel near the stern on the top chine plank. The next planks will be "below" the chine and they will all be tapered and beveled.  Here you can see how th...

Well after a couple months of considering, 3D modeling, and pondering, I've finally started to plank my Corbie 5 IOM. I'm using western red cedar that I milled myself to 8mm x 3mm x 1100mm. There's an accent strip just below the gunwale of Alaskan yellow cedar. My biggest unknown is how I'm going to taper the planks. The manual suggests that I use a small plane, but I've never had much luck with them. My go-to has usually been my stationary sander. So for these first three planks, I simply ran each set of two planks over the sander many times until I had what felt to be a decent taper. To be sure, I'll have to monitor and adjust how it's going, so fingers crossed! The manual also suggests that I use carpenter's glue. While I like Titebond, it's working time isn't long enough, and it's not as waterproof as I'd like, so I'm using epoxy (WEST System 105/205) instead. Epoxy has a much longer working time, it's completely waterpr...

Did the trim around the aft hatch (for the rudder post and control arm access) today. Looks OK. I've never been very good at getting the ends of my planks to perfectly match the parts they are flush to. Ugh. I'm such a rookie. The walnut "caulking" is looking OK too, but not perfect. Sigh... The rough look of the planking will obviously be sanded down, and will look much better. That's the funnest and most satisfying part of this whole process! Should be there in about a week or ten days. Aloha!

I'm starting in on the planking my Wampum VM RC sailboat. First step was to mill some mahogany to 1/8" thick. The sheer trim pieces are 3/8" wide and the king plank is 1/2" wide. Then I drilled holes on the sheer rails that are each 3" apart. I actually stacked the two rails and drilled them together to ensure they would be even. Then I carefully (mostly) aligned the pieces as best I could and drilled through the deck. The pieces are held in place with 1/8" wooden dowels. When actually epoxied on, the dowels will hold the pieces in place until the epoxy cures. When sanded flush, the dowels will add a nautical touch to the rails. It will look nice. Here are the guide lines. The holes however were drilled using the pre-drilled mahogany strips. I laid the strips on the deck, and starting at the bow, held them in position. Then would bend the strip to conform to the curve of the deck and then drill the next hole and insert a dowel. You do this all the w...

Today I faired the hull of the Wampum VM Vintage Marblehead RC sailboat. First, I sanded it with my Random Orbital Sander with 80 grit paper. If you do this, be VERY cautious, as 80 grit on cedar will grind right through if you're not paying attention. Keep the sander moving. It looks great! Since the final wide plank didn't go all the way to the keel, I had to add some filler strips. The real purpose of these strips is to keep the thickened epoxy from falling through when I add it tomorrow. A couple layers of thickened epoxy will easily build up the 1" garboard curve required by the Vintage Marblehead rules. Next steps: 1. Build up the 1" garboard with thickened epoxy. 2. Fiberglass the entire hull! More later! Aloha!