It's all very well him saying wash - rinse - repeat!

But how does he get those nice flowing lines on the top edge of his tapering planks

. . . . . .

That's what I had ringing in my ears as I sloped off to bed last night tired but happy . . . . .
So here it is, it's quite straight forward but yet more fiddling.
Remember all those marks we made dividing up each frame and springing battens round to get the run of the planks?
Well now we have a fixed plank forming the bottom edge of the new plank. . . .
And to form the top edge of the new plank we spring our trusty straight grained batten around
provisionally to the marks on the frames . . .

But we pin the batten on the marks so that one edge faces the fixed plank adjacent while on the marks . . . . . .

Which, to our eye creates an 'inviso plank'

And here's the trick . . .

That sweet line we left the night before on our newly fixed plank . . . .


Looks like a Blackpool Pleasure-beach roller coaster after a night on the pop!


You see . . . . the eye is channeled between the two sides and every bump and hollow jumps out like a dogs whatsits!


So after tearing our hair out and going away to calm down with a cuppa

We come back refreshed and look at the job from every angle and with a pencil highlight any spots that need attention as we go . . .

Same with the batten, if it shows a bump or a hollow in it's line . . .
Pull out the pin holding it to the nearest frame (or frames) and it will immediately spring to where it wants to be

Those plank lines we so carefully marked earlier on the frames are not set in stone, we let each plank dictate it's edge . . . . just don't deviate a country mile from the marks that's all!

The edge of the fixed plank can be fettled using our sanding sick, but go careful - one rub at a time until your eye tells you the curve is even and fair

not forgetting to re-sand the caulking seam on the plank edge if one is present
( I'm sanding the caulking groove chamfer in the lower edge of each plank and leaving the top edge square so as to present a nice edge to the next plank) . . .
I'm steaming all my planks now so the botton edge I plane straight and true and because it is floppy out of the steam pipe it will edge set against the fixed plank on the hull nice and neat . . .
Because we have the batten on the opposite side of the hull demarking the top edge of said inviso plank we can transfer its edge datums at each frame using the much abused vernier gauge calipers to the freshly steamed and pinned plank blank on the opposite side of the keel.
What we're looking for is a sweetly tapering plank with sweeping edges towards the bow and (with planks 2 to 7 anyway) the opposite i.e. a gradually widening gap with sweeping edges.
That done we steam and edge set its opposite in place and work back from the newly cut and nailed in place partner

Got it?

Good . . .
Wash - rinse - repeat

Footnote . . .
Don't be afraid to sand out a bump caused by a high frame or a hollow by one too low.
Ultimately we're looking for the outside of the planking to show some sexy sweet lines (I need to get out more

I know-I know!

)
On real wooden ships it was not uncommon for the planking bods to add a thin shim behind a plank to get it to lay fair with its neighbours and it's no shame here neither.
I'm a realist - just make sure what you do to one side of the keel, you do to the other

keep it symmetrical folks

But the ultimate prize is when you take the finished model to the pond side . . . .
And the club anorak comes over and casts his official eye over the lines of the planks and is forced to walk away without comment!
