Planking lines in a plastic kit??

I have done this on both plastic kits and wood models.  Worked okay in either case.  I usually do not try to represent every plank seam.  I give a sampling of seams, as if the hull were heavily painted and only some seams would show, others filled by several coats of paint.  And, I cut the lines very fine, only through primer, just before color paint.  Many kits have plank engraving far too extreme.  I usually use a full-bodied primer which tends to reduce the depths of the seam appearance, so on kits or scratch models without the planking seams I am trying to represent these less noticable seams.

The plastic kits I have scribed are usually because prime or painting has virtually obscured seams and I wanted some seam texture to be visible.

Thank you for the response Don.

My deal is this.  I have that old nifty now Lindberg 1/96 plastic kit of The Sea Witch.  She's my second ship so I'm learning a lot from her.  The only one I built before her was the small Revell Constitution with the fly-swat shrouds.  

So at the suggestion of the professor John, I bought a book called, "Model Ships:  How to Build Them"

I know, I know.  The eloquence of the title nearly caused me to weep too.  

But the fact is this guy Davis who wrote this book is an absolute dead-on expert on the Sea Witch.  He's Obsessed with it.  He gives the color scheme, the structure and composition of all the fittings and spars.  He knows his stuff.  At the back of the book is a 1/96 plan for the Sea Witch that comes with the book.

So... I did some painting.  Apparently American Clippers were in to this bright scrubbed-clean white.  Actually I like it better.

Anyway down to business.  Throughout the book he describes making a "plank on block" model of her.  When he gets to the deck he says to plane and sand down your sections and then carefully scribe lines in to represent deck boards.  

Then on the hull, he coppers up the bottom over a layer of felt.  This I assume brings it up flush with the "planking."  So after he coppers, he explains how the planks are like the stave of a barrel and whatnot. As it turns out this important in order for scratching on a proper line accurately with an awl.  

So we got fake deck planks and fake shell planks.  

However.  He did say that his method for finishing her upper hull was to brush on some somewhat thin raw umber, let it soak down into those scratches.  Then wipe it all vigorously away.  Repeat twice more.

Sounds like like really dark fake planks and pretty much black scratches.  The thought of this look or something like it is the only thing that has me considering this.

Thank you for your time

W

Do you mean he does not paint the hull at all?  If he then paints it, this is a variant of a technique called pre-shading, where you enhance panel lines by prepainting them- the dark color shows through the color finish.  Now, decks of sailing ships were left natural wood- not painted.  But by 19th Century almost all large ships were painted.  

BTW, hull plates would have been slightly raised compared to hull planking, not flush with it.  But only a small amount- the felt and the plates were pretty thin compared to planks.