planking hulls with plastic- anyone done it?

Hi; I read your post with interest.The reason? I have built a clipper and it didn,t have planking on it. It was a smooth shiny hull. I used very thin mahogany and teak veneers on the hull and decks.Most folks think she,s built of wood. I have done the reverse too,that is plating a hull of wood to simulate  the welded hull plates a steel ship should have. After all it was in the scale of 1/200. You see, there is a reason to do this both ways if you feel you must. If you are using a wood hull you can easily over plank in plastic. If you wonder how to recreate the grain(IF YOU WANT IT) the judicious use of sandpaper will create the grain.You sand the length of the planks then go back over the surface with a fine wire brush! it does work!. Now that I,ve confused you really bad. the answer is, if you have a need and you want to use plastic and you,re willing to learn new ways to use plastic go for it. If you can(I haven,t figured out how yet) Post a few pics. thanks and good luck    tankerbuilder

John,

Excellent suggestion on the use of veneers, and I hadn't thought of that before.  It came in real handy on a current build.

Cheers, Rick

There seems to be two schools of thought in finishing those wooden European kits that provide very decorative planking materials. One group finishes hull in clear oils or varnishes, and builds for artistic effect.

The other group builds for scale authenticity, and if the prototype was painted, they paint their models. I generally model later periods, mid to late eighteenth century and later.  By then most larger warships were painted except for coppered areas.  So I paint mine. If you paint it, then there is little difference in final appearance whatever the material used for planking.

Billyboy

I must admit I never thought for a minute your 'Hancock'  was plastic!) 

 

I guess that depends on one's definition.  One of the things I had in mind when I started that project was to try out some ideas about the use of plastic in sailing ship models.  (At that time - the late seventies - it was still relatively new as a scratchbuilding material; I'm not sure when Evergreen started marketing its sheets and strips, but it wasn't long before that.)  As I expected, I found that styrene was a superb material for lots of purposes (e.g., planking) and a lousy one for others (e.g., masts and yards). 

But that model contains lots of other materials.  The basic hull is basswood, built up with the old "bread and butter" system around a plywood "keel plate."  The hull planking is styrene.  One of the best applications I found for styrene was the headrail assembly, in which almost every piece is flat in one plane and curved in every other.  Styrene, with its flexibility and its lack of grain, turned out to be just about ideal for that purpose (though I had to make two tries before I was satisfied with the result).  The transom is styrene, as are the bulwarks.  The decks are basswood.  The "carvings" on the bow and stern are made from Milliput epoxy putty (which was virtually unknown in the U.S. at the time; I picked up a package of it when I made a trip to England in conjunction with school).  Exception:  the figurehead, which started out as a Preiser HO model railroad figure.  Other styrene parts include the gun carriages and various deck fittings; others are boxwood.  (For many purposes those materials are so similar that I found myself using whichever I happened to have in a convenient size.)  The gun barrels and various other round parts are turned brass.  The spars are turned from degama (aka lancewood); the blocks and deadeyes are britannia metal castings from Bluejacket.  The rigging is silk, spun up on an incredibly primitive (but effective) "rope-making machine" made from a Lego set.  The ratlines and a few of the skinniest rigging lines are nickel-chromium wire.  The two boats have hulls carved from holly, with holly, basswood, styrene, and brass details.  So I guess it qualifies as a "mixed media" model.

Various people - including some highly intelligent and educated ones - have raised questions about the durability of styrene.  (Others have pointed out that manufacturers of such products as styrene foam cups and plates are required to add chemicals to the composition in order to ensure that the stuff doesn't clog up landfills forever.)  I'm not a chemist or a physicist; I can't claim to have a definitive academic answer to that one.  But I do know that the styrene on this model, and the adhesive that's holding it in place, have lasted almost thirty years with no visible illl effects.  The same can be said for the paint, which is old-fashioned Poly-S acrylic.  Some folks have raised doubts about how acrylics will last; all I can say is that I've got several models that I painted with the stuff more than 35 years ago, and it looks good as new.  So, for that matter, does the silk rigging thread - despite the grim warnings from various quarters that silk doesn't last either. 

As a matter of fact, the only part of the model that's had any aging problems is a tiny piece of brass:  the telescope in the hands of on of the officers on the quarterdeck.  Within a few months of the time I finished the model, the telescope turned green.  (None of the other brass parts of the model did any such thing.)  We had an interesting Forum discussion about that; a member who collects coins explained that it's a well-known phenomenon in the antique coin world, and virtually nothing can be done about it.  (If anybody's interested - here's the thread:   /forums/p/72804/720861.aspx#720861 .)

I'm certainly satisfied with the appearance and longevity of those styrene planks.  I'm not so sure, though, that I'd build a model that way again.  Since those days I've become a big fan of holly veneer for planking; it's almost as flexible and grainless as styrene.  (The grain in a good piece of holly is so fine that, with help from a little stain, it literally looks like miniaturized wood.)  I've used it to plank a couple of decks, and I'm very happy with the result.  And holly veneer is a whole lot cheaper than Evergreen styrene.  You can't buy holly from a typical lumber yard, but there are good dealers who sell it - for example the famous Constantine's (long known as Constantine's of the Bronx; now Constantine's of Ft. Lauderdale:  http://www.constantines.com/holly2.aspx ).  It's not cheap, as veneer goes, but a couple of square feet will plank a lot of model.  Caveat:  I have no idea what problems one would encounter if one tried to plank a manufactured styrene hull with holly veneer.  But it might be worth trying.

I've never planked a plank on bulkhead model with styrene, but I have sheathed a carved wooden hull in thin (0.020) sheet styrene, including the bulwarks.  That worked fine.  This was a waterline model, so there was a minimum of compound curves to cover, so the sheathing was in big sections. Only around stern did I need smaller sections, since the stern had overhang and compound curve.

Thanks! It's reassuring to see the longevity of this method. (I must admit I never thought for a minute your 'Hancock'  was plastic!) If/when I get on with working on this model I'll try and post progress on here.

In the meantime, here's a nice little brig built sometime in the 1810s still trading on the east coast in the 1860s. I'm heading for something similar, but using a copy of some plans I obtained from Whitby Museum (an excellent place to waste a day or two) some years ago.

Thanks once again for the comments,

Will

I've done two plank-on-solid models, though neither is based on a manufactured styrene hull. 

My little model of the Continental frigate Hancock ( http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyHancock/index.html ) has a scratchbuilt basswood hull planked with Evergreen styrene strips.  I didn't find it necessary to steam them or do anything else in order to make them conform to the shape of the hull.  I stuck them to the baswood "core" with old-fashioned Revell tube-type plastic cement.  (This was in the late seventies, when that stuff was still available.)  The cement had the effect of softening the surface of the styrene and soaking into the wood.  The model has now been finished for about twenty-five years, and none of the planking joints shows any sign of coming loose.

My New York pilot schooner Phantom ( http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyPhantom/index.html ) is based on a Model Shipways kit.  At that time (I think it was about 2003 or 2004), MS was selling it with a solid hull cast in resin.  For some reason that I've never figured out, the guy who made the master for the hull did a nice job of indicating the seams between the deck planks, but made the exterior of the hull completely smooth.  I "planked" the exterior with strips of styrene.  This time I used gel-type CA adhesive ("superglue").  I was happy to discover that strips of the appropriate dimensions could be bent pretty easily into some pretty sharp curves, such as those of the caprails where they go around the stern, with nothing but gentle finger pressure and a bit of patience.  And that gel-type superglue is nice stuff.  It stays put, and wet, for as long as you need it to.  Then, when you're sure the parts are lined up properly, add a couple of drops of accelerator, and the joint will instantly harden.

I thought that idea of the cast resin hull was a good one - but apparently few other people did.  Shortly after I built my Phantom MS took it off the market; the next issue of it had a machine-carved basswood hull.