Wooden deck sets; a question of scale.

Short answer - no. A foot-wide plank would be extremely unusual - especially after the early nineteenth century.  Lumber that wide is scarce, especially in the kinds of wood used for deck and hull planking. A six-inch wide deck plank is believable; the more common width (especially in the twentieth century) would be more like four inches.

I haven't worked at all with the new pressure-sensitive wood deck sets. It's hard for me to believe that the planking seams on such parts in 1/700 scale are to scale. (The seams would be so small they'd be almost invisible.) On 1/350 I imagine making the seams to scale (or nearly so) might be feasible. It certainly could be done on 1/200.

When discussing subjects like this one quickly gets into the question of accuracy vs. impression. There's no way the raised or countersunk lines in a plastic kit can possibly represent wood planks to scale. (Trumpeter and Tamiya have come pretty close, though.) But many modelers, including me, think that an absolutely smooth deck doesn't look right. All sorts of things on a modern warship just can't practically be reproduced on such small scales. (Think how thick the plating on a gun tub ought to be in 1/700.)

My own opinion, for what little it's worth, is that impression matters. I'm pretty satisfied with the planking detail on the Tamiya 1/700 Missouri and the Trumpeter Queen Elizabeth. And I've seen pictures of some mighty impressive models with those pre-printed wood decks as well.  Ya pays your money (quite a bit, these days) and ya takes your choice.

I've used two. Both scaled about 9" at 1:350 scale.

That's sort of acceptable- I'm not an expert on Chinese or pre revolution Russian steam ship decks. It seemed fairly close although I would suspect 6" would be closer.

I don't use the things for other reasons- mainly that they look like wood at 1:1 but not at 1:350.

Plus they cause all kinds of small fit problems.

AFA really thin material for stuff like gun tubs, I like clear plastic report covers. No longer acetate, they're easy to cut up and glue together, take hobby paints well and the cheapie ones are pretty thin.

I think fit problems are a quality issue that depends on the brand. I have used two, one that came with an Encore kit and one from an aftermarket supplier called Pontos. Both fit extremely well. I have had friends who have had some fit problems with some other brands.

How wide would you guys estimate that the planking visible in this photo is? 6"? 9"? Even the more distant stuff on the stern is fairly well visible

Stikpusher, it seems the photo didn't come through.  Could you try again?

I would say it is about the same as or slightly less than the depth of the steps of the ladder. 5" perhaps.

In 1/350 that equals 0.36mm and in 1/700 it is 0.18mm. Definitely unprintable in 1/700.

My opinion is that it would be a feasible solution to buy "stock" sheet of 1/700 decking and cut one's own for use in 1/350...

I don't understand why Finn could see the photo and I couldn't - even on my nice desktop Mac.

I think it would be great if somebody would sell scribed styrene decking in 1/700, but to my knowledge nobody does. The finest I've bumped into is Evergreen's, which goes down to .025" spacing. That's mighty small - 8 1/2" on 1/350 scale, or 17" on 1/700. ( www.evergreenscalemodels.com/Sheets.htm )

I've always had my doubts about decks printed on sheets of wood. As GMorrison pointed out, there's room for doubt about whether it actually looks like miniature wood, because of the grain pattern. On the other hand, some of the photos of those printed sheets do look mighty impressive.

The bottom line is that the best way to reproduce a planked deck is to lay individual planks. The late, great Donald McNarry did it on scales down to at least 1/32"=1' or 1/384 ( www.donaldmcnarryshipmodels.com/26.html ). He used fine holly shavings taken from a plane, cut to width and length with a razor blade. If I remember right, when he was a younger man (with young eyesight) he did some warships and liners with individual scale planks on 1/600 scale. I suggest, though, that we mere mortals learn to be satisfied with what's currently available - which is pretty daggone good. And maybe, sometime fairly soon, one of the kit manufacturers will produce something even better. Take a close look at the Tamiya Missouri, or the Trumpeter Queen Elizabeth, both in 1/700. They sure impress me.

I dont see it either.

Evergreen makes a scribed styrene sheet called "passenger car siding" to replicate the Budd stainless car sides. It's 0.025" spacing, great stuff.

Whoops- already been said!

Came out fine here when I posted, but I will try posting in a different manner

here is a different photo from the same series, close up. I would venture that that planks are no larger than 6" here

weird still dont see it.

Hmmmmm... I dont know what to tell you guys. The photos show up perfectly fine on my monitor in both cases. What browser are you using?

firefox

Really great pictures!

In your last post I could see both pictures in my email but only the first one here on the forum...

I use Opera

A shoe is close to 4.5" wide. From your last picture I would guess the planking is about 5.5" TO 6" wide.

In 1/350 that is 0.4mm to 0.44mm wide. Barely printable I would say.

I've not seen the pictures after trying IE9, Firefox, Opera, and Google.

Mike

I think Sticko is pulling our leg, Mike!

Mike;

had the same prob w/ the pic, but it showed up fine after I clicked on it. And those planks certainly do not look like they could be more than 6" wide. The starboard bollard looks to have five, possibly six, planks across its width. At six inches that would put the base of the bollard at 2.5 to 3 feet. Seems reasonable.

Re: a scaled deck... Scaledecks.com does decking in 1/700, 1/350, and 1/96. It is less than 1/100 in. thick, so not a major problem for fitting furniture etc. They have a number of pre-cut decks for several models, but also offer an uncut sheet in the scale of your choice. They also offer them in 3 different woods, one being teak.

I am trying two different methods for posting the same photo here. To those of you annoyed by this, my apologies. Guys I am having no problems seein them on my computer, but my internet and computer skills are pretty basic. Anyways another full color shot off USS Idaho in 1941 and yes, a guestimate based off of the shoes compared to the planking, 6" sounds like a reasonable estimate.

OK,

Now, after having clicked on the red "X", I can see those pictures that do not show up on my monitor.

Stik,

What kinds of float planes are those in the background?

Mike

I am pretty sure that those are Curtiss SOC Seagulls. They were replaced by the OS2U Kingfisher in the early part of the war. But they did see combat at least thru 1942

What red "X" are you talking about?

I saw the pictures earlier, but now I don't.... What is happening here; Are pictures removed or what?

Photos are showing up for me on mobile... After I clicked on one...

I see nothing to click on!!!!! Only the text. And I'm on a standard PC....

Thanks Stik.

I thought they were probably either a Seagull or a Kingfisher but could not tell for sure.

Mike

The Kingfisher was a monoplane, while the Seagull was a biplane. Possibly the last operational Biplane in US service that was not a trainer.

Yikes! I knew that!

What I thought I saw in the photo was a difference in the canopies. That made me wonder whether or not it might have been a different plane (The Grumman J2F-6 Duck comes to mind) but I suppose that would be unlikely.

Now that I'm looking at the image a little more closely it does seem like they're both of the same ilk. That they would be different now seems ridiculous - just shows off my ignorance of military aircraft.

Mike

Well, if your avatar is a hint as to your area of interest and knowledge, I can confess to the same sort of ignorance in sailing vessels. I could not tell you the difference between a bark, a schooner, or a clipper if I saw them all at once.

While I am not well versed on floatplanes, I am pretty sure that the Duck was not used in the catapult/ scout-spotter role at all.

I feel so left out! Or, this is an elaborate hoax...

LOL, Don't feel left out! I now can see all the pictures in this thread without having to click on anything. I have no idea why now and not before .

Finn,

I saw red X's in boxes where the picture(s) should have been before. I didn't see them in each post of Stik's, just one. Now I see all the pictures and no red X's. Go figure.

Mike

Nope, I give up. When I use rich formatting in "quote" to reply, icons show up in Carlos' original post, but I can't open them.