How to deal with smooth hulls?

Good question. Another approach would be to build new hulls out of wood and plank those. More than once bashing up a plastic kit I've decided in hindsight that it might have been easier.

Bill

Yes, I have lightly scribe a few lines of planking on kits like that.  I put them high on the hull where it gets a bit drier,  Works for me.  I little is better than too much.l  You are right, a freshly painted hull doesn't show many planking lines at a scale distance.

So. ship planks varied in width.  The garboard planks next to the keel would be 2-3x wider than the rest of the hull.

Also, they wer not a uniform width the whole run, either.  A nominal 6" wide plank amidships might be only 2 or 3 inches at either end (on vessels short nough to have a single plank).  Technically, the top edge is what is scribed, and part of the back edge is "backed out" to fit the frames.

That's the rivet ounting of 1:1 scale construction.

Let's suppose a 6 inch by 20 foot plank at 1/144.

That translates to 0.0416 by 1.66 inches, a skosh more than 1mm x 42mm.  Just the thought of engraving at that sort of dimension makes my eyes ache

I have no real answer, just noodling on the notion.

Harriet Lane at least is coppered.

Bill