I would say experiment with the wood you want to use.Cut different widths and thicknesses to see what is the easiest to use.Work on how to hold the planking to the frames what will work glue ; pins. How are you forming the wood (bending) will you steam .Do you have a place to layout and work .Every thing you do before you start makes it easier when building.
Rick

Hello Ron
I have spare short lengths of the pine so i can experiment on these first.

Hi John
I have loads of the pine in 6` lengths and shorter that i cab experiment with however back to my origanal question.What size is best for the planking for a 39" model 10 mm wide x 3mm thick ?
In the pics below which Doug kindly posted for me you can enlarge and you can see they were not all the same width

Hi ya David

When we build models we have to take into consideration certain things. We cannot always scale down things from the real boat to the model exactly. Same way as we will never be able to scale down the sea we sail in and the wind to the same scale as our models. Although in your original boat they will have used pitch pine and oak for the frames, the material of the timber, the oils and grain in the timber wouldn't really be a problem in the real boat. When we build a model - we cannot always use the same materials. A while ago I built a double diagonally planked hull - and I wanted to replicate the canvas and white lead paint that is used between the layers of planking, couldnt really use calico canvas and white lead paint as in the original hulls - so I reverted to using an aircraft tissue paper and pva glue. I know anyone will ever see it, until the hull is broken up - but when I tell people at the lakeside its a talking point.

The other thing to remember is 50 years ago, when these boats were first built the paints and varnishes had a lot of lead in them and noxious chemicals to help them adhere to the timbers. Now they dont have lead / harmful chemicals in the paint - also for underwater protection they used to use what is known as red lead. You never see a vessel painted with that nowadays.

But, when we build our models we replicate this red lead with non toxic paints etc.

The problem you have with using pitch pine is the grain, as well as the oils in it. You may have to even steam/dampen the planks you are using to bend round the shape of the hull. Once the heat hits the planks, it will encourage the sap and oils to rise to the surface once again.

What I strongly suggest before you assemble the model is to get some scrap bits of wood of the same material and dimensions as your planks - try gluing, varnishing, painting them and see what happens. If this is successful, then proceed - doing it this way saves (believe me) heart ache of getting half way through a hull and watching it disintegrate in front of your eyes.

John

In the reading I did about this species of wood, it said, even when working with older old, once it is cut the pitch is still there and it will bung up your cutting blade and woodworking tools.

Iam not worried about what iam going to use as it was panneling and varished over 40 years ago and probably dried out by now.

I went on a Google search for working with Pitch Pine. Yes, it was used in the boatbuilding years ago, because of the pitch sap that is in the natural wood. Read on: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/working-with-pitch-pine...

I would not wish to work with it and be continually cleaning my saw, plane, etc. There are far better species to use in your model building.

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/working-with-pitch-pine.121888/

🔗

What ever method you choose to plank the boat there will be spots that require joints.As Ron has said butt or angled pieces to be joined.Where possible I put the joints on a frame for a better surface.There may be a place you don't have a frame to put a joint on I reinforce that spot on the inside. With double planking small gaps in the first layer don't affect the second layer of planks.I try to stagger all joints if possible.When joints line up that may create a weak spot.To me its like laying a hardwood floor keep joints staggered.
Rick

The origanal Boats were made of pitch pine on oak frames and varished in the mid 50 from new and were this way until the 1970s when they got painted Thats how id like to do them .

hi there, WellsBoi - I normally try and use Obechi types of wood that we generally use in modelling. I know there are people who purchase old wooden Venetian blinds and cut them down to size for planking which does seem to work well. However, I would err on caution using pitch pine as this contains (to my knowledge) oil - which may interfere with any varnish or finishing you may wish to put on the exterior. Also the grain may be a bit coarse for modelling. Like everything else in modelling, until you try it, you don't know. I know sometimes when one uses teak on full sized vessels there are problems arising when the varnish will not 'stick' to the timber due to the oils in it - the timber has to be washed down with an acetone or similar chemical, in order to remove the surface oils. You may have to do that with the pitch pine.

As a side note, here are a couple of pics of HMS Exeter which is a long sized hull at 1:96 scale (to give you an idea me work bench is just over 7 foot long - and the model just fitted in). To strengthen the hull there are 3 coats of Epoxy resin with a layer of aircraft grade tissue matting. Along with plastic card plating that is on the outside and on the inside there are 2 layers of pure epoxy finishing resin to seal the inside of the hull.