how to design the clinkers shape?

[Marcus figueiredo]

Hi everybody. Im new here and in the boatbuilding world. Sorry any mistake in my english (I dont have much fluence). Well, I have decided to make a boat in lapstrake technique. But all the plans I saw till now dont give me the shape of the planks used to cover the boat. Some people have told me this task is mine (im responsible chosen the shape). It seems a little bit amateur. I mean, there must be a technique or some directions (the number that fits better, or the way you trace the lines...). If someone have any tip, a book or an online instruction it will be very helpfull.

Thanks all.

Marcus
Paraty, Brasil

[paulf]

Hello Marcus,
There are several books available that describe the technique that you will need to get out the planks.
How to Build a wooden boat, Boat Building Manual and Classic Boat Construction are a good start, however I don't know if they are written in other than English. Walter J Simmons has some wonderful books at Duck Trap Press.

Gool Luck!

Olá Marcus,
Existem vários livros disponíveis que descrevem a técnica que você precisa para sair das pranchas.
Como construir um barco de madeira, manual de construção naval e construção do barco Clássico é um bom começo, porém eu não sei se eles são escritos em outro que não o Inglês. Walter J Simmons tem alguns livros maravilhosos na Imprensa Armadilha Duck.
Hope this hehps

[jalmberg]

Hi Marcus,

My wife is Brazilian and we once drove a Volkswagen down the 'Royal Road' from the mountains down into Paraty -- at night. A Land Rover would have been a lot safer, but it was quite the experience!

Anyway, you need to get yourself a good boatbuilding book, and read the section on 'Lining Out'. This will give you the shapes of the planks and then you will use a technique called spiling to transfer those shapes onto planking stock.

Lining out is a bit science and a bit art, which is why someone might say 'the shape is up to you'. What they mean is that the standard boatbuilding techniques will get you 95% of the shape, but the final 5% correction, you must do by eye. If the plank shapes look right, they are right.

Both of these techniques are too complicated to explain here, which is why there are many long books on the subject, with pictures, etc.

I have many boatbuilding books but if I had to pick just one to recommend, it would be Greg Rossel's "Building Small Boats".

What are you building?

[Peerie Maa]

What are you building is an important question, as the layout of the strakes will depend a lot on the proportions and shape of the boat, especially in how the stern is to be built.
Another good book is John Leathers " Clinker Boat Building." ISBN 0-229-11818-6

[Thad]

Another is Building the Herreshoff Dinghy, the builder's method, from Mystic Seaport Museum.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Hi Marcus,

My wife is Brazilian and we once drove a Volkswagen down the 'Royal Road' from the mountains down into Paraty -- at night. A Land Rover would have been a lot safer, but it was quite the experience!

Anyway, you need to get yourself a good boatbuilding book, and read the section on 'Lining Out'. This will give you the shapes of the planks and then you will use a technique called spiling to transfer those shapes onto planking stock.

Lining out is a bit science and a bit art, which is why someone might say 'the shape is up to you'. What they mean is that the standard boatbuilding techniques will get you 95% of the shape, but the final 5% correction, you must do by eye. If the plank shapes look right, they are right.

Both of these techniques are too complicated to explain here, which is why there are many long books on the subject, with pictures, etc.

I have many boatbuilding books but if I had to pick just one to recommend, it would be Greg Rossel's "Building Small Boats".

What are you building?

Hello, jalmberg.
I found a free plan of Blackfly (looks like a Acorn 10' Dinghy). Seems to be easy. I have experience with carpentry, but to construct a boat I need a lot of information. Thats why Im doing a model and finding possible problems. One of them is exactly the shape of planks (the part Im confronting now). I will get some of the books people suggest and study a little bit before give another step. But in my experiments I did something it seems very close to the correct, I think. I divided in 7 (the picture I saw from the ready boat have 7 planks each side) the boards of half stations starting from the keel. Then I fixed long wood strings through the points marked from the back to front. After, with I laid a thin paper down over the string, marking the edge of the string up and the next down. When removed the paper, the shape of the plank was drawn. So, I just cut and made any adjust.
The result is fine, but Im not sure if this is the correct way.

Thanks for your atention. The next oportunity to do the same travel in Brazil, come at the day to see the beauty of the mountains. I can give you some directions of wonderfull places to go.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Thanks everybody. Im gonna try some books you suggested.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Hi Paulf.
Reading english is not a problem to me. But writing is a little bit difficult since I dont have much fluence in the gramatic and can, manytimes do mistakes I hope everybody forgive me.
Thank your replay

[Peerie Maa]

Hello, jalmberg.
I found a free plan of Blackfly (looks like a Acorn 10' Dinghy). Seems to be easy. I have experience with carpentry, but to construct a boat I need a lot of information. Thats why Im doing a model and finding possible problems. One of them is exactly the shape of planks (the part Im confronting now). I will get some of the books people suggest and study a little bit before give another step. But in my experiments I did something it seems very close to the correct, I think. I divided in 7 (the picture I saw from the ready boat have 7 planks each side) the boards of half stations starting from the keel. Then I fixed long wood strings through the points marked from the back to front. After, with I laid a thin paper down over the string, marking the edge of the string up and the next down. When removed the paper, the shape of the plank was drawn. So, I just cut and made any adjust.
The result is fine, but Im not sure if this is the correct way.

Thanks for your atention. The next oportunity to do the same travel in Brazil, come at the day to see the beauty of the mountains. I can give you some directions of wonderfull places to go.

That is as good a way as any.
I would recommend that you fit the plank closest to the keel first, called the garboard, and then after trimming its top edge, divide the remaining girths by six. Fitting the garboard to the fore foot is tricky, so it is best not to worry too much about the width of this streak. Then the rest of the stem is less curved and so easier to divide up. You don't need to leave the battens in place, just mark where they run on the molds, and you can then work to those widths. You can pick up the shape of the lower edge of the plank by using a "Spilling batten" which is basically a plank of about the same width as the final plank, that you clamp around the boat, lapping the lower strake, so you can draw round the plank on the boat, and write the widths down at each station. This information is then transferred to your plank stock for cutting out. Some builders just bend the plank stock to place, draw round the lower edge, add the width of the lap to this curve, then mark the widths, bend a batten round, mark and cut.

[James McMullen]

A few pictures to help you visualize the process. Do it this way:










Patterns are cheap 1/8" doorskin plywood. Battens are made the same width as the laps.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Thanks Nick

[ARW123]

I personaly found the John Leathers book long on description and a bit short on the visual; for someone with absolutely no experience of boatbuilding it can seem a little abstract at times - having said that it's possibly the best book out there.

From personal experience (as a complete novice also) I would recommend practice on some dummy strakes. These will help build confidence and help dispel some of the inevitable fears/concerns of the "black art" of clinker planking. It may seem a waste of timber, but I assure you it helped me no end.

[Marcus figueiredo]

I personaly found the John Leathers book long on description and a bit short on the visual; for someone with absolutely no experience of boatbuilding it can seem a little abstract at times - having said that it's possibly the best book out there.

From personal experience (as a complete novice also) I would recommend practice on some dummy strakes. These will help build confidence and help dispel some of the inevitable fears/concerns of the "black art" of clinker planking. It may seem a waste of timber, but I assure you it helped me no end.

Thank you. Im doing some experiments with a model. But, the short time I have being working on I could see how complex this step is.
By the way, beautiful boat you are restoring. You should post a picture before/after in your blog.

[Sayla]

Hi everybody. Im new here and in the boatbuilding world. Sorry any mistake in my english (I dont have much fluence). Well, I have decided to make a boat in lapstrake technique. But all the plans I saw till now dont give me the shape of the planks used to cover the boat. Some people have told me this task is mine (im responsible chosen the shape). It seems a little bit amateur. I mean, there must be a technique or some directions (the number that fits better, or the way you trace the lines...). If someone have any tip, a book or an online instruction it will be very helpfull.

Thanks all.

Marcus
Paraty, Brasil

This thread may help as well - and the clinker building manual produced by Iain Oughtred

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...out-lapstrakes

sayla

[Marcus figueiredo]

This thread may help as well - and the clinker building manual produced by Iain Oughtred

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...out-lapstrakes

sayla

Thanks Sayla. In fact, I had an intuition on using battens in my model trying get the shapes after. It seems a usual way to do the lines as I could see in your thread. So far, the method is working nice. Im gonna buy some books suggested by others and research more.
Thanks

[Peerie Maa]

However, if you want to know how to do it without bothering with molds and battens, this thread is well worth reading.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...owboat-project

[mcdenny]

Ian Oughtred's plans do show where the lap lines are located.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Thanks all for suggestions and atention. I have already bought some books and have gotten the spirit of the work. Now, practice!! Thanks again.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Hello everybody. Im glad to tell my model is ready as the blog with details too. The informations in the blog are just steps to any novice as me who wants a glimpse of the process. I would like to thanks all you who had the patience to help me and shows the nice fellowship among the Forum.
You can see the model here: blackflyboat.blogspot.com
Any comment or suggestions are well come.

[Peerie Maa]

Hello everybody. Im glad to tell my model is ready as the blog with details too. The informations in the blog are just steps to any novice as me who wants a glimpse of the process. I would like to thanks all you who had the patience to help me and shows the nice fellowship among the Forum.
You can see the model here: blackflyboat.blogspot.com
Any comment or suggestions are well come.

The link did not work for me, but this one does: http://blackflyboat.blogspot.co.uk/
An excellent blog of a lovely model.

[Marcus figueiredo]

Thanks Nick, for the advice. The correct link is http://blackflyboat.blogspot.com.br/. But, I think you can see it at http://blackflyboat.blogspot.co.uk/, as Nick discovered.
Sorry everybody.

[Bruce Taylor]

Hello Marcus,

I've just seen your wonderful blog, and am quite delighted by it! Some full-sized versions of the boat have been built, but this is the first scale model I've seen. It's an exquisite piece, and you should be proud.

As for the lining off of the planks...I've done the job in the traditional way, with battens over the moulds, and it works well. However, for the Blackfly prototype, I tried Iain Oughtred's method for doing the lining off on paper, which is described in a chapter of his book (mentioned above). I liked it very much, and would use it again. It's been a while since I built that boat, but I seem to recall that I checked the plank runs with battens as well. No matter how good your "system" might be (and Oughtred's is very good indeed) the final judge is your own eye.

Congrats on a fine job, Marcus!

[Gib Etheridge]

I wasn't going to sign in today but I need to tell you that I am very impressed, both with the model and your blog. I hope you keep posting throughout the build.

[Bruce Taylor]

Oh, and a very small terminological correction for the blog: as drawn, originally, Blackfly's rig is not a balanced lug, but a standing lug. (The tack of the sail is slightly aft of the mast, and the boom swivels on a jaw or gooseneck).

[smithb9]

this model is fantastic, great job!

[Marcus figueiredo]

Hi everybody. Thanks for all the nice comments and words of encouragement. Mr Taylor, Im very pleased you have enjoyed the final work, since it is your creation. It was a pleasure do the model and an opportunity to study the theories, make mistakes and talk to professionals here. I bought the Iain book, but it takes some weeks till it gets here. While this, Im doing some researches with the boats suggested in another thread to be my first construction. When decided, probably Ill create another blog with the steps. And, of course, post a lot of questions here. Thanks for the rigging correction (it will be done today).
Best regard to all!