Colin

Given the sizes of plank / strip that you wish to steam I would suggest the following easily available hardwoods.

Yew is the best to steam, Sycamore and Chestnut are also very easy to work with followed by Ash, Beech and Cherry.

Oak can be steam bent with care but it tends to split in thin section so I use a domestic pressure cooker to ensure the steam gets into every pore.

Hope this helps with the 'project'

Paul

Colin

​Deck planks are rarely if ever steamed but normally follow the line of the deck edge until the curve becomes too great at which point they are either joggled or tapered.
​I am building a Midwest kit Elliott Bat Steamer and decided to throw away the vacuum formed deck and make my own. The sub-deck is medium hard balsa that creates a nice fair surface and something to glue onto. The covering boards and the king plank are mahogany.

As it happens the planks are 3 x 1.5 mm Lime bought as standard from a model shop. Most of them were slightly bent so I used that in my favour. I cut the planks to length and shaped the ends having decided at which point there had to be a taper. (I discounted joggling at this scale as being to fussy and would horrid unless perfect)

​Starting from the deck edge, each plank was sprung into place and secured with a dab of thin / rapid cyano. The balsa was very effective at wicking the glue under the plank. There was no problem at all springing the planks over most of the length but the stern has a fairly tight radius so the planks were run out in a taper.

The seams are painted and you can see the planks run right up to the bow.

At the stern I got most of the way but you can see how the taper works. This section was not quite finished with a couple of very short sections to fit. You can see the traces of the cyano forward of the hatch coaming and the cyano also made the acrylic black paint run slightly but a light sanding sorted that out.

​I wouldn't steam deck planks as any curve that tight would look unnatural.

Tim

Hi Colin,

First of all thanks to Banjoman for the mention of my methods for planking. Now I know you (Colin) has access to all these but for those who don't and may be interested here's a short summary of perhaps the easiest way to do this type of planking.

Firstly, nearly every single hardwood out there will bend easily with this method, so get the actual wood you want to replicate and if you have terrible trouble, I'm sure I can find you some bits (I have tons of the stuff)

Teak and mahogany etc will make a lovely deck, so here goes. Cut a piece of chosen hardwood, or lime or whatever into 3mm strips about 25mm or so wide. I use artists black card (Black right through) and cut this into the same size strips as well. You need enough so that when they are all put side by side they cover the width of the are to be covered.

Take a template of the decks outside curve and transfer it to a chunk of 4 x 2 or bigger softwood a bit longer than the deck. Cut this down the line so you have two chunky pieces for the clamp. It also helps if it is a couple of inches longer than your decks.

Cover the softwood clamp with strips of polythene bag, use a staple gun but not on the clamp faces. This stops it all sticking to the clamp.

Get every 'G' cramp you've got ready, cover your flat work area with polythene and then steam all the hardwood in a steamer (Wickes Wallpaper stripper and a bit of pipe) or block off a bit of down pipe and fill with boiling water and stand up with the wood strips in for an hour.

Wear latex gloves. Start to layer one piece of hardwood and one piece of coloured card into the clamp using either Polyurethane wood glue (Gorilla) or Aliphatic Resin Glue, Layer these up (a cut down radiator roller works well here) till you have enough to cover the width of the deck. You need to work quickly!. The Gorilla glue will start to foam in contact with moisture in about 10 minutes!!!

Place the second half of the clamp on top and lay it on its side. Start clamping the strips into a curve, pushing them down level as you go. You can't have too many clamps here, so no gaps hopefully. Clamp both sides really tight to stop it sliding and slipping.(Use a spanner if you have to)

Leave it all to dry for at least overnight.. A warm area is best as well.

Once dry, remove the clamps and you should have a curved lamination of wood and card. Trim off excess glue on one side to get a flat surface. Use a piece of white melamine to increase the height of your fence, hopefully on a bandsaw. Set cut width to about 2mm and slice the curved block across the laminations as many times as you can.

You should get enough good strips to choose from plus fill in pieces for the fore and stern decks. Glue down in place with weights till stuck and sand them smooth afterwards on the top only. Finish to taste with clear.

Different coloured card can be used for dark or light caulking depending on how old the original ship was.

Do deck capping strips after sanding the outside edges to overlap the deck to hull joint.

Hope this is easy to understand. PM me if you need wood or more into.

Cheers………..Ron. PS. Look at Banjomans links above.

Colin,

Just to add to my earlier post here is a photo showing how we used a couple of clamps at the centre hatch (and another at the mast aperture) to create an edge against which we could hold the outermost mahogany plank.

Whether this would be possible on your model remains to be seen.

Planking has progressed on Daredevil and Elizabeth has 5 planks on each side now, plus the edge one. Having seen the earlier post by Tim Rowe, Elizabeth decided discretion was the better part of valour and decided not to joggle all the curved planks into the centre king plank. The king plank has therefore been glued in place and it is now easier to bend the planks into position using wedges rather than clamps as shown below.

I don't think we would attempt planking a deck this way with anything wider than 8 mm or it would be too stiff, or anything thinner than 2 mm or there would be no edge to pull or push the plank sideways with.

Gareth

Edited By Gareth Jones on 26/01/2018 18:12:15