As I started to run along side the pilot house, I saw what was going on and quickly made adjustments for it....... disaster was averted. I would use the two ends that jutted out past the pilot house as a sort of "pivot" for the front row. the third row {outwards} from the pilot house, I simply made them a bit longer as well.
They were very close to the waterways anyway. the planking continued until I was able to cap off the pilot house.
As you can see, I also changed the stagger pattern as part of the remedy. the first stagger is at one inch and the second is at a half inch. looking from port to starboard, you see a "double butt pattern....at every inch, you see two.....then one.....and then two again. looks kind of interesting {on a real ship....this would be impossible.....I know}. another cool thing to note is that, from the center, the pattern is reversed, outwards towards the waterways. I like this concept......I really don't know if this is a common practice in deck planking, but it allows adequate spacing of the butt joints. I was getting near the mid-ship of the deck.
soon the first cargo hold was planked out. my concept of trying to conceal the structure lines looks real good. there are no gaps visible and looks like the deck was planked around the structures. the planking continued on.........
the first cargo hold was done, and soon traveled up to the second cargo hold. the main mast hole disappeared for the time being....the hole wasn't perfect. I wanted to be sure to make it above a rib, but was a bit off in my calculations.....not dead-on. if anyone noticed, the mizzen mast isn't part of the pilot house assembly. another slight miscalculation on my part, but it will be fine with what I intend to do. as I neared the bow, I completed one side first. the opposite side was next. I used those two flanking strips for the pilot house as a guide, giving the impression of planking from the outside-in. the two center planks had to be cut to fit........planing them down to a narrower width. test fitting the structures, I got an idea as to how they were in relation to each other. the companionway was the hardest structure to fit in place. since I had put a "face" on it, I could not completely correct the slight "tilt" that it has. all I could do was level it so that it was less noticeable to the curve of the deck.
the last picture here shows the corrected angle of the companionway. I also have half of the main mast hole cut out.....I hope to be able to attain a perfect circle; if not, I will have to make a collar for it. I had my doubts concerning the cut of the bow waterways, but now that i see it planked, it looks kind of neat, unique from any other builds that i have seen. I decided to "test fit the rest of the parts i had done so far....to get a glimpse of what it will look like.....
I still have to touch up a few small imperfections with the waterways and I have to paint the deck with poly urethane, but i was quite impressed with how it looks. I had a friend of mine quip that the paint scheme looks much like the Revell Cutty Sark, I have been working on {put on hold for the time being}. I'm sorry, but there's something about this color green.....and wood brown, that gets me "hot"........LOL!
As I was snapping these pictures {sorry to say....I'm still getting used to this camera}, I hit the box that the kit came in. I kept it teetering on a bookcase and my wife's old desk that I had taken off the top shelf to make it part of my build table. the box fell between the wall and the desk.......I had to scramble to pick up all the parts before Gibbs, our dog got them. I had to do something to get rid of that situation.....what if my finished parts were in there! During the Christmas holiday, I saved all the tubes from the wrapping paper and this is what I came up with for the raw stock. I have two other tubes that I had closed off one end in which I keep the full length planking and strips. later on down the road, I will make something from PVC pipe, much like what you see here. all the finished parts and the odds and ends are in a shoe box that fits on the desk quite nicely........and won't fall off! AHOY!!!
