AMATI's kit B1300/09, the Scottish fishing vessel Fifie

[BigDan]

I recently purchased AMATI's kit B1300/09, the Scottish fishing vessel Fifie.

The planking strips included in the kit are:

• Art. 212-(65) 1.5 x 7mm lime wood strip x 600mm long.
• Art. 213-(90) 1.0 x 6mm walnut strip x 600mm long.

Since the ship model is 700mm long, it is IMPOSSIBLE to plank the hull's model using a single 600mm strip (as shone in the instructions pages 11, 12 & 13).
The planking strips should be at least 720mm to be able to use a single length.
At 600mm in length, the strips are to short and will have to be "spliced". This is not what the instructions say. The final result will not be as per photos and much more work.

This is a big mistake in AMATI's very expensive kit.

In LSM review of the kit, and subsequent comments nobody mentioned this fact.

What do you suggest to work out this problem ?

[Clunkmeister]

Dan, many of us are plastic modelers and don’t understand the method with wooden ship models.

I’ll pass this to those in the know and they’ll let you know.

Ernie

[HubertB]

Hello Dan,

First, welcome to the forum.

I confess it’s been sometime since I tackled a PoB (planks-on-bulkheads) wooden ship kit, but I am not that surprised that you have to splice the planks. It is quite common in my - admittedly limited - experience.
For a ship of this shape, the suggestion anyway is probably to fill the voids between the bulkheads with soft wood (like balsa) blocks, properly sanded to conform to the bulkheads’ shape, and thus ensure you have a smooth flowing curve to support the hull planking strips. These blocks are not supplied in the kit either, but it is a common practice in kit-building, as generally the bulkheads are too far apart to ensure these smooth curves. If you do so, the splicing of the hull planks will be easier : I would still recommend that you have the splice joints on the bulkheads, and alternate the splices so they are not all aligned on the same bulkhead. 

This kit supplies a set of walnut strips for a second layer of planking, and James’ review mentions they are very homogeneous in colour, so the splices should not be very visible, all the more so as the wooden (as opposed to painted) part of the hull displays 4 rubbing strakes, which will further contribute to visually « blending » the splices...

What I am leading to is that the splicing of the strips should not be a big deal, at least visually, and not unexpected on a kit.

The woods in Amati kits are generally high quality, the design of the kit by Chris Watton is a guarantee of a well-researched kit, and of a great finished result. I believe you have done an excellent purchase with this one, even though I recognise this is not helping as a comment, if you expected continuous strips for the hull planking.

The alternative is to buy longer wood strips. But this is not only expensive, adding to the cost of the kit, and you will loose some wood, as the strips you may find will generally be 1 meter long.

And finally, James’ review, whilst not explicitly mentioning the « splicing issue », clearly states the kit is 700 mm long by 470 mm wide, and the strips 600 mm long. So the splicing is inferred, if not explicited.

I, for one, will look forward to follow your build log of Fifie here.

Hubert

 

[Jeff]

Hubert........... don't they splice on real ships or did on them back in the day?  I'm no expert by any means, but it seems to me that certainly on the larger ships that would be the case........... to me splicing, just adds to the character of the ship.............. pain as it may be to do.......

[HubertB]

16 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Hubert........... don't they splice on real ships or did on them back in the day?  I'm no expert by any means, but it seems to me that certainly on the larger ships that would be the case........... to me splicing, just adds to the character of the ship.............. pain as it may be to do.......

Yes, of course. I did not mention it, but there is no way you could expect to find 25- meters long planks, especially in the Scotland of the 20s. The ship hulls used spliced planks. Only these were fastened to frames which were a lot denser than a kit’s far-apart (scale-wise) bulkheads.

So, splicing « planks » on a kit hull is in fact more prototypical  

Hubert