Build log · Phase 4, Stern and quarter galleries

The wale is on, but I'm not happy with it

4 December 2018 · Problem and fix

The wale is on. Not at all happy yet. The black strake should be half the thickness of the rest of the wale, but the black strake was 0.5 mm and the rest 0.7 mm: there was only one 1 mm strip in the box. The slightest bit of sanding and you can no longer see any difference in thickness. Sloppy of Jotika.

The CA glue was no success after all. I soon switched back to PVA and short lengths instead of full strips, which wasn’t pleasant work either. I sand everything beforehand with 600 grit, but the strips were not of high quality, so I still ended up with plenty of fraying. All the unevenness still has to come out.

I also kept wondering whether I had used enough strips. The manual said six strips after the black strake and I have two left over, but I was afraid of ending up just below the waterline. I searched the internet till I was blue in the face for tips on wales, but found little, only the various systems (anchor, top and butt and so on), and I skipped those.

Piet’s advice

Piet reassured me: the difference in thickness can happily be minimal. On his model it shows better because his other strips are 1 mm thick. Five strips is plenty, a sixth gets you tangled up with the waterline. What matters most is measuring out the run and height of the wale properly; he did that with the drawing at 1:1. His tip: sand the strips with a fine grit first and only then glue them, because if you sand afterwards you sand away the difference in height.

I did consider sanding everything flat and re-covering the lower five strips with 0.5 mm planks. Double the work. In the end I thinned the black strake down a little. Now at least you can see that it’s thinner, hopefully still after painting. Saves me a lot of work, and I’m reasonably happy with this.

The black strake thinned down slightly: the difference in thickness is now visible

Varnish

I also wondered when the hull should be varnished; the manual says nothing about it. Piet: careful, because a lot still has to be glued above the wale, and varnish and PVA don’t go well together. He gave the hull a coat of matt clear water-based varnish and sanded everything above the wale back down with a fine grit. If you’re going to copper the hull, varnishing is unnecessary. So that settles it.