Hi johan !
you could be right on this one , I think ...
galvanized iron cans ...
never thought of that
It's been a long while , but I was on vacation in France for three weeks , first to a modelling event , near Rochefort sur Mer .
a picture of me with my "Dundrum bay" in my hand :
the second RC sailing boat I had with me ( "Mount's Bay" , seagoing tug , two screws , scale 1/100 , length : 50 centimeters / 20 inches ):
the full thread ( in french ) , for the guys interested in something else ( 6 pages ):
http://forum.aceboard.net/5522-1862-332 ... ouland.htm
I also had the opportunity to visit the "Hermione" shipyard , "Hermione" being a XVIII century frigate , fully built at scale 1 following the original drawings , this was really an impressive sight , imagine a brand new HMS "Victory" during construction on the stocks
I then went to Britanny , near Brest , where I got the fantastic occasion to sail for an afternoon on board an old sail boat , a fisherman from 1939 , the "Berg�re de Domremy":
me at the helm :
this is not the "Berg�re" but she looks like this :
Here she is :
OK , this all had nothing to do with HMS Zinnia , I know ...
About Zinnia , I began with the hull plating .
She was built in steel , the plating being very thin , almost 1/4 of an inch , the frames being 21 inches spaced , I wanted to represent the full plating , following the IN & OUT system , as it was done on riveted ships at that time .
You know I have the shell expansion plan , I drew the plating on the hull already .
Meanwhile , I applied a coat of G4 resin on the cardboard , where the plating was drawn , to get an even & tough surface to put my plates on .
In my case , You guessed it , the plating will be made out of paper .
hereby some pictures of the hull before , coated with G4 , there are a lot of informations drawn on the hull:
1. all the strakes ( from "A" to "I" )
2. which strakes were IN , which strakes were OUT , some plates being IN & OUT
3 . all the riveted laps
at the main frame :
Where two strakes blend in one ( "B" & "C" become "B" , "D" & "E" become "D" , at the bow part of the ship ) :
the bow , you can clearly see the "brick wall" positioning of the plates
an unusual feature on Zinnia is that the "B" strakes are uneven , laps on the STBD side are a little more to the front than the ones on the port side , don't ask me why they did it that way
:
other pics :
the bow :
the "canoe" stern , we will see later on that plating this area is no problem at all
Of course , in our case , the first plating that has to be applied is the IN plating , as we cannot work from the inside .
I started with the keel part , the two "B" strakes :
the rounding of the plate riveted to the stern post :
further on the "B" strakes , to the bow :
for a better understanding of how plating was done , the keel strake ( "A") was always a OUT strake , the sheer strake at the decks level were also OUT strakes , the strake at the turn of the bilge ( "D" strake in case of Zinnia ) had to be also a OUT strake , this came not from a habit in shipbuilding , it was a Lloyds rule , as it was also a Admiralty rule :
those special strakes ( keel , turn of the bilge , sheer ) hat to be also a little thicker than the remaining of the plating , the keel was the part of the ship that was in contact with the wood blocks while the ship went in basin or on a drydock , the bilge strake was in contact with the ground in case of stranding , it also weared the bilge keel , the sheer was riveted to the decks , so it was one of the most important assembly on a riveted vessel , the joining of the hull plating to the deck plating .
I also worked on the "F" strake , which is also a IN strake , the works always begin from the stern of the ship , going front to the bow , logic as the laps were set to avoid water entry into the ship :
a close view of the laps :
If you have any question about this plating issue , just throw them here , I'll try to answer them .
Next time , I'll post more pictures of the IN plating , I'll then commence with the OUT plating , which will be in another paper colour , to let you see the differences , while the IN & OUT plates ( there are some at the bow , near the keel , will be in a thir different colour ...
Regards ,
Laurent
stinking fish oil instead ( we still had some on board our minesweepers during the 1980's ) ... 
)