ccoyle

Their are some great kits available in your price range from a number of different manufacturers. Can you firm up your idea of a vessel type that most appeals to you?

Nice work -- congratulations!

Maiden Voyage Today was the big day! I took the Kat to Lake Cunningham today. The boat launch is only about five miles from my house. The first challenge was to get her up on my car by myself. Here we are, all loaded up on the soft roof pads, everything cinched up tight and the ends tied down. The CRV has front and rear anchor points for just such tasks. Several people at the lake commented on how nice Kat looked and were surprised to hear she's a home-built. There was a nice grassy spot for putting in. It was a great day for paddling. It would've been a perfect day if the fish were biting, but they didn't cooperate for me. They didn't appear to be cooperating for anyone else, either. In this next photo, that wooden structure off in the distance is the public fishing pier, which in late summer will be totally socked in with weeds and lily pads. Notice that I am out in the glorious open channel, where I can fish the outside margin of the weed beds. Ain't boats wonderful? Speaking of boats, both of the lakes near my house have 10 hp limits on motors, so there's no water skiers and Sea-Doos tearing up the place. Sweeeeeet. After about four hours of leisurely fishing, it was time to haul out. Did you know that fishing in mesotrophic reservoirs gives one's beautiful new boat a bathtub ring of sorts? Fortunately, it washed off easily. Tomorrow we Americans have a federal holiday, so who knows? The Kat may hit the other lake tomorrow. Cheers!

I think Jean-Pierre has got it. Might be a limited edition kit that was not widely distributed.

Might be an OOP Woody Joe kit.

Yes, they are fun, but "easy"? That depends entirely on the model. Bear in mind that in addition to requiring its own particular skill set, an advanced card model can easily have several thousand pieces. It's as challenging as any other medium. You can find out more about card models in the kits section of the forum, as well as searching for the word "card" in build log titles as Mark suggested. Also, we have reviewed some card model kits in the reviews section (and more are on the way). Be warned: Once you try card, you may not go back!

Ha! My Dad used to tell me that there were train robbers in our family tree. I used to reply that these purported outlaws must not have been very good at their trade, because I never heard of them. Since then, I've done a LOT of genealogy work and even found a few bad apples in the tree, but no train robbers (but I did find two distant cousins that were struck by trains and died on separate occasions -- go figure).

Plus, if the ship is moving at speeds approaching the speed of light, special relativity shows us that its length will contract in its direction of movement. 😮

Lengths on real ships and their model counterparts are notoriously tricky items. Are we talking about waterline length, overall length, length on deck, length between perpendiculars, or some other dimension? And what source material did the kit designers use to establish scale?

Okay, time for THE BIG REVEAL!! After seven months of work, Sha-Sam-Kat is ready for her debut. Some concluding thoughts will follow, but first let's have some pictures. The name Sha-Sam-Kat is a nod to my three great kids, Shannon, Samuel, and Kathleen. I got the lettering from a place that does custom boat decals. Got the left side just a touch too high during the application process, but it's not especially noticeable from a distance. All told, I spent probably around $1600 for the kit, tools, and materials -- more than a mass-produced fiberglass or aluminum canoe will set one back, but far cheaper than comparable custom-built wooden canoes. I might get her out on the water this weekend -- pics to follow if that happens. Some concluding thoughts: Building a boat is a love/hate relationship. There were times when I was all ready to have a go at a second boat and other times when I just wanted the darned thing to finally be finished! Can you say "sanding"? I'm happy with the Chesapeake Light Craft kit -- nothing to complain about in that department. Whatever flaws are visible on the finished item come down solely to me and not the kit. If I had to do it again, I would pick a simpler design for a first effort. Although rated for beginners, the lapstrake planking creates about twice as many seams to tack together and fill. A slab-sided dinghy or skiff would've been easier, but also much heavier. This was my first time working with both epoxy and fiberglass. It sure would have been handy to have those skills before starting construction! If you have building a boat on your bucket list, do it! Don't wait. So, that concludes my 1:1 build. I hope you have enjoyed the journey with me, and I also hope that it has inspired other potential builders. Perhaps we will see other 1:1 builds in the near future. Thanks for tagging along, everybody!

Chris is leading the way in making complex subjects more accessible to modelers of average ability.

Yup, exactly. I already have the paddle. It is longer than a typical kayak paddle on account of the higher freeboard. Neither the canoe nor the paddle are designed with aggressive paddling in mind.

Load capacity is only 250 lbs, so it would have to be a really small MSW member. 😳

Sassafras is designed as a sit-on-bottom canoe. I'm going to assume for now that the designer(s) had a good reason for the lower center of gravity.

I tested one small spot as i suggested in my earlier post. I'm not entirely satisfied -- you can see where the touch-up has been done, even though you might have to squint just right to see it. I may reconsider and do only the spots that really need it.

Zooming right along ... Next task was to glue down the seat. Not easy, since instructions specify a linear distance of exactly 71.375" from the stem to the front of the seat. But of course, one can't measure a straight line down from the stem into the boat, can one? Solution: a primitive plumb bob made from a miniature clothespin hanging from a thread wound onto a piece of scrap wood. Measure from the stem to where the scrap meets each rail to create the base of an isosceles triangle, hang the bob over the center line, and presto! Location of seat identified. The seat consists of two foam pads. The lower pad is hollow as you can see; that allowed me to run a marker around the inside to see where the glue needed to go. The base is glued down with contact cement, then the top layer is glued on top. The hollow construction will allow my tush to settle in comfortably (hopefully). With the inside finished, it was time to flip her over again. Here I've identified spots that need a little touch up and flagged them with bits of tape. These are mostly quite small, so I think a a light scuff and a dab with a good quality brush should do the trick -- I intend to sacrifice one of my white sable modeling brushes for the job. I can easily get another at the local Hobby Lobby. I will test this procedure out on one of the more obscure boo-boos before going at it hammer and tongs. The finish line is in sight!

I assume that most of our members already realize this, but it's worth mentioning that the build is 1:1 because it's not a scale model -- it's a full-size replica of a craft that was designed from the get-go as a pond yacht. Should be interesting -- good luck!

Congratulations -- a very attractive finished product! The Spanish kits do tend to have nicely contrasting woods that look great sans paint. Your photos look good from here -- don't forget to create a gallery album. Cheers!

Did I mention that both my parents grew up in Stockton? High school sweethearts at Franklin, class of '59. My mom lived between Cherokee Lane and Waterloo Road, and dad lived on the other side of 99 off Walker Lane. One grandpa worked at Sharpe Army Depot, the other was a night watchman at Rough and Ready Island. Still have family in the area.

The great thing about wood is that you can nearly always fix boo-boos like that one.

Moving forward. I decided that four coats of varnish were enough, not because four coats made everything pretty, but because I felt like my sanding between coats (scuffing, really) was making things look worse, not better. So I moved on to hardware and fittings. 😮 First up: drain plugs. Holes were cut with a 1" router bit, then plugs glued in with marine adhesive. Set the screws with adhesive, too. For tie-down points, I settled on inexpensive eye screws. These are also set with marine adhesive. The screws are set at the points where the inner rails join together (not visible in this shot); there's a healthy amount of wood and epoxy for the screws to bite into. Next up was the thwart. You know, I totally forgot to give consideration to which end should be the front -- I just got carried away installing stuff. Oh, well -- now it is carved in stone, er, wood. Each end of the thwart is attached to the underside of a rail by two countersunk screws. I bought myself a small ratchet driver for this job -- worked great, and it came in a set along with one of every type of driver bit known to man. Lastly for today was attaching the back rest. It is secured to the thwart by a bungee cord and tensioned by two adjustable web belts. We are getting close now!

Lookin' good so far.

Excellent work, Dave! Congratulations!

Don Dressel of the Ship Modelers Association spent ten years bashing this kit -- ended up using only the profile former and bulkheads and pretty much nothing else. Spectacular model, though, even out-of-the-box.

Lovely work, Tomek, and a fine addition to your catalog!