Kenchington

Step 7 completed After giving the glue plenty of time to set, bands came off. The tiny bit of infill went into the bow -- in the end, a linear fillet over the knee, rather than a triangle (easier to shape and less obvious in the finished model: [There: Managed to get the image-size control to work!) Sanded the bottom planks near the stern: And then turned back to the keel plank. I slipped it under the rubber bands on the moulds, held down one end to its transom, centred that, then traced along the edges of the plank, marking the bottom boards, so that I had mark for where to apply glue (and a guide to placing the keel plank -- though that is mostly done by aligning centre marks at the transoms). Then the elastic bands had to come off. At that point, the bottom boards wanted to move around on the moulds and needed clamps to make them behave. In this pram, as with most lapstrake boats, the strength and stiffness of the hull is almost entirely in the plank-to-plank connection -- glue, in the case of the model. Makes me a bit nervous but this one went straightforwardly. The instructions say to glue from the bow transom half way to the forward mould, then do the rest as a second operation. I did it in three bites instead, with 5 minutes setting time between them, each time working the tip of the glue brush into the narrow gaps where the joint was already glued. Cleaned up the limited amount of excess glue while it was still wet, took care to avoid gluing planks to moulds ... and that was about it. I used clothes-pegs for most of the clamping, with something more aggressive where the keel plank had to be held to the transom knees (or spaced was limiting), while the ends were tight to the transoms: After giving the glue ample time to set, clamping and bands came off. Then it was time to trim the excess length of the planks, with saw, snips and sanding sticks. At last, after all the preparation time, I have the beginnings of a boat! All of the effort to keep the two ends tight has paid off too: Next up: Garboards

Begin Step 7: Assembling bottom of boat With the two bottom planks nicely curved, I could get a better look at how they fit on the transoms, which has led to a change of plan. Last night, I intended that the two of them would meet at the centreline of the bow transom, with a triangular fillet inserted between and abaft. This morning, being able to hold them curved over the moulds while examining them through a magnifying glass, I discovered that the planks are way too narrow to span the bevelled flat on the transom. I don't fancy trying to adjust the other bevels, then fit the next strakes, adjust again etc. etc. So I have fitted the bottom planks to match the bevels, leaving a gap between. Instead of a fillet hidden between and behind, I will insert a stealer (to borrow a term from plank-on-frame planking) to fill the gap. That wouldn't work in full-size, nail-fastened lapstrake construction but, in the model, all that will be visible will be the butt end of an extra plank, between the bow transom and the keel plank. The space to be filled won't be properly visible until the rubber bands come off, but you can see the size of it: Again with the benefit of curved planks to facilitate checking, the junction between bottom planks and stern transom revealed its own problems. Again, the bottom planks are far too narrow. For anyone following this log before building their own pram: Make the two saw cuts in the transom further from the centreline than the laser bevelling marks suggest! Too late for that in my case and I don't fancy placing little spacers alongside where I made the cuts. But at least the stern transom is large enough to give scope for adjusting the other bevels, so that is what I will do. Also, despite carefully matching the bevel marks where the bottom planks must go, the step up to the bevel for the keel plank was still not high enough -- which would leave the gap between transom (plus knee) and keel plank that others have found. Again: If you are following this log before building your own pram: Make the two saw cuts in the transom deeper than the laser bevelling marks suggest, then bevel down to the greater depth! But be warned, the extra depth needed is probably no more than a tenth of a millimetre. My solution, at this stage, will be to sand the bottom planks, from the toe of the stern transom knee to the transom itself, until their outboard face is flush with the bevel that awaits the keel plank. Not an advisable option in a boat that has to face wind and waves but fully viable in a model. With that much decided, it was time for glue. It is, however, important to let the planks take up their natural curves, as those define the longitudinal shape of the hull (while the moulds and transoms set the transverse shape). I put a rubber band around the forward mould (with clips to stop it jumping off), slid the two bottom planks under, then moved them forward and back until they only had a little overhang beyond the bow transom, checked that they were sat nicely in the angle provided for them on the mould ... and glued them to the transom with outer edges aligned to the edge of the bevel. Three minutes finger pressure, then put bands on. Left the glue to set while I made a coffee, then slipped a band over the after mould. I lifted each side of that, while settling the plank into place, so that the wood could take up its own curve, then clamped everything nice and tight. Gluing to the stern transom only added one complication: I had marked the position of my balsa block when it held the knee in what I thought was the right place but that proved a wasted effort. The trouble is that downward pressure on the transom, while the glue sets, causes a bend, which changes the length between mould and transom. It was necessary to first bring the planks down to the transom with the latter in its proper position, hence with as little down force as possible, then move the balsa block until it pushed the knee up ... and then adjust the block's position until the toe of the knee is exactly flush with the outboard faces of the bottom planks (which can be seen well enough in side view). While dry-fitting, I had found that rubber bands around the stern transom tended to force the bottom planks up over the saw-cut steps. Solution was to put pressure on the glue using a piece of scrap and hence a downward, not wanted, force. The net result, as the glue sets, looks like:

Thank you, gentlemen! Still hoping that the pram will work out well in the end.

My best guess is that the explanation lies in Chapelle having an enormous field to explore and only one lifetime in which to do it. He worked fast, covered a lot of ground but in process made mistakes, which fall to us of later generations to correct. No criticism there: Where would we be today if he had spent his time perfecting "American Sailing Ships" at the cost of never publishing his other works at all? I suspect (1) that only the one Lynx / Musquidobit had her lines taken off, (2) that that job was done in Portsmouth (England), where they seem to have had a dock set up for the purpose, (3) that the original draught is still in the Admiralty collection in London (probably now in Greenwich), (4) that a copy of that draught (either a photo reproduction of some kind or else Chapelle's re-drafting) is in the Smithsonian, and (5) that when he re-drew the plans at smaller scale for his books, he was not as careful as he might have been. If so, anyone building a model (or a full-size replica!) has the option of raking the masts as seems right, given what is known of other, similar vessels, or paying for a copy of the original draught. Trevor

Dories could be any colour you want, though far and away the most common is on overall coat of some variant of "dory buff", with a streak of contrasting colour along the rail -- most often a green for some reason. Or are you looking for specific paint brands and colour designations?

If you had somebody with time to spare in London who could search the archival material, you might find correspondence showing whether the draught was made before any alterations or perhaps showed proposed changes. Logbooks might mention a need to change the rake. Come to that, inspection of the original draft would help distinguish Chapelle's reconstructions from what was recorded at the time. However, any or all of that would be a substantial research effort. As to British versus American perceptions: There are significant differences in environmental conditions. The northeast Atlantic, being on the downwind side, has frequent, heavy swells, which we don't. But there was also a difference in the task to be fulfilled. A privateer could lie in wait, then make a short cruise when conditions were right. Great risks could be run, in seeking great rewards, while evading deadly encounters with naval patrols. Naval schooners, in contrast, often had cruise off the privateer's bases, riding out whatever weather might come, with little reward for risking a knock-down in a squall. Then again, what a Baltimore captain could do, in the type of schooner her had been raised to sail, may just have been beyond the skills of officers trained under square rig. The later "sharpshooters", of the Gloucester mackerel and halibut fisheries, were also capable of very fine sailing -- but disaster was never far away and they needed a very experienced hand on the helm. The sad story of the first Pride of Baltimore shows all too clearly what could happen. Trevor

And back to the pram ... Step 7, preparation of bottom planks This should be easy: Pop two pieces out of their sheets, sand off char, a bit of bevelling and into boiling water. Would it were so! I have hinted in previous posts about one of the problems and it is this: These are the two planks as they came from their sheets, laid as they will be in the model. They have to meet at the bow transom, where the keel plank goes on top of them (top while the boat is being built upside down) but they are spread apart at each mould and the stern transom. Inevitably, there is a V-shaped gap just behind the point where they touch. Now, the instructions don't mention this and they suggest letting the planks overhang the bow transom, then trimming off later. The consequence, seen in several of the build logs on MSW, is that a gap appears between the two bottom planks (with the transom below and the keel plank above), as soon as they are trimmed for length. Not a huge problem if the plan is to use filler and then paint the model, but a major issue when planning to use a clear finish. Holes in bows of boats do not look promising. The obvious answer is make slight diagonal cuts, so that the two planks meet along the centreline of the transom. Trouble with that is that these planks are already very narrow for the space to be filled. Trimming away at them is dangerous. Still, I think it has to be done, though I will delay until I have them bent and can get an accurate, untroubled measurement of just where to apply a knife. The above image also shows why I have said that there will have to be a fillet on the bow transom knee. These planks sit on the foremost end of the knee and the keel plank sots on them, so the V-gap opens a space between knee and keel plank. In full-size construction, the knee would likely go in after and would be trimmed to fit. That's not viable at 1:12, so a little triangle of 3/64 basswood will be needed. That much I had figured out before starting. What I had not counted on can be see in the above image but better with the two planks reversed, outer sides together, as in: One or both bevel marks is/are badly misplaced. The instructions declare "There are laser etched lines 1" in from the outer edges" of these planks -- which would be difficult as they are less than a half-inch wide. Others have noted that the text tends to jump between quoting a dimension on the full-size prototype and one of the scale model, with insufficient notice of which is meant. This proved to be one such case but that couldn't be certain. Fortunately, the angle between the bottom planks and the garboards is consistent throughout the length of the boat, so I traced the profile of one of the moulds, got out an old protractor and checked. Both sides of the mould gave me 30° (with far better accuracy than I can bevel such thin lumber). Muddled my first attempt at trigonometry (perpendicular over base is tangent, not sine!) but finally concluded that producing a 30° bevel in 3/64 stock does indeed mean sanding back to 1:12 of 1 inch, or 2.1 mm. Maybe I should have had the courage of my convictions and scribed new bevel lines on both planks but I reasoned that I wasn't supposed to bring the bevel to a knife edge, so I dragged out my old drafting gear and added a line to the one plank so that it matched the other: After all that, bevelling was straightforward, followed by the usual routine of boiling water, filling a baking tray and waiting 5 minutes for the wood to get soft. Now the bottom planks are over the moulds, strapped down to the transoms and drying overnight: Next step, maybe tomorrow, will be gluing the three planks into place!

Thank you, Bill! It's my share of paradise, though it will be easier to enjoy when the ice breaks in the harbour and opens some liquid water ...

I'd say that it is normal (though doubtless not universal) for all multi-masted sailing craft to have different rakes for each mast. But it is also normal for the rake to increase from forward to aft: Foremast nearest to vertical, mizzen most raked, in a three-master. Yet there is no doubt that Chapelle's re-drawing of the Admiralty draught shows the foremast noticeably more raked than the main. Now that you have pointed it out, it is easy to see in his book. I wonder whether the rake of one or the other mast was altered after construction, when her rig may have proven a bit off balance. Trevor

My argument for Laphroaig has always been: If you're going to drink benzene, it might as well be strong benzene.

Meanwhile ... Step 5 (building board construction) finally completed. A proper wedge made all the difference, though I have still placed two push-pins to control skew: With that all inn place, I double-checked the centrelines on moulds and transoms. All good. Taking a great idea from someone else's build log (sorry: No notes on whose it was), I crudely shaped a block of balsa and put that under the stern transom knee to resist the pull of the rubber bands that will no doubt be holding the planks down while glue sets: The neat extra is that the curve in the knee allows the effective height of the support to be changed by just pushing the block closer to the transom or away from it. That also saves any need to carefully control the size of the block.

An empty bottle of single malt is nothing more than a good reason to go and buy a full one. Mine are the island malts: Ardbeg always on hand, Laphroaig as an alternative, Talisker from time to time, Lagavulin or Bowmore occasionally. Our provincial government has had a monopoly on alcohol ever since prohibition was eased, a century ago. They don't import the production of the smaller distilleries.

Step 6 completed: At least the building board was advanced enough for me to bend the keel plank and leave it to dry overnight, so no time lost. Under Step 6, the kit instructions have a discourse on plank bending -- which is all fine and proper. However, the text is general, not specific to the one plank on one model. Hence, it says "bend it around a curved form of some kind" and my first reaction, like that of others who have posted build logs on MSW, was to think of bending the keel plank around some handy bottle or jar. However, the plank doesn't need just any bend. It needs the bend of the finished model hull, so the proper thing is to bend it over the moulds on the building board (as the dory model's instructions made clear). The pram's instructions also say "You need to over-bend the piece, as it will tend to spring back somewhat". That's true and I was considering putting shims on top of the moulds when bending. However, when it comes to gluing, we need that spring-back, so that the ends of the plank have to be pushed down to where they are glued at bow and stern. Otherwise, the over-bent and sprung-back plank would not be pressed against the moulds and would don't follow the proper shape. I decided to bend over the moulds, with no further complications, knowing that I could repeat the process with shims if necessary. The simplest way had worked well for me with the dory model, so I repeated it: Fill a baking pan with boiling water, drop the plank in, weight it down with some piece of kitchen glassware, wait 5 minutes, then take the plank out and blot the surface water off. A few rubber bands served to hold the plank to transoms and moulds: The only pre-wetting task was removal of char, as this keel plank will sit on top of bottom planks and all three sit level in transverse section -- no shaping required. The instructions make no mention of char in the dagger-board slot but I think I will sand that lightly, as the dagger-board trunk has to be glued to the inside of the slot. Overnight drying left me with: That only needs very light fingertip pressure to bring its ends down to the transoms, so I doubt that it needs further bending. A light sanding of its raised grain and the keel plank can be set aside while the bottom planks are prepared.

But to return to yesterday's progress with the pram: Step 5 (continued): My repair of the first mould on the building board went well, so I repeated it with the other one. Lego blocks carefully aligned with the mould's position and firmly clamped down, rubber bands to hold the mould down tight, then more Lego and a second clamp: Clamps and bands removed once the glue was set and the Lego then taped in place, to stiffen the right angle between mould and board. While it set, I worked on the fitting of the bow transom, then that of the stern transom. The bow one is firm and secure, with two shims glue to the baseboard to stop it rocking sideways and one piece of printer paper to lock it in its slot: The stern transom needed much more work. I had to widen the notch in the transom to accommodate my previous repair to its support. That's not the problem it may seem, as the whole transom top gets cut off later. Then I pared away some non-essential wood from the repair (being careful to preserve the shape of the support's original slot), as well as adding shims. It still needed a wedge, where my repair has left the slot more open than it should be: It needs more work. The transom can't tip from side to side but it can skew, with one corner moving forward and the other aft. Worse, the whole thing can bend towards the building board. So: More work on that to be done today.

Thanks, Mark! Would have been better if I hadn't sat up, sipping single malt and drooling over some of the kits featured in manufacturers' websites.

Steps 1, 2 & 4 completed I advanced the build in three ways yesterday. Best to explain them separately, starting with the stern transom -- which has been confusing to many of us progressing through the Model Shipway's trio. Transom-sterned boats usually have a single, smooth (but raked) transom. However, the designer of the (full-size) pram went with two planks that overlap at mid-height, creating steps both inside and out. I can only guess why: It would be hard to find a tree large enough to provide a single-piece transom and edge-joining two pieces would be challenging for an amateur builder. So two pieces are required and the kit copies that. The resulting step on the inside is used as a support for the sternsheets. The outboard step is just a nuisance. With that introduction, the lower part of the transom was prepared as for the bow transom. I accidentally marked the centreline on the outboard (laser-marked) face, before marking the inboard face as required for fitting the knee. Although not intended, that will probably prove useful when aligning everything on the building board. If the two pieces of the transom were simply glued together, the inboard step would be perpendicular to the raked transom, rather than providing a level surface for the sternsheets to sit on. So the first step after removing the piece from the sheet is to bevel its upper edge, removing wood from the inboard (unmarked) face. Rather than drawing a guideline for that bevelling, the kit provides a wood guide, shaped as a segment of a circle. All that is needed is to lay sandpaper on a flat surface, hold the guide firmly on the sandpaper (keeping the guide upright, at right angles to the paper), then stroke the transom piece across the sandpaper while pressing it against the guide. That is "all", except that it is critical (1) to press the outboard, laser-marked surface against the guide, not the face marked to receive the knee (2) to stroke the long, top edge of the piece across the sandpaper, and not (of course) the edges that will be bevelled for the planks, (3) while keeping it square to the guide and (4) applying even pressure along the length of the piece, so that the sanding is even, then (5) continuing until the last of the char is just removed. That proved much easier than it sounds, though the task was not something to be casual about. Naturally, it is essential to stop every few strokes and check on progress. I managed a really dumb error after one check by flipping the piece around and making a couple of strokes with the wrong face against the guide -- thereby removing the very char line needed to judge when the job is finished! Fortunately, it was late enough in the task that I could estimate how much more sanding was needed, while the sternsheets will be glued down over the error! With that done, the lower stern transom and the corresponding stern transom knee could be prepared and glued together exactly as for the bow transom. The knee has a transverse, laser-cut hole, which does not seem to have any purpose but does prevent confusion over which knee to use. The only real problem is that the angle of the knee must be very accurately aligned with the bottom edge of the transom (or there will be trouble with the keel plank later). Next comes a step that is very delicate and very poorly explained in the instructions. Throughout their lengths, the three lowest planks (keel plank and two bottom planks) are all horizontal, as seen in transverses sections of the hull (though bending fore-to-aft), while the keel plank overlays the other two. It follows that they need parallel bevels on the transom, with two steps either side of the keel-plank's bevel -- raising that (with the boat inverted on the building board) by the thickness of the bottom planks. It is a very, very small step, seen here in the laser-cut piece and its marked bevel line: Anyone with a (fine grit) right-angled sanding block might choose to shape that step while bevelling beside it. The instructions, however, call for a cut (each side) with a razor saw. So I did. It's a nerve-wracking task, taking a big saw blade to a delicate piece of basswood, made no simpler because the cut has to be strongly angled, to reach the marked bevel line on the outboard face of the transom as it just reaches the last of the char by the inboard face. I'm glad to say that it proved simpler than I expected, though it only needed a single draw of the saw across the wood, pulling for less than two inches. The resulting cut is tiny. A standard-size business card inserted in it looks like: The photo in the instructions shows those cuts being made before the knee was glued to the transom, which would simplify holding the work in a vice. Once I realized that, I regretted adding the knee first. However, that proved to be a necessary guide to the angle of the saw blade (which must exactly match the plane of the bottom plank, hence also that of the keel and so that of the knee too). I would certainly fit the knee before cutting if I had to do the job again. There is another point to note here: Several build logs remark on a gap appearing between the keel plank and the combination of the (bevelled) bottom of the transom and its (aligned) knee. That is a result of the step in the edge of the transom being less than the thickness of the bottom planks -- either because the two cuts were not made quite deep enough, the bevel for the keel plank was sanded a little too far or perhaps the laser cutting was a little off. I did wonder about adding a fillet before sanding the keel-plank's bevel but, in my case, the various bevel marks did match the plank thickness. Just. Still, it is something to watch for. With all of that said, the lower transom can be bevelled for the planks. There will 9 of them (one more than at the bow, as the keel plank does not touch the bow transom) and each has its own bevel. However, the two for the sheerstrakes should not be shaped until the two halves of the transom are glued together, as those planks span the joint. Nothing especially difficult in that bevelling. Nothing not already said for the bow transom anyway. The end result looked like: The upper piece of the transom is a lot simpler to prepare. The instructions call for its lower edge to be bevelled, though that is really only for decoration and symmetry. If it is done (and I did), it is the outer face that must be sanded away, so the inner face (without laser marks) that is pressed against the bevelling guide. Not a problem. Joining the two parts of the transom should not have presented any difficulties -- except that it is important to overlap the two pieces by no more than the 1/8 inch stated in the instructions. Several build logs have remarked on the upper edge of the sheer strakes ending too high on the transom and reducing its height with a wider overlap won't help. In his build log, DonB showed a jig that he used, with stops to ensure that the 1/8 inch was exact. I tried using his idea but the sharply bevelled edge of the lower transom slid under my stops, so I had to glue to a marked line instead. Sadly, the alignment slipped off -- probably when I placed weights to hold the pieces together, instead of using clamps. I decided that I could do no better with a second attempt and, anyway, the slight angle between the transom pieces compensated for a slight angle I had put into the top of the lower piece while bevelling it! So I carried on and bevelled the combined transom for the sheerstrakes. That gave me: All that was left was to remove the centreline mark from the inboard face of the upper transom piece (as it will not be visible while the boat is on the building board but would be all too obvious in the finished creation), then a final touch with a fine sanding stick and the stern transom was done!

Gradual progress today, in between working for my living. I have the keel plank bent and drying over the moulds overnight. But it's late and a proper report must wait until morning!

It is not for me (or anyone else) to tell you what you should do. Unless you aim for a waterline model, set in a diorama (with a full crew on board, along with the cow, pigs, chickens and everything else carried on a long voyage!), ship models are always stylized reproductions that necessarily leave out a lot of detail. What you include and what you don't are artistic choices. However, you have done such a nice job of furling the squaresails (with the clews showing properly, "pig's ear" fashion, beside the bunt!) that my choice, if it was mine to make (which it isn't) would be to show the fore-and-aft canvas furled also. I would leave off any sails set flying, as they would never be furled at full-size (just tied down with stops, if there was a temporary need to have them down before re-setting). But I can't say how the staysails and mizzen would have been furled on your ship. I vaguely remember reading that the staysails with knocks (where the leading edge has a vertical bit after leaving the stay) were furled into a tube-like form, hanging where the knock would be when the sail was set. Don't rely on my memories, though. Take a long look at contemporary paintings of ships and see how the sails were presented. And one final point, while I'm writing, though you may be well aware of it already: The idea behind any furl is to have the sail present a smooth, hard surface, so that there are no edges for the wind to get hold of and shake to pieces. You pick on one part of the sail to make a "skin", fold everything else into that (everything you can get in, maybe with clew blocks etc. outside), beat it all down hard (literally pound it with a fist, in the case of double-ought storm canvas on a big ship), then tie it in place with the gaskets. With a sail fastened to a yard or boom, the skin has to be made of the piece nearest to the spar -- the head of a squaresail or foot of a Bermudan, for example. There's a bit more choice with a staysail. I tend to use the foot but a staysail with a knock might better be furled inside the leading edge of the knock. Trevor

Nice instructions! That diagram would have been useful in the Model Shipways version. Looks like you are spot on with the kit-designer's intentions, which is what matters most, I suspect. But there's going to be a whole lot of wood to remove when bevelling.

Short answer is "it depends". Depends for one thing on how long it will be before the sail is set again. Then there is a difference between a staysail properly so called, meaning one with its luff attached (by hanks or lacing) to one of the permanent stays of the standing rigging, and a sail set "flying", with no attachment to the standing rigging. If the staysail is hanked or laced to a stay, it would only be removed as a maintenance task, not in setting and furling sail during a voyage. Harland ("Seamanship in the Age of Sail") says that the quick way was to release one end of the stay, pass it through the hanks, then re-attach and tighten the stay -- not something to be done at sea if you can avoid it. The alternative is to cut the lashings of all the hanks, then bring hanks and sail to the stay and replace the lashings. That can be a long job. (Been there, done that ... or rather assisted the sailmaker as he did it, perched on the tip of Stad Amsterdam's jibboom.) So a staysail would not normally be removed from the stay and all of its running gear would remain attached, with the ends belayed as normal. Sails set flying (like the original "flying jibs", before that came to mean just the most forward headsail) would normally be brought down and stowed somewhere safe when not set, unless there was an intention to set them again soon. What were left were the halliard, a running stay that supplemented the sail's luff rope in bearing the various loads, a downhaul, sheets (with blocks and pendants) and (according to Harland) a "clewrope" for controlling the sail's clew until the sheets were attached. The clewrope would presumably be stowed somewhere convenient when not in immediate use, whether the sail was set or not. I'll guess that the normal thing for the others was to fasten their ends somewhere convenient, such as the bowsprit cap for a flying jib's gear (saving the need to send a man out on the jibboom), then hauled taut and belayed as normal. However, if it was expected that the sail would not be needed again for some time, all of its running rigging was most likely unrove, coiled up and stowed away safely. When needed again, a man would be sent aloft with a heaving line. Once at the halliard block, say, he would lower the weighted end of the heaving line to the deck (ensuring that it fell into the appropriate gaps amongst other rigging -- which might need other men to guide the end as it went down, such as through the lubber hole in the top). On deck, the halliard could be bent on and then hauled up to the block, rove through and its end passed down once more (again through the right gaps). It the gear to be sent aloft was too heavy for one man to haul up, he went up with a gantline and its block, rigged that, passed both ends down to the deck and as many as needed could then haul the weight aloft. If that all sounds like a lot of work, remember that the jibboom would have been run in when the flying jib's running gear was unrove, so another bunch of men would be hauling the heel rope, passing a fid, setting up shrouds (if any) and more. Handling a square-rigger is a lot of work and more so with earlier rigs. (Much of the evolution of rigs was to allow ship-handling with less labour and hence less labour cost!) But how to represent that at scale? That's the model-maker's choice! Trevor P.S.: Those who rely on Harland's book (and I do), might be interested in one snippet: John H. hold me that, when he wrote it, he had never been to sea under square rig. He worked entirely from contemporary written accounts!

That goes too far, sir! I have to admit to being pleased with the dory, as a first attempt at a model boat (teenage and earlier plastic ships excepted). But one big advantage of not posting a build log was that the scratch-built fishing gear in the final product distracts a viewer's eye from the errors in my assembly of the kit. Trevor

You have nicely photographed something that I worried over with the Model Shipways dory and I'm still not sure of the answer. When you have bevelled and faired the bottom boards, transom and knee, ready to receive the garboards, the aftermost, lowest point must be one of three things: 1: A narrow flat formed by the lowest point of the transom, reaching to the underside of the bottom and covering the end of the bottom boards; 2: A similar flat formed by squaring off the very end of the bottom boards, with the transom on top (and also squared off); or else 3: A point, where the tips of the bottom and the transom just meet. I think that full-size dories are built on their bottoms, so I would doubt #1 in the prototype, though that may not matter in a model. What might matter is if an offset from the kit-designer's intent caused later problems when bringing the planking to the sides of the transom. Your kit has a squared lower end to the transom, in its laser cut. (The Model Shipways one comes to a point.) You have aligned it so that the inboard face of the transom meets the tip of the bottom, which will mean bevelling the transom away to nothing at its lower end. I think I might have set the transom and its knee a little further forward, so that the outboard face just meets the tip of the bottom (meaning that the outboard face of the transom would be bevelled away to nothing but the inboard would still have width). But I still don't know which would be "right", let alone which the kit-designer intended! Whichever it should be, better to be sure before proceeding any further. Trevor

What a strange way to mark a bevel line! I suppose they have skipped the need for a separate template by shaping the curve of the stem to match that of the bottom boards, near the bow. It may not matter just where you measure the distance in from the edge of the stem, if the curve of the bottom is steady over the whole area near the bow. (It won't, of course, be steady throughout the length of the dory.) But I would think long and hard before assuming that 1/8 was an error for 1/16. They may be telling you that the upper part of the stem needs to be bevelled to a triangular section. Get that wrong now and there will be trouble later.

My mum put me in one that was an antique even then! But I'm not sure whether there's a lot of work in the kit or just a lot of verbiage on my part. The transoms do serve as the most important building moulds and yet are rather prominent, external features in the finished model. The dual role probably complicates things a bit.

Steps 1, 2 (in part) & 3 (completed) Not much progress today -- more retrograde movement, if anything! My best excuse is that, with confidence in the properties of yellow glue (born of building the model dory), I tackled a repair of a piece of 18th-Century furniture that I had put off for years, terrified of messing it up. Nice cross-over use of modelling skills. In truth, after all my verbiage yesterday about the need to set up the pram's building board properly, I began to think that I had not done well enough. Foolishly allowing excellence to become the enemy of good, I took the moulds off, ready to try again -- then split the tab on each of them. Bah! I'm rebuilding and it will end better than it was, but I can only reconstruct one mould at a time. Otherwise, I got on with the transoms. The instructions call for first shaping one knee for each transom, then putting those aside and starting on the bow transom, then turning to the lower stern one, then the bow one again, then the stern ... Sounds like far too much chance to lose or damage small pieces, so I started with the bow transom, then added its knee and only when that was finished did I start on the stern transom. Incidentally, for those who, like Mark, "have no idea what a sailing pram is", the definition lies in the bow transom. A small boat with a flat forward end, rather than a pointed stem (or anything else), is a "pram" or "pram dinghy". I don't think that the term would be applied to larger vessels, even ones with flat fronts. I thought that it was derived from the "praam" or "pram", a form of river and coastal barge once used in northern Europe, but the etymologists seem to say no. I can only guess that somebody once looked at a snub-nosed boat and drew a parallel with an old-fashioned baby-carriage. The Model Shipways kit is of an elegant, lapstrake pram, one example of a type developed in Norway. I have no idea when they emerged, nor what they are called in their own country. Stubbier prams became popular in the 1960s because it was possible to home-build a boat with even the longest pieces cut from 8-by-4 plywood sheets, and yet have as much usable internal space as a 10 or 12-foot boat with a pointy bow could provide. They also take up less space, either on board a cruising yacht if used as a tender or else in a garage at home. Some designs remain very popular, notably the Optimist dinghy, fleets of which are raced by determined pre-teens, dreaming of America's Cup glory. To return to the model pram ... The laser marks on the transoms are on their outboard faces, showing bevelling lines. The knees that brace between the transoms and the keel plank are necessarily on the inboard faces, so the first task is to mark the bow transom for the position of the knee. Past build logs included the excellent idea of marking each of the two small pieces while they were still attached to their sheet -- especially excellent for the bow transom of my kit as it had been cut square to the edge of the sheet. Very easy to pencil in a perpendicular centreline, doubly so as the laser also cut a centreline bolt hole. Adding guidelines for placing the sides of the knee was only a little trickier. I did have to first remove some char that had "leaked" onto the back of the sheet but no problem there. If I was building such a boat full-size, I wouldn't be satisfied with the finish until I could run my fingertips over it and not feel any blemish, so the greatest roughness in the model should be 1/12 as large as something that can't be felt. That's probably unattainable but basswood does get silky smooth when polished with a very-fine sanding stick. Hence, all surfaces that will be visible in the finished model, including the inboard face of the transom, will get that polishing. With that done, both the bow transom and its knee could be released from their sheet: The knee got the usual treatment: Its two faying surfaces were sanded against a square, to clear the char without losing the shape. The curved surface, which will be visible, was gently cleaned of char, its ends rounded off into neat toes, then the angular edges of that curve softened. Polished the flat sides of the knee to a satisfying smoothness and it was ready to be glued in place. No problem knowing which leg of the knee goes on the transom, as the longer one is nearly as long as the transom is high. Keeping it accurately aligned was challenging but at least it is not too critical to get the knee's angle exactly at the edge of the transom: Although the instructions don't say so, there will have to be a fillet between the knee and the keel plank. (More on that when I get to fitting the bottom planks.) Outcome was OK, though the photo shows that I should clear a bit more char: I left that for a few hours, to be sure that the glue was fully set, as the next step could put more stress onto the construction than I would wish. The demanding task was bevelling the edges of the transom to receive the planks -- bringing the outboard, forward face down to the marks, as the last of the char is sanded away at the edge of the inboard face, in the usual way. There will be 8 planks directly attached to the transom but the two bottom planks lie flat, side-by-side, so there are only 7 bevelled surfaces. Four of them are small enough on the full-width, inboard face of the transom but tiny where they meet its outboard face. I followed the instructions' advice and mounted the transom in a vice (gently, and with protective card between basswood and metal jaws), then went at the task carefully. I did wonder why the instructions say to glue the knee in place before clamping everything in a vice. It seems a cack-handed thing to do. However, the surface of the knee that will later touch the keel plank (or would if no fillet was needed) is an excellent guide to the angle of the critical bevel -- the one that takes the bottom planks. (As the instructions say, the other bevels can be adjusted a bit later on, to match the positions of the previously-added planks. The bottom planks go on first and the broad bevel for them needs to be right.) There are two dangers that the instructions don't mention and which have led to trouble in some builds shown on MSW. First, although each plank curves along its length and most twist too, they always remain flat across their faces. Thus, each bevelled surface should be flat too -- angled in 3 dimensions relative to the transom but flat within themselves. That calls for firm wrists, stiff sanding sticks and lots of care. Second, the laser marks make the broad, central bevel for the bottom planks as wide as those planks can be. There is a problem (one that I'll return to later) in the design of those planks which too easily produces an ugly gap between them, where they pass across the transom. If the bevelling is taken beyond its marks, its width will increase and the gap get harder to cope with. Even a tenth of a millimetre extra width could cause trouble. In particular, there is no need to sand down until the bevel is flush with the knee, if that got glued on a little away from the edge of the transom, as a fillet will be needed no matter what. The final step in preparing the bow-transom unit is to extend the laser-cut bolt hole in the transom itself through the knee. It has to pass through a tiny piece of basswood and other people have reported trouble with splintering. I followed the suggestion of first wrapping the knee with masking tape and then, being gentle with the drill bit and pin vice, had no trouble. The instructions say, cryptically, that we should "drill a #55 hole". That may be a reference to the drill bits sold by the "Exacto" or "Excel" company (which do list their drill sizes that way), though it has been said on MSW that the "55" is a reference to AWL -- the American Wire Gauge. If so, #55 should mean 1.32 mm diameter. As my kit came with a set of metric bits, I used 1.3 mm and it seemed right. With that done, the bow-transom unit could be set aside. I then made a start on the stern transom but only as far as gluing its knee, before leaving that to set well. As the stern construction is a bit complex (and very poorly explained in the instructions), I'll wait until it is finished before explaining what I have done and why.