JacquesCousteau

Looks like you're off to a great start!

Great job!

Welcome! And I'm sure everyone would love to see a build log of your dory!

Looks great! Is the ship's boat a scratch-build?

Looks great so far!

The floor cleats and mast step have been colored (with stain and dark brown paint, respectively) and glued in place, and I've started cutting flooring planks to size. First, though, I'm working on the crossbeams. Initially I was going to use 1/16th inch basswood, but comparing it with the photos, it looked a little thin. So, I went with some of the last of the 1/8 inch basswood scrap from the dory kit. This will be used for the first two or three crossbeams (counting from amidships forward), as photos show that the foremost few crossbeams at times were made of thinner planks so I can use the 1/16 inch wood there. My new files were very helpful in carving out the slots for the central crossbeam. I'm now deciding how to color the crossbeams, as I don't want to leave them natural. First I stained it, as I can always paint over the stain. It looks ok with the stain, but I was also considering going with a very dark brown to make more of a contrast. Here's a test using just a strip of painted paper. Keep in mind the hull exterior will be black. I've also been using scrap paper and wood to work out the other crossbeam locations.

Looks like it's coming along well!

For what it's worth, I found the dory to be an excellent kit and a great way to get your feet wet. It's also a very easy model to add fishing gear and the like to, which can be a fun introduction to scratch building as well.

Build looks like it's coming along nicely, the bleed-through doesn't look bad and should scrape off pretty quickly with an exacto blade. Hope your hand feels better soon!

Looking forward to following this build!

As I've mentioned, the paucity of sources and the staggered floor timbers have made it difficult for me to plan out the floorboards. About the only things I have a clear source for are 1) that the planks should run lengthwise (even if I'm on the fence about this particular source), and 2) these vessels did have at least some cleats running across the hull that possibly could have served as locations for laying the ends of floorboards. Before building and gluing anything, I decided to test a few possibilities using card templates. One possibility is to make a relatively large number of short sections, with a number of cleats, as seen in the card test below. I ultimately decided that it didn't look right to me, and that it would entail adding too many cleats--the photo I have of a large canoa's framing, which is in an early post in this thread, only clearly shows one cleat in the aft half. I did another test with longer planks, allowing for fewer cleats. This looked better to me, although I decided to shift the cleat/plank end location aft a bit so that it looked more balanced. These longer planks would be about 8 feet long, which I feel is still short and light enough that individual planks could be removed for bailing--presumably, given the flat bottom, bilge water would pool along one side or the other (depending on wind or loading), so you would only need to remove one or two planks from that side to bail. At least, that makes sense to me, I'm very likely wrong on this. Here we see the cleats, distinguishable by not yet being stained, in place for a test fitting. As can be seen in comparison to the previous photo, shifting their location back will give a more balanced look to the planking. The mast step, which I made recently, is also in place. I squared the hole in the mast step with a new set of files--very exciting to use new tools!

Thanks, that's actually really helpful! I had thought you were using it for spiling, but I hadn't thought of using one for smoothing out the hull.

Thanks for this post about tools, as a beginning modeler this is very helpful. I've never used planes before, so if you don't mind me asking, how difficult were they to use to shape the planks, and what advantages do they offer over an exacto knife?

Finished up the helmsman's platform/locker lid! Sorry in advance if this post is very tedious, but I have little enough building experience that this sort of thing is still pretty new to me, and I wanted to document it. First, I added a support across the transom, then a couple angled edge pieces along the sides. I don't have calipers, but I used a compass to measure the width. Then I made a card mock-up. Due to the limits of my skills, the platform lid isn't perfectly rectangular, but it's close enough. I transferred the shape to 1/32 basswood, cut it out, checked the fit, stained the top, and then cut it into four boards that will run breadthwise. I also used a pencil to lightly mark the seams. Given that it's a tight fit, I was worried that assembling it off-board would lead to fit issues, so I decided to assemble it in place. First I used scrap to add a bit of a shelf poking out from under the sides to support the boards. Once that dried, assembly was simple. I like that it's a more subtle seam between planks than on the locker front. Next, the hinges (non-functional), which I made of card and a bit of sanded-down toothpick. Hinge design was inspired by a door in ChadB's Triton Cross-Section build (in post #46 there). It was easy to cut one card hinge to size, but I had a much harder time getting two that were the same. After a few failed attempts, and after accidentally cutting my one good hinge too short, I used the remains to make a guide hinge of thin basswood, then traced that onto card, cut them out, and painted them black--which I decided I liked better than the dark brown I used for the Cargo Canoa. Unfortunately, carelessness in the multiple rounds of tracing left the hinges much too wide. So, I trimmed one to size, also adding more of a taper along its length. The correct width is on the right, the too-wide one on the left. The difference is notable, I'm glad I didn't leave it as-is. The hinge barrels were made of a toothpick sanded down to a smaller diameter. With that, the hinges were assembled, and the locker/platform is complete!

This question probably betrays my lack of knowledge about kit design, but would a cross-section kit be feasible?

The frame pieces across the bottom (which, if I understand correctly from build logs of much more complicated ships, are called floors?) are in. I also added the cleats toward the bow that seem to have been common features of these vessels. As mentioned, the frame floors didn't take the stain nearly as evenly as the frame sides (futtocks? Timbers? I'm sure there's a correct term). This is very visible in the photo below. I'm not sure why this happened. The floors were certainly sanded as smoothly as the sides, which came out pretty even. It's not a problem because they'll be almost totally covered, but it's good to know for the future. In general, I've noticed that the thicker basswood, which is scrap leftover from the dory kit, doesn't take the stain as evenly as the thinner basswood sheet does. In evening up the sides, I did end up sanding off a bit of the stain at the ends of the frames. I'll need to restain this very carefully, especially as the stain tends to over-darken the end grain. At least the wales are already sealed so I don't have to worry about staining them. I will be experimenting with scrap pieces, and will try getting the stain from the pen onto a brush in order to have more control over staining.

Thanks! We did discuss the flooring earlier. If I'm understanding what you're suggesting, I think it would be a very good option. Each panel could be long enough to go across a couple frames, but without being so long as to be unwieldy. Interestingly, while poking around at some photos on the mediateca site, I came across an image I had forgotten about that does show the interior of a canoa, albeit a smaller fishing canoa. It's a little hard for me to tell whether it has flooring or not (other photos have shown that small vessels at times did not)--I'm not sure if the dark lines across the bottom are frames or the shadows of the crossbeams. https://mediateca.inah.gob.mx/islandora_74/islandora/object/fotografia%3A194349 Thanks!

After traveling again, I'm back at the build. On the Canoa de Rancho, I remade the frame piece that I earlier noted looked too blotchy. I also added a false stem made of 1/16-inch-thick basswood, and sanded it into a rounded triangular cross section. I decided that I liked the look of the "screws" on the locker, so I added them to the middle and bottom frame pieces. Unlike the test on the top frame piece, I didn't use a drill bit, which I think skated a bit on the surface and helped cause the unevenness in the line of holes there. Instead, I just used a needle as an awl. I think I came out more even, and it's a slightly more subtle look. I also darkened each hole with a sharp pencil. Upon consideration, I decided to go with the natural wood color for the hull interior. So, next, I coated the interior with sealer-varnish and glued in the side frame pieces, using clamps to hold them in place. I also glued in the locker front and the rear bottom cleat, as well as the rudder support beam running vertically across the exterior of the transom (not pictured). Next up, I'll be adding the bottom frame pieces, some cleats, and the mast step, and fabricating the locker lid/helmsman's platform. I'm happy with how it's coming, but there are a few challenges I see up ahead. First, a few issues with the bottom. While I haven't had trouble erasing pencil marks before, I was unable to erase the lines across the interior of the bottom. (Before you ask, this was before I added the sealer). I'm not sure if I let them sit too long before trying to erase or what, but the bottom will be very messy. Also, the floor pieces of the frames, which were stained, seem to have turned out blotchier than the side pieces. I don't think either of these issues will be much of a problem, as I will be installing floor paneling, and I plan on leaving only very small gaps between floor planks--the gaps on the Cargo Canoa are too large, I think. So, there will be very little visible beneath the floor planks. But, that brings me to the next issue: the layout of the floor planking. As I've discussed earlier, there are no photos of the flooring and what evidence there is about layout is vague. I'm operating on the assumption that the planks must have been removable so that the bilge could be drained. Earlier, I was intrigued by wefalck's suggestion that removeable deck pieces arranged across the breadth rather than lengthwise would be easiest to allow for removal and bilge drainage--longer pieces would be a bit heavy and awkward to remove. However, José María Angulo Sepulveda's drawing of a canoa--the only depiction of floor planking I have--does show lengthwise planks (although he only depicts them at the bow, going for a cutaway style aft, and of course I've noticed some inaccuracies and irregularities in the drawing). One option I'm weighing would be a hybrid solution. I could install a few removable planks running across the beam amidships, where bilge warer would be most likely to collect, especially around the mast step. I could then have lengthwise planking fore snd aft of this. BUT: this hybrid option is a bit complicated, which may not comport with my sources. Ramón Rubín's novel La canoa perdida doesn't provide much detail on the floor planking itself (he just refers to it as a "tarima de panel" (75), which unless I'm missing something is a pretty generic term for planked flooring). But he strongly implies that the flooring is very simple. For reasons too complicated to get into here, the novel's protagonist, Ramiro Fortuna ends up taking his canoa before the boat builder has fully finished it. Among other things, it still needs a tiller, a mast step, and the flooring. Although not a carpenter, Fortuna is able to make these himself or with a friend's help, with very simple tools, very quickly. Granted, this is for a small fishing canoa, not a Canoa de Rancho, but this suggests to me that the decking likely was made from whatever planks were readily available. A few other flooring notes: * If this vessel is intended for fishing, they have to expect to take on water. Nothing I've seen suggests that canoas had cambered decks, so if the deck was caulked, water could easily pool, which could be a problem. I think that leaving small gaps between planks for drainage to the bilge makes more sense. * Laying planks lengthwise over the frames strikes me as easier to do than laying them crosswise and having to prop up any that end up unsupported between frames. * Lengthwise planking is also how they planked the elevated foredeck, according to photos, which may suggest they would do the same for the main flooring. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

Good luck on the dissertation! Having recently been there myself, I don't envy you being in the writing phase. But it might be good to have a hobby to take your mind off it? In any case, the build is coming along quite well, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it finishes!

Bem-vindo, Viriato! Uma desculpa que meu portugues não é muito bem. Espero ver um "log de construção" em breve, e fotos na galeria dos modelos ja construidos. Eu gosto os embarcações tradicionais portuguesas. Também, eu deveria dizer que Modelshipworld tem uma política de falar em inglês para que todos possam comunicar-se, varias pessoas usam os traduçoes de Google sem problema.

Fantastic job, that looks excellent!

Hi Macika, welcome! You've probably seen this elsewhere here, but the Model Shipways beginner kits (in order, the dory, the sailing pram, and the lobster smack) are very reasonably priced, well-made, and have detailed, very useful instructions. There are also a lot of build logs for them, which is extremely helpful as you go along with the build. Midwest also has some reasonably-priced small vessels that seem to come together into nice models. Even a small rowboat can be surprisingly complicated to scratch-build well, and a good beginner's kit would also help with learning the terminology.

I've never used it, but I think it should come up if you google "pre-stain wood conditioner." There are also some threads showing people's tests comparing different stains with and without the conditioner, that would probably have more detail.

Excellent job, and your enthusiasm for the build really comes through in the log!

Short update before travel takes me from the build again. At this point, I can't really fine tune the joints between the pieces of the frames without having one frame stuck in place, so I'll need to attach the upright portions. I've stained them with the stain pen in preparation. Overall I think they turned out ok. One in particular is a bit blotchy--the piece split a bit during sanding and needed to be glued--so I might redo it. I also conducted an experiment with the locker front. The upper frame will be mostly covered by the lip of helmsman's platform, so I decided to try approximating screws there. I did so with the smallest drill bit I have, making a small and shallow hole. After the first few (from the left) started going a little awry, I realized I needed a straight edge. I used one, but it's still a little uneven. As the unevenness makes clear, I'll have to be careful if I decide to do this in a more visible location. I'm still deciding whether to do the rest of the frames like this, as a learning experience, or whether to leave it. I think I like the look, but only if I can get a straighter row--I should practice a bit more on scrap first.