SiriusVoyager

First level deck planking completed. My intention was to do a 1324 pattern, but after about 6 rows I realized I was doing a 1234 pattern. I decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth to change it since it won't be easily seen when two more levels are added. For caulking I first attempted to use pencil lead on multiple strips being held together. That didn't really work very well because most of the strips didn't get any pencil lead on them. I then decided to try black paint. That didn't work well either because the paint spread too much. I went with the more time consuming method of running a pencil along each individual edge. The remnants of which can be seen on the marked up scrap wood. I gave it a once over with sand paper, but everything always looks worse once you look at it in a photo so I will go over it again prior to varnishing.

The next step is to plank the deck. The instructions call for laying all of the planks and then drawing on the caulking. I decided to cut the planking and do a 1324 pattern. The deck is just over 11mm across and the strips are 4 mm wide which means I will need 7 of each size to get started. The instructions call for each plank to be 50mm, so I will use that length. That means the lengths for the four starting planks will be 12.5mm, 37.5mm, 25mm and 50mm. Upon measuring the strips to cut the 50mm planks, I found that each of the "300mm" strips are closer to 299mm. Of course I found this out after I cut the smaller planks. I hate wasting material unnecessarily. I also found that no matter how carefully I measured and cut, all of my planks vary in length by about a mm. I suppose in theory, if I place them randomly it should all average out and not be noticeable.

Props to you for jumping right in! I wish I could have had the patience for this when I was a kid. Don't let it get you too frustrated and keep finding creative ways to get things done. As far as your mom and the iron, it may be worth asking. Ironing wood should be no different than ironing cotton as far as the iron goes.

This will be my 5th ship/boat model. I wanted to keep things fairly simple and focus on improving model building skill. This model isn't based on any specific ship and is supposed to be representative of a 17th century Spanish Galleon. I know from some other build logs that there are historical inaccuracies. I am not sure how much I will focus on that as my intent is to focus on technique. I may make some changes inspired by some of the other build logs I have seen here. My first impression opening the box was that everything looked very clean and well packaged. I am not very thrilled about not having paper instructions and plans. I downloaded the instructions to my phone and will have to use my computer if I need to look at the high res images on the CD (that is actually nice having those). Getting started, some of the outer layer of plywood broke off while cutting out the four frames. I also found that two of the frames were bent, one sort of significantly. I was able to flatten them out using some water and an iron while giving it a bit of bend in the opposite direction. I started attaching the frames to the false keel. I probably should have started with the inner frames, but it was fine. The outer frames weren't supported on the outer edges by the false keel so care was needed to make sure that they were straight and square. Middle two frames sub deck sheets fit perfectly

Welcome to MSW!

I may have had to repaint my dagger board after installing. The pram is looking great! Your paint looks good to me.

That is a very nice looking tug!

The oars for my Dory looked like the machine was shaking as well. It was pretty bad. I felt like the quality control was lacking, but like you, so many praised these kits so I thought maybe I just got an off one. Sounds like it may be a common problem, at least with this particular series of models.

Looking very nice

The finished product. Every build is a chance to gain experience, learn something new and hopefully get a bit better for next time. It may be a while before I try weathering a boat again.

Welcome to MSW. I haven’t built plastic models since I was a kid, so I basically started with zero experience. I’m still not that great at it after [almost] four models, but I am still enjoying the experience. You will do fine.

That is a very nice looking Dory. Great job on your first boat model.

It was now time to install the pieces onto the deck. I had a slight issue on the bow with the forward hatch not fitting properly. I am not sure if the parts are just off or if I assembled something incorrectly. The front hatch should face forward, but it was way too close to the wheel house. I decided to turn it around to face the other direction. I figure that since this isn't a model of a specific boat I can take some artistic license there. I also assembled and rigged up the trawling winch. I tried to make it a look a bit rusty, but it sort of looks like there was an unfortunate accident. We won't talk about it... I think I tied the lines upside down. Making the masts The instructions appear to simply tie the blocks to the boom and presumably glue them into place. I didn't like that because it just didn't seem like a very good way to to go about it. I also wanted to secure the blocks with wire. I used a round file to notch the boom for the blocks. Sorry about the blurry photo. The mast is supposed to have a few brass bands around it at the eyelets. I think OcCre shorted me a brass strip. I used some brass tape and it worked pretty well. I think it made for a better band than I would have made trying to bend a strip around the mast. The forward eyes for the fore stays should have been drilled earlier. I couldn't really drill partially in from the inside so I drilled through the stem and made rivets. I ran into a little problem where the mast goes into the deck. There is a small piece of the spine/bulkheads blocking the hole. I am not sure how I could have made this error since everything lines up pretty will from the factory tabs and slots. To solve this I cut a small piece from the mast. I took the measurements off of the plans, which was a mistake. I should have measured off of the actual model. I simply glued the piece back on and trimmed it to the proper length. Main mast and light pole installed. Boom installed and rigged. The instructions were not very clear how the rigging was supposed to go between it and the main mast. The only way that really made sense was to use one piece of line from the end of the boom, up to the two sheave block, back down to the block mid boom, back up to the two sheave block and down to the cleat. The parts list for the lines going from the boom to the sides of the ship listed line that was too short to be useful so make sure to add 50mm or so. The sheaves in the blocks were not large enough to get the line through so I had to widen them out with a small round file. The fore stays and back stays were straightforward. The last steps will be to finish the Jacob's latter and touch up some painting. The whites are a little too white for a working boat so I will dirty them up a bit.

Double check the instructions. It probably said glue and sawdust mix to fill gaps. I learned about that trick from this kit as well, and it worked fairly well for me when I had a gap that also needed to be bonded.

As far as the bulwarks, Occre's can definitely be tricky. Definitely line them up as best you can, but fortunately you be planking over them, which can cover up small alignment errors. I do have one suggestion about planking that I think Occre does wrong in their instructions. They have you plank both layers prior to placing the keel. I would suggest attaching the keel to the first layer of planking, then install the second layer of planking. I followed the instructions and had a problem where the keel didn't fit properly over the planked hull, and I didn't have a good way to fix it. By installing the keel prior to the second layer of planking, if something isn't shaped quite right, it can be filled in, then the second layer planking can be shaped to fit around the keel covering the filler.