SiriusVoyager

Your boat looks great! That was a good idea on painting the deck before adding anything else to it. I will have to do that myself.

Installing the deck was quite tricky. The instructions said to wet one side so the wood would be easier to bend. I would suggest lightly wetting both sides. The wood curled so much it became difficult to work with. It took quite a few tries to finally get the port side of the deck on to the frames. I found that gluing from the center out worked better than to try and glue all at once. A small paint brush was able to easily get the glue between the frames and the deck. I used a 1/4in dowel (leftover from the pram) to stand in for the mast. After everything had dried I realized that I messed up. The deck was not lined up properly on the frames. After laying down the starboard half of the deck for a dry fit, it was very clear that the port side deck would need to be redone. The frames shouldn't be protruding past the deck and the inboard edge of the deck as well over the center line of the spine. This was my first time ungluing anything at this scale. Fortunately the isopropyl alcohol worked pretty well at loosening the glue and I was able to separate the deck from the frames with an exacto knife. The second attempt was much better. There was a bit of a gap down the center line and I had to choose whether I wanted the bow or the stern to not quite line up. I figured the bow might be easier to correct since it is smaller. I am not sure why the two halves didn't line up properly. My guess is that the spine isn't perfectly straight. A little carving, wood filler and sanding took care of everything. It still needs a little fine tuning, but I will take care of that as needed. I was a little concerned that my bow transom wasn't fitting properly with the deck and the frame, but after sanding everything down, I think it looks how it is supposed to look.

The next step is installing the cockpit seats. The supports needed a lot of sanding to fit properly. There was a bit larger gap between starboard and aft seats than I liked. Fortunately a little wood filler helped with that. I painted the inside of the cockpit golden brown. I think my cockpit floor may be a bit off level, but I don't think it will be noticeable in the end.

Thank you! Funny, I looked over at the frame drying in a vise and thought to myself that one of the teenagers is going to walk by and snag his hoodie on it.

Time to add the frames. Most of them fit pretty well but there a few that needed attention. #1's slots were too made too deep. I used a tiny piece of rolled up paper towel to hold frame 1 up. Frame #4 is the one with two pieces. The support piece attached earlier didn't allow for a proper fit so I had to deepen the slots. Frame #10 needed to be beveled to match the slope of the spine, which was expected. (only partially beveled in the photo). Frame #10 also needed to have the aft transom attached. The cockpit floor ... also needed to be installed with the frames. I can see a few spots now that every frame is in place that aren't quite level, but I think that can be fixed with some sanding when the deck is installed. There are also a few spots on the spine that I am noticing aren't quite straight. It is only slight bent so hopefully I can straighten it out with the keel and decking later.

I found that both sides of the spine were labeled as the port side so I just arranged them so that the etched sides would be facing out. The instructions called for parts from sheets 1,2 and 3 but it didn't look right, so I used a part from sheet 4 that seemed to align more with the photos. I don't think it would matter which side you used as long as everything was facing the right way. I like having the bow to the left. The pull rod for the center board ended up not lining up exactly with the precut guide holes so I had to cut them out a bit. It wasn't very clear which side the pull rod should go. The instructions say to make sure that the rod goes through the port side (both were labeled port side.) The only way that makes sense to me is to have the rod go through the open side of the spine which fortunately is on the actual port side. The instructions say to press everything down. This is very important as the glue caused the thin wood to warp a bit. It is difficult because the spacers are thicker than the spine. Fortunately when adding the starboard side spine I was able to flatten and straighten everything out.

This is my third model after completing the Dory and the Sailing Pram. I started out by checking the inventory. I found a couple discrepancies on the two inventory sheets with wood thickness and laser cut sheet labels. After inspecting the sheets and checking the instructions I think they are typos on the inventory rather than errors on the actual parts. I cannot tell of the copper wire bundle is both the 24 guage and 18 guage, but I will deal with that when I get to those steps.

Hello everyone. I'm Eric and I have been lurking for a few months. I was a bit overwhelmed by the wealth of information here at first. I tried modeling in my 20's but was way to impatient for it at the time. Now that I am in my 40's, I am still impatient but I think I can slow down enough to do this now. I have built the first to models of the Model Shipways 3 kit series and am just starting the Muscongus bay lobster smack. I wish I would have done a build log for the first two boats. They definitely have flaws but no one would mistake them for airplanes or anything so I am satisfied. The most important thing is that I have learned a lot while building them. I look forward to contributing here in the future!