MBerg

Awesome job on the stand! Really adds to it. I may need to steal your ideas when I get to making mine. I appreciate your log in this one.

Once again, I appreciate the response. One last question - I was given a 'wood conditioner' with the kit. This is strictly a pre-stain and has nothing to do with the painting process - is that correct?

@Jim M that's interesting, I'll look a bit into it. So is the idea to seal the wood with shellac then paint over it as mentioned above? I haven't come across something like this yet,is it what's typically done on plastic models which is why it's sealed first? I see Mr surfacer is meant for plastic (thought I might be looking at the wrong thing,I only did a quick Google)

Time, for an update, but first I have a few questions. Unlike the dory, I'll be priming this one. I have both Occre and ME primers show below: 1. Instructions suggest spray on primer (eg. Rust-Oleum primer) - Should I buy some of that instead of brush on? 2. If I don't use spray primer, does the brush on primer need to be thinned similar to the paint? 2a. Is one better than the other between ME & Occre or is this more of a personal preference/doesn't matter type of thing? Log #9 - Row locks, rub rails, dagger board, rudder, thwarts Progress has been slow, but it has been. I enjoyed making the row lock pads, I find a lot of kit modelling is sanding off char and then sanding some more so it was nice to do a little carving, even though it was incredibly basic. They're straightforward, as is the rudder gudgeon pad. I clamped a block of wood and used an 'upside down' chisel blade to carve them, then clamped to drill them out and cleaned up. The rub rails are self explanatory, nothing special here, and the pads glued in place. It was nice to have some of the work on the thwarts done from earlier steps. All that was left was to sand down the width of the middle thwart. I already fit the forward and aft thwarts, they just need some cleaning up to take the char & edges off. Sanding the rubber went smoothly. However, it felt like I sanded the daggerboard for an eternity, and it still isn't as loose as I'd like. I'm trying to avoid it getting jammed in place once painted and installed. I feel like I've taken off enough thickness from the daggerboard, I'm going to try filing down the inside of the daggerboard case some more to make for a looser fit before painting. In a full shot up above you can see I still hadn't finished the tiller slot on the rear transom yet. I wasn't sure what to do with this yet since the instructions incorrectly stated a 3/8" file (I believe it's probably 3/16" as mentioned by at least one other). Rather than buying a file for this purpose, I wrapped a piece of sandpaper around my brush handle and sanded it out that way. This worked fine and is complete now (no picture). If I remember right, I believe I need to complete the dagger board 'stop', add the midship thwart 'retainers' and refine the remaining thwarts before I'm ready to paint. I'm keeping my eye on the price of the PROXXON Disk Sander TG 125/E as I feel like it'll be a nice first power tool to add. I believe it'll help with cleaning up char and more importantly getting precise angles that I sometimes struggle with. If anyone has an experience with it, or other recommendations I appreciate any input! Thanks for following, Matt

I think he's referring to the notch for the tiller. I found 3/8" to be massive also and thought they meant 3/16". The etch mark is closer to that size. I skipped that part until I assemble the tiller then I'll fit it and decide which way to proceed. Looks like Scott used 3/8" above which doesn't look bad at all.

Holy cow. Incredible job. I only just jumped in the last few weeks here, but I appreciate the intricate details none-the-less.

Jumping in on this log so I can see another person finish this build before I do . The dory looks great. I have a second one and may go back to make a diorama, where did you get the figure?

It's been a while so I figure I might as well post an update on where I am. It kind of looks like I bought a sailboat and took off! That is not the case. I ended up spraining my thumb at a golf tournament (who said golf wasn't a sport?), while waiting for that to heal, I had a week long business trip, and now that it's slowly getting better, we were just slapped with a nasty bug for the past week and a half. I'm still battling with some serious chest congestion so needless to say I don't want to wear a respirator or do anything that conjures up sawdust to be inhaled. I have made a small amount of progress both before I injured my thumb and before I got sick. The thumb is still not 100%, but it's close enough I should be able to keep moving along carefully once these lungs clear up. This will be a short log, but will bring up to where I am today. Log #8 - Floor cleats, mast step, chainplate slots Floors cleats are pretty straightforward. Wet them, bent, cut down, then glued in place: Next, the mast step. It seems people are receiving different version of this, but mine had a hole in one piece, with the second being solid (which is what the instructions call for). I was incredibly careless when gluing it together. I clamped the sides to even them out, and then clamped it long ways to achieve the same. This was a bad idea. The force of the clamp snapped both pieces right in half. It wasn't dry at all yet so I quickly added a bit of glue on the broken ends and fit it back together clamping it to the table so it dries flat. The instructions say to glue it in place and then sand the ends down. I couldn't do this since it was shorter than the frames. Either: 1. The piece as provided is short, or 2. The frames aren't in the right spot. I did not use the instruction book since I already know it's printed out of scale, but I used the PDF download and printed scale from that to place them. So they should be correct. In any case, I don't see that either problem will affect the end result too much. Chainplate slots weren't too bad, but they were tedious. I marked out the location, drilled a hole as per instructions, but I couldn't simply 'poke' the saw blade through as the instructions imply. I had to kind of repeatedly attack it with the saw, a brooch and an X-Acto. Eventually I got the saw through and wow, those blades I got are super dull, they only cut on one stroke and not very well. Got it done eventually. That's all for the build now. I have a driveway dumpster coming this week and will be doing a serious garage and workshop clean out. I may take a 'break' to move the shipyard out into one of those spaces as a larger, more permanent setup. That, or I'll wait until I finish this thing and start fresh out there with the smack. Here's some shots of the lovely aurora we had the other evening:

Congrats! The end result looks very good!

Very nice output, Dan!

This is a dream build. Incredible work so far 👍

Not the clearest instructions for a beginner build. Sometimes takes trial and error or a lot of pondering face until the ah ha moment. I'm glad it's been helpful, and happy to do my best to answer any other questions.

Well when you put it that way! 1975 Siren 17 Needs a bit of cleaning up, but in good shape. Now my need to learn rigging and nautical terms has accelerated - Good thing I have two hobbies revolving around the same!

Hoping aboard this one, looks like an interesting kit that's similar, but different enough from the Shipwright Series dory. Looking good so far, keep it up!

Log #7 After some thought, I decided to place the second set of forward supports quite a bit higher than the first set. It was time to get a little creative, even at the risk of things looking a bit messy. However, since the end result would be hidden under a thwart, I felt it was worth the risk. I needed to get the first and second set of supports on the same level. First, I had to raise the supporting area on the first set of frames. I carefully cut and glued in some small pieces. Once the glue dried, I used some wood filler to blend them in with the existing support. After the filler dried, I sanded it down as best I could to make the two pieces look like one. I think it worked out quite well, and once the paint is applied, it may not even be noticeable. In the meantime, I cleaned up and reshaped the rest of the supports. Aside from all the other distractions that summer brings, I hit a bit of a mental block with these thwart frames, which took me a while to get through. They were perfectly shaped to the hull, but only in a position that left them far too high, so I ended up needing to reshape every contour. I feel it would've been better to make these from scratch, but my wood supply, skills, tools, and 'workshop' aren't at that level yet. Nevertheless, I worked through it and completed this portion. I also spent some extra time rough-shaping some of the thwarts to help line up the height and evenness. This took quite a bit of time but will save me a ton of time once I'm ready for the final fitting. The floorboard cleats are bending as I type this. Once I trim and fit them, I'll start shaping the transoms. While I was pulling the wood for these, I realized I hadn't done an inventory. So, I took the extra time to inventory both the pram and the smack. I'm missing both of the 3/32" square pieces from the pram. I'll order some from ME; worst-case scenario, if I need them before they show up, I can steal them from the smack. P.S. I decided to learn how to sail and bought a cheap, old boat - I'll post a picture in a more appropriate area. 🙃