MBerg

Very interesting, thanks for the heads up, I'll be following yours as well. Funny, I'm already thinking about such things - my wife has a craft cutter so I was just asking if it could cut wood. I have a few years experience with both 3D and 2D CAD as well. Might be handy one day. I skimmed a bit of Chucks Speedwell post and will definitely be going back, very impressive. Appreciate it.

Very brief update: I just took apart and cleaned up the two frames. Having a bit of experience doing this will no doubt help in the future. Soaking them in a closed container with 95% alcohol for an hour then gently wiggling them apart. I used tweeters and a blade to separate the frames. It worked great, and just needed a bit of scraping to get the rubbery glue residue off. 👍

Log #3 Redoing a couple frame assemblies. I noticed, like others, that the instruction book isn't printed to scale so the frame template doesn't quite line up. With that, I downloaded the PDF and printed it out myself. Had I been at the office this week, I would've used our plotter. Since I'm at home, I had to mess with the settings and the best I got was a hybrid between two pages (since the PDF doesn't have the template as its own separate page). It worked, but you can see in the pic the bottoms of 1, 3, 5 are cut off. I left these to dry just before I went to bed. Well, subconsciously I must've really wanted to take something apart. In the morning, I noticed a couple of the frames were glues very cooked. Assemblies 3 and 5 shown below were the worst. I assembled them into the building board and thought about moving ahead, but decided to redo these two frames - they're now soaking in alcohol. In hindsight, Since the template I printed had the bottom cut off, I feel this contributed to me not lining these two frames up right. They were also the first two frames I put together. For whatever reason, I was more focused on the right angles where they meet the building cross piece than I was making sure the two pieces of frame were flush where they meet. Ultimately, my decision to redo was based on: Aside from #3, these are to have bevels sanded on them - having them so uneven will create a pretty sloppy, staggered bevel. The char isn't a great gluing surface and a lot of it wouldn't be removed when beveling which could compromise the strength and lead to unforeseen issues later. Even though the worst part will be hidden when glued to the rest of the boat, the frames wouldn't be at the correct angle and are closer together than they should be. I didn't want to risk this creating excessive gaps and bends when planking. I'm expecting to get the frames reassembled soon, but I'm playing catch-up with work today, and the wife's birthday is tomorrow so I'll have to play the rest of it by ear. Thank you, druxey for the peace of mind. This also led to my decision to err on the side of caution to redo the frames since they'll directly affect the shape of the bottom board.

Log #2 Attaching the stem and transom. Things are getting a bit wonky. Side note: I was expecting the shipment from OcCre to show up yesterday with a different set of tools & cutting mat. Seems the goofballs at FedEx sent it to France to sit there for a day and a half, then when it landed on this side of the pond, it ended up in NJ instead of Canada. I figured maybe they'd get it to Canada by morning and deliver today, but seems it sat there for 12 hours then shipped south to Tennessee! I can only imagine it's being loaded onto a flight north - hoping it shows up tomorrow - two days late. I'm a little eager to get the extra tools, but I'm definitely having fun with what I have. I didn't realize how time consuming cleaning up all the tiny parts would be. If I can somehow replicate a 1:24 version of myself it may be a bit easier holding them. I'm sure things will be easier once tools, proper wood stations and a hodgepodge of improvised sanding sticks, blocks and sponges are acquired. For now I'm making do by doing with the sanding stick and some extra sandpaper. I found wrapping it around the X-Acto handle works okay for some of the curves, but I'll definitely need something a little better. The instructions suggested using a square edge or right angled wood block. The square I have didn't quite work so I found an old block in the garage, checked the ensure it was square and went to town. The stem went on fairly smoothly. I don't know what I did with the transom knee, but the transom ended up sitting ridiculously crooked (Good thing I dry fit first!). (EDIT: That is, the bottom of the knee where it meets the board wasn't square when I sanded it. So when placing it on the board it tilted the transom off to the side). I couldn't use the right angle block / sanding stick combo anymore since I already glued the transom to the knee and cleat so I ended up eyeballing it flat. That part freaked me out a bit, but I'm happy with the end result after doing it by hand. On top of that, I also noticed that not only was there a bit of a side to side rock in the bottom as mentioned in Log #1 - there is also a 'twist' to the whole thing. I'm not sure how I didn't realize that yesterday. It's fairly minimal and I decided to keep moving along as it may flatten out a little when putting the rock in the bottom on the next step; Aside from that, I'll do the best I can to keep things straight when framing & planking (fingers crossed). In any case, I now have something getting a little less like a surfboard and slightly more like a boat. I finished up by wetting the bottom, laying spacers under each end and placing a stone weight in the middle. The instructions called for 1/8" spacers. I used the frame spacers (1/16" each) and double stacked them on each end note: do not do this if you plan to assemble the frames while this sits as you'll only have 1 spacer. Now to let it dry. The next steps involve the building board and frames which I may start on later tonight.

Log #1 I managed to get into it last night and plan to do a bit more today, but I'll start with updating where I left off. Progress is slower than I expected, but I'm taking my time and don't have a real permanent setup yet. I don't have an issue with how long it's taking, I'm just enjoying myself. The wife let me take apart a framed picture (not the wedding photo though) and pull the glass out to use for the build so at least I have some sort of basic cutting surface to get started. I kinda had to get used to cutting the pieces out and was working with a mix between scoring, sawing and putting pressure until they popped. I'm not sure what the typical method is, but at least it worked. I found sanding on the glass a bit tricky as the wood sort of 'stuck' to it, so I ended up holding the wood and moving the sanding stick. They give you a solid bottom to start with or three separate pieces that you can choose to glue together. I opted for the three planks and will save the solid piece as a backup or scrap. After gluing, the bottom didn't end up being perfectly flat, I noticed some of the wood had slight curves while assembling. I tried holding down the parts with my hands for a minute, but at the same time was trying to clean up the glue. It ended up being a little messy between two of the boards as I guess I waited too long and/or didn't use enough water. I probably could've used a wetter brush, but I was concerned about diluting the glue too much so I was pretty conservative. Obviously this will be something that practice will help get a feel for. I had a thought about practicing disassembly and re-gluing, but decided against it, I don't think it will affect the end result too much. Once that dried, I added the cleats. This part took a little while. I had to get used to measuring and cutting the wood with what I had and basically just lined up the wood with the etching on the bottom board, then marked it with a mechanical pencil and worked my way through it with the X-Acto. The instructions/history lesson talked about boats not having 90 degree angles to a void injury, etc. Makes sense, I'm in manufacturing, we do the same thing so I took extra time to chamfer all four top edges of the slats. I also tapered the sides of the first and last to conform to the shape of the hull a little bit as well. It's such a tiny detail, I highly doubt anyone without a magnifying glass will see it, but at least I'll know it's there! As mentioned, I have an extra recovery day today so I should be able to get another post in with some more progress. I'm a little nervous about getting the transom and stem on straight and lining up the planks as these are common issues. Hopefully it goes smoothly, but even if it doesn't you learn more from mistakes and corrections than you do from everything going perfect! Which reminds me of deciding to start with this 'beginner' boat and not thinking much of it, but after reading others logs, and starting it myself, this boat is really growing on me and I'm very excited to continue building it. Thanks for letting me know, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for your logs @Frank Burroughs Agreed! Had I have started this 10-20 years ago I'd probably be way more worked up about getting every detail just perfect the very first time. Over the years, I've learned to make my perfectionist side take a back seat, it's a lot more calming that way. I know I'll be happy with the end result no matter how it goes - even if it goes terribly, terribly wrong, it's fairly cheap to order a replacement kit. Thanks for the comments and following along.

Pre-Log My first kit arrived yesterday. Not the greatest timing since I have a lot going on, but I decided to check things out tonight. I got a little temporary work space set up tonight, and since I have a biopsy early in the morning tomorrow, I didn't get into anything serious. I did open it up and took inventory of all the parts & tools, and started reading into the instruction book. I've been eagerly awaiting this since I ordered it sometime last week. I'll also be getting an OcCre Polaris expecting tomorrow which will come with a cutting board and some other tools this Dory kit didn't come with so I should be in a good spot to start. I'm very excited and a little nervous to get into it, but my mind is a little occupied with my procedure tomorrow. I'll be pretty drugged up; but if it wears off quick enough I may be able to take the first step or two tomorrow evening. If not, I expect to get into it Thursday. I'm not going to list them all, but I appreciate all the other build logs I've read through, they've been incredibly helpful. I may have gotten a little obsessive about going through them and psyched myself out a little bit when it comes to certain steps though! That may not be a terrible thing since I'll be extra aware of common issues. I'm already starting to remind myself that this is my first model and is not going to be perfect, however I still like to take care in what I do.

I have mine in the mail and am browsing builds to learn while I wait. What is CA in this context? some sort of adhesive? Great job on your first build btw!

Hello Everyone, I've been thinking of way to keep me off TV, computer, and phone in the evenings and recently decided to try building some models. It's something I've always been fascinated with, but figured I would never have the time or patience to do it until I was retired. I just turned 40 a month ago, and am currently going thorough some medical issues and I think this will be a good escape from that. I live in the countryside with my wife and 3 year old daughter. I have next to no modelling experience, but enjoy building and working with wood. The most interesting thing I've done was make an English long bow style bow and arrows. To start, I was looking at the 3 skill level tiered boats from Model Expo (shipwright series), or the Polaris from OcCre. Both come with tool kits. After a couple indecisive days, I went and ordered both. They seem to have different yet useful tools, so I feel this will be a great start. Even if I end up moving onto other things and not finishing, it won't be a terrible financial loss. My plan is to build the shipwright series dory (top picture), then order the skill II and skill III kits together. I'll either complete both of those before going onto the Polaris (bottom picture) or do the Polaris in between (I noted the OcCre Polaris says it takes 120 hours and after speaking with Model Expo, it seems the dory can be completed "in a few evenings"). Any comments about that are welcome, for now I'll just play it by ear. I read the post about finding a mentor, I'm not sure how to go about that, but I'll ask around should I really get into this. (or feel free to jump in if someones looking for a protege 🙃) I'm looking forward to being here, and very excited for the first models to arrive. I hope this hobby sticks, and strikes a nice balance between challenging enough to keep the boredom away, but I can pick the skills up quick enough to not walk away frustrated.