Grand Banks Dory by ThirdCoast - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 1:16

[ThirdCoast]

This is my first build so I'm not sure how it will turn out but I'm excited to give it a go. I've gone with the Grand Banks Dory by BlueJacket which I've read here is a good introductory kit. I also really enjoy Windlow Homer's work so it just seemed like a great introduction. 

 

I had a little bit of confusion about what was supposed to be included in the kit because the listing suggested that there's a paint kit. I reached out to the BlueJacket team and they responded right away which was really nice. In the end I had to put in an order for the paint because it's not included. Not a big deal though. I wouldn't need the paint right away anyway and I was thinking to do something a little different with parts of the boat anyway.

 

A few things I'd like to do differently with my model:

• Instead of painting the hull in Middlestone like their display (which is maybe like a tan color?), I'd like to stain the outer planks. Minwax golden oaks most likely.
• The interior of the boat I'd still like to paint but I think the recommended Darkghost Gray might be a little too dark or too blue for my taste. I'm still waiting for the paint to arrive so I'm not sure yet how it will look in person yet but I would like the interior to be a much lighter color; maybe even white. I've been looking at existing dory's online to get an idea of how they're normally painted as I don't want to go too far away from what would be realistic.
• The kit comes with a line tub to be place into the boat which is realistic and nice but I'd like building a little lobster trap for it instead. I don't think this specific dory style was used for lobster trapping but I'm sure one of her coastal cousins was so I wouldn't be too far off.

 

The kit itself arrived a few weeks ago just before my work started to get really busy so I barely had time to have dinner and crash let alone start building.  It just sat on my desk and teased me every day:

 

From Maine to Chicago

 

I did take some time to look over the instructions and get familiar with the process as well as look through all the pieces to make sure that I had everything. It all looked great and except for a very boneheaded mistake when I accidentally bent a cracked a small wood strip that was supposed to go around the line tub. I rationalized it by remembering that I wanted to build a lobster trap instead but it would be nice to have the line tub done as well just in case. Maybe I can glue it back together?

 

And here I've build the five frames based on the awesome template that's included in the plan. It was really helpful to get them all lined up:

 

 

I'm not sure how much leeway I have because I've literally never built anything like this before so I'm probably over-checking the alignments. There are a couple joints that weren't sitting exactly flush because I probably didn't cut them well enough or the glue slipped so I used wood filler on them just in case. I have no idea if that even matters or not but I think they will be visible at the bottom of the boat so might as well:

 

 

I'll finish notching all the frames next once they're all glued together and then put them onto the framework with the hull.

 

Hopefully I can make small progress every week and I'll do my best to keep this updated. Thanks for visiting!

 

[Keithbrad80]

Looking forward to following this build, 

 

In my book every cut counts, so i try to get as close as i can to exact. Not every cut can be perfect though so wood filler works well, also there is usually no leeway on these types of plans, so precision is key. Good Luck!

 

Bradley

[MrBlueJacket]

A good choice for starting. Remember: "Putty and paint - makes it look like what it ain't" One of my favorite expressions, and so true.

[ThirdCoast]

I made a little progress today. I gave everything a nice sanding and attached the hull pieces. The one step I had trouble with though is how to attach the transom/stern cleat assembly. I couldn't quite see in the instructions where these parts are supposed to sit on the hull. Was the narrow transom bottom supposed to go flush on the back of the hull? Maybe the narrow end should sit outside? And which side of the cleat assembly should be attached to the hull? The longer side or the shorter side?

 

Pointing to the longer side of the stern cleat.

 

In the end, I did what I thought made the most sense but I sort of feel like if this is wrong, it will cause me headaches when I start planking next:

 

 

I then went ahead and attached all of the frames and everything seemed like it was coming together fine. But again I noticed something with the transom cleat where it's not centered exactly on the hull longwise:

 

 

I'm trying to decide if it's worth taking it off and realigning or if it'll work itself out (and just look a little wonky from the top looking in). This would be the time to adjust before planking.

 

I also stained the planks as well as the outside of the stem and stern. I used a Minwax pre-stain conditioner and then Minwax Golden Oak stain (a single coat). Here are the planks before staining (but after sanding):

 

 

And here they are after the conditioner and a single coat of stain. I stained the entire sheet because I was thinking to use some of the scraps here for the lobster trap down the road and thought it might be worth just doing it now:

 

 

There are some interesting patterns that started to come out of the wood. The top garboard in particular had some really dark areas that I'm hoping will look decent once they're attached. I wasn't sure if that was normal though. I thought the pre-stain conditioner would help make the stain come out more even but this could just be the wood itself. I considered adding a second coat of stain but I don't want the planks to compete too much with the dark mahogany band that will eventually get added.

I also did not add a protective finish yet because the only one I have is a "semi-gloss" and I'm really worried it'll be too shiny. I would rather have a matte finish so I'm holding off on that for now.

 

So that's where I'll probably stop for the day. Next up will be hull planking! 🤞

[ThirdCoast]

2 hours ago, MrBlueJacket said:

A good choice for starting. Remember: "Putty and paint - makes it look like what it ain't" One of my favorite expressions, and so true.

That's some great advice! 😄

[Keithbrad80]

Things are looking great! I’m looking forward to seeing how that stain looks after all the planks are installed. I will say that what looks like a minor miscalculation now may stick out like a sore thumb once planks are on. I would say it’s worth the extra time and effort to readjust that piece, unless You think it may damage things then you may just need some shims under the planks. Good luck!

[Friday Dog]

I am watching with interest, as I am making up my mind as to when and with what I start with. Will be fun to see how the natural finish ends up.

[ThirdCoast]

I've made some progress over the last week. When I last left off, I had added the frames and was about to start attaching the gunwale strips.

 

The plan asks that you plank the boat up side down with pins stuck through the stem, stern, and frame ends to help shape it. I actually found this to be a little difficult to do because either my pins were too weak or my cutting mat was too tough. I could not get them to stay put. It was a constant source of frustration as I was trying to attach the gunwales. I ended up having to put weigh ton the top of it to keep it down:

 

 

Even with my staining cans on it though, it was kind of a hassle. I thought about trying a board or something stiff underneath and then wrapping rubber bands around the entire thing to help form the shape but I didn't have the material to make a board.

 

The gunwale strakes were pretty easy to soften up by just soaking them for 15 minutes or so (I just used the bath tub with a little hot water on the bottom). They bent into place without much issue. Here I've already added both garboard planks: 

 

 

More planking with so many clothespins and rubber bands. You literally can not have enough of them.

 

 

I got my first real challenge when I realized that I wasn't properly beveling the planks as I was laying them down. And also I found that the gunwales needed to be formed at the ends as well even though it wasn't written in the instructions. If I didn't bevel or sand down the ends of the gunwales, then the planks would not sit flush against the stem. Here I'm showing a gunwale that I had to sand down at the end:

 

 

Another big issue was the stern positioning that I mentioned in my previous post. I didn't know exactly how to position it and I took a guess. Well, I'm pretty sure now that I guessed wrong. It was positioned way too far out so there was a big gap at the bottom that even the planking wouldn't cover: 

 

 

And another big mistake is not starting with planking from the stern and going up to the stem. Because of this along with the position of the stern itself being too far out, I found myself with quite a mess back there. I had huge gaps at the bottom and my planks were not aligning along the edges of the stern piece correctly.

 

I must have forgotten to take a picture of what it looked like after I put all the planks on but here's what it looked like after I had to "fix" my previous sins; a lot of sanding, filler, and more sanding (but at least it's all lined up now):

 

 

I will still need to stain it to match the outer walls but trust me when I say that it looks a great deal better than what it started out as. I definitely created a lot more work for myself but it was a good lesson.

 

After trimming the planks that were overlapping on the stem, I cut, stained, bent, and attached the gripe. I will trim it down after the glue has set:

 

 

It took a ton of rubber bands to get it to stay down:

 

 

After the gripe glue dries overnight and I've trimmed it down, I'll move onto the upper works (cutting down the frames, adding cap rails, etc.) throughout the week ahead. I've already decided to go forward with staining the outside instead of painting but I was thinking about doing another coat of stain because I wasn't sure if it was dark enough or not. I knew that it wasn't a super dark stain already but I kept looking at it wondering if it might be better to do another coat of stain. Here's a picture of the bottom which is still natural for comparison:

 

 

I will say though if you're also considering staining instead of painting, you'll find that many of your sins will not be easily covered. Someone said earlier, "Putty and paint - makes it look like what it ain't"... and that's really true. Any holes, glue, scratches, gaps, or any other small deviations will be super obvious with natural wood and you won't be able to easily paint over those flaws.

 

That's all for now! Thanks for checking out my log and I'll most likely see everyone again next weekend with another update. 

 

 

[AON]

great use of elastic bands.

I find I either haven't enough or they are too short.

I am also always worried the "timber" (sliver of wood) I am binding back to will snap off

[ThirdCoast]

@AON Yes that’s a really good point about them snapping off. It’s funny because I managed to do it for just about everything until the very last thing (the stem overlay piece). I was able to get it to glue overnight and about mid morning the next day (after I had posted my last update), I started to hear a slow creaking and then snap! Snap! Snap! Three of them came clean off. 😅

 

But my stem piece was already glued down and they snapped clean off exactly where I would need to trim them to anyway so win-win. It was a close call though! 

[ThirdCoast]

It's been a few weeks because I have not had any days off from work until today. I did manage to chip away at a few things whenever I had a little bit of time at night which I'll outline in this log entry.

 

When I left off, I had finished attaching the stem to the stern and had cut off all the frames even with the gunwale. The next instructions for "The Upper Works" comes at you fast and furious; install seat risers, make cap rails, paint interior, attach mahogany band, and drill cap rail for oar lock pins. It's a lot of stuff crammed into just a few sentences.

 

So I started out with the seat risers but I had quite a bit of trouble getting things to fit according to plan. Before I attached the seat riser band, I wanted to make sure the seats would actually fit on top of them. And as you can see, they absolutely wouldn't push down to where the plans say they should be glued. Also each seat was sitting in a significantly different level from one another as shown with my ruler line below: 

 

 

This was supposed to be the easiest part of the entire build but it was probably one of the most difficult to adjust when I realized none of them were lining up. I had to bring the seat rise strip up from where the plan outlines show them :

 

 

And had to sand/cut the seat notches inward so that they would slip down onto the rise evenly. I have just done a dry fitting here but I'll still need to push them down a bit in order to glue them into place:

 

 

Gluing them down at this point didn't make sense to me yet even though this is part of the first step in this section. Painting wouldn't be possible (or it would be really difficult) if I did. So I opted to not glue any of the seats down until I finished all of the other tasks in this section.

 

Next would be the gunwale strips which was also pretty challenging. They show that you just cut out chunks of wood and lay them across the gunwale strakes to shape and form. I thought I'd be smart about it and overlay some wax paper to save myself from using too much wood. And then use this as a template against the actual wood to cut out pieces to form the edges:

 

 

But I ended up not cutting enough wood so a lesson learned there. I had to add bits to the stem and stern as well as some wood filler here and there so take my method with a grain of salt. It's much easier to take wood away than to add it back.

 

 

That stick jammed between the seat riser strip and hull is where I cracked the seat riser strip while I was trying to sand/cut/glue the gunwales and I was bracing it while I tried to glue it back together. Another lesson learned here is to NOT glue that seat rise strip until after you have completed the gunwales. They are too brittle and will crack with just a little pressure in the middle.

 

I also finally got the "matte" finish I was waiting on to finalize the staining. I added a 2nd coat of stain (because I decided it was still a little too light for my taste) and then added the matte finish. I also built the stand that comes with the kit and stained that as well:

 

 

After this, I started the painting process. Because I decided to stain the exterior, I only needed to paint the deck and inside walls (I don't really know boat terminology well yet) but I was a little nervous doing it. I'm not super confident in the color option that's listed with the kit (ghost grey) and I was starting to think that the natural wood was looking pretty nice but I dove in started with the primer to see how it went from there.

 

So here is the entire inside painted with the primer:

 

 

And contrasting it with the stain I started to feel better about going ahead with painting:

 

 

After this drys, I'll do a couple more coats of the actual enamel they're calling "Ghost Grey". It's interesting though that the color that's recommended looks very similar to the primer itself. I could barely tell the difference between them (Ghost Grey on the left. Primer on the right):

 

 

I'm guessing that the actual enamel paint will bring a higher quality to the finish and also make it a little darker? We'll find out in the next update I guess because I've only had time to do the primer so far.

 

And while I'm waiting for paint to dry, I'll work on building the lobster cage and buoy that I wanted to build from scratch.  I started roughing out a couple of buoys but have no idea if I'm doing this correctly. I looked up what the average size of one should be and converted that to the model size. I went over to Home Depot today and bought a couple of dowels that were close to the size (1/2" diameter for the buoy itself and 3/16" diameter for the handle). I looked up some pictures online of what the shape should be so I'll probably just kind of eye ball it as I go along. Obviously still have a lot of trimming and sanding to do still:

 

 

So I guess some good progress all things considered. I'll finish up painting and then next add the mahogany strips, glue in the seats, and drill/set the oarlocks. Have a great week everyone! Till next time.

 

 

 

 

[Keithbrad80]

I’m about to start building one of these my self and I’m really enjoying your build! I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

Bradley 

[ThirdCoast]

 

Since my last update, I added the interior paint over the primer which turned out being slightly darker than the primer itself although honestly not a whole lot different. I thinned it a little but I had more than enough to get me through with extra to spare.

 

I also added the mahogany band:

 

 

In the instructions it looked like where the band meets the stem and stern, it was kept blunt but I decided to sand them down so that they curved with the hull:

 

 

After that I glued in the seats and installed the oar locks. I painted the oar lock wood white before cutting each one individually and rounded out the edges:

 

 

Here's how she turned out with an overview shot:

 

 

And a look at the plank stain against the grey interior:

 

]

 

I do kind of wish I had not gone darker on the plank stain because two coats basically made the entire thing the same wood shade as the mahogany band. But not really a big deal. I think it came out pretty nice anyway.

 

Now onto the final details and the sail. I'm not sure why but I'm not really looking forward to making the sail/rigging. I know this is a very entry level model and the most basic of riggings but it just doesn't excite me as much as working with all of the other parts. So I'm procrastinating a bit and made a couple of lobster buoys as well as started on the lobster cage and line bucket:

 

 

An old pill bottle works perfectly for shaping the circular wood strips for the lobster cage. I forgot about the center brace in the cage so I'm soaking another wood strip above and about to form it on the pill bottle to shape and dry overnight before continuing.

 

 

And here are my little buoys. I used the opportunity to try out a few different paint colors (as you can see one is matte and one is gloss). It was interesting to see how quickly some dried where others would take twice as long. And there was a big difference between thickness so it would take half a dozen coats for the red (for example) whereas the yellow only needed a couple.

 

[pwog]

Everything looks great! I can’t wait to see your lobster traps. 

[ThirdCoast]

I completed the accessories for my Dory. I think this is where you can introduce a lot of variations depending on the style you're after. From the beginning I decided that I wanted to build a lobster trap so I was able to create one from wood scraps in the kit. There weren't any instructions on how to do it so I just looked at pictures online and did my best estimation.

 

The size of the trap was something I wanted to make sure I got right though. A Google search told me that a trap is usually between 3'-4'. The conversion to match the Dory model would be simple then because it's 1" to 1' so that means that I should make mine 3 or 4 inches long. I opted for the smaller 3" size because it really is quite big compared to the model. In fact, I still doubted my dimensions so I went back and searched for examples of dorys with actual lobster traps and lo' and behold, those suckers do take up quite a bit of space in the boat:

 

 

 

So I moved forward with completing my pot based on my 3" estimate. I had some trouble getting the lobster entrance and trap funnels fashioned with the material I had on hand so I just skipped that part and mocked up mesh with some extra screen window I had laying around.

 

 

Next were the oars which gave me a whole lot of headaches (and hand aches). I wasn't sure the instructions were the best way to go with attaching scrap wood on the sides of the dole rod but I tried that first:

 

 

It was very hard to get the ends to be even so I abandoned that (for now) and tried a hybrid solid wood piece method:

 

 

But I didn't have proper tools to whittle it down flat. It was taking me forever and I just didn't have time to do it by just sanding. I had a small planer but even that just didn't work very well for the small piece. So I abandoned this method.

I then went back to the original plans and slapped two pieces of wood on each side of the dowel rod. It wasn't perfectly straight but I wood filled and sanded to the best of my (newbie) abilities.

 

 

It was a good first try and I think the next time I make oars, I'll have a lot more experience and patience to do them better. But in the mean time, here are my Dory oars:

 

 

All together, I have all of the accessories complete:

 

- Line tub

- Buoy

- Oars

- Lobster trap

 

 

The final step will be to finish the sail and place all of the accessories. Hoping to finish this one later today!

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by ThirdCoast

[MrBlueJacket]

That's a really good job of kit bashing.

[Keithbrad80]

This looks awesome! Nice work scratch building a few things your lobster trap looks great! What did you use for the net?

[pwog]

Everything looks great! Great job on the oars, trap, buoys, so cool. 

[ThirdCoast]

4 minutes ago, Keithbrad80 said:

This looks awesome! Nice work scratch building a few things your lobster trap looks great! What did you use for the net?

 

Thanks! I had a roll of window screen mesh left over from when we had to replace a bunch of screens in our place. It sets in there really well but it's too stiff to make the funnels like a real lobster trap would have. There's probably better material to use if someone really wanted to make it accurate.

 

1 hour ago, MrBlueJacket said:

That's a really good job of kit bashing.

 

Thanks! And now I know what "kit bashing" means. I feel like I'm part of a secret club now. 🙂

[ThirdCoast]

I thought I'd be able to finish earlier in the week but work picked up and the election was very distracting but I'm very close now.

 

I cut the sail based on the specs, hemmed it, sewed the vertical stitches, and glued the line around it per plans:

 

 

Sewing is a seriously difficult skill the master and one that I clearly have not. But that's ok. This was a great learning experience. The key take-away I learned is that I really don't like working with sailing and rigging. I think I know what my next build won't have. 😄

 

 

To create the two cleats in the plan, I copied their shapes onto wax paper and cut that out of a bit of scrap wood. These were pretty tiny and a little hard to shape as well as fit into the mast itself but I managed it in the end:

 

 

 

 

Getting all of it tied up with the provided string material served to be one of the most frustrating parts of this entire build. It was very slippery and tiny and I admittedly did not know the proper knots so I was mostly doing a lot of guessing here. By far the most frustrating part was the snotter which I really struggled to get the precise length between the two ends. I ended up using some of my own line that was thicker and easier to tie off. I'm convinced that it's not possible to do this with the provided material but someone with more skill can probably prove me wrong:

 

 

So I'm going to do a little but of touch-up and then take some proper photos with everything in the place next. Thanks all for your encouragement and knowledge along the way. I'm so excited about everything that I've learned in this first build and I can't wait to show off its final state next.

[Keithbrad80]

Wow your dory turned out very nice! I recently made two of my own that were a little smaller but didn’t turn out as nice as yours! Your next build, the Ernest Hemingway Pilar, is it the kit by Constructo? That is a very nice kit and I’m looking forward to following your build. 

 

Bradley 

[pwog]

Sewing is definitely a skill. You did well. I can’t wait to see the final pictures. I’m glad you enjoyed the build. I enjoyed following along. 

[ThirdCoast]

4 hours ago, Keithbrad80 said:

Wow your dory turned out very nice! I recently made two of my own that were a little smaller but didn’t turn out as nice as yours! Your next build, the Ernest Hemingway Pilar, is it the kit by Constructo? That is a very nice kit and I’m looking forward to following your build. 

 

Bradley 

 

Thanks Bradley! Yes, that's right. I have selected the Pilar by Constructo as my next build. I'm hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew with it but I'm up for a challenge. I'll make sure to start a build log once I start digging in. 👍

[ThirdCoast]

I'm officially declaring my first build complete! This has been a really interesting hobby and I'm glad that I allowed myself this experience. I don't think that I would have been able to complete it to any satisfaction level without all of the resources available here so I dedicate it to Model Ship World and everyone who has contributed to its depth of knowledge. I'm especially grateful for the various build logs (both for this Bluejacket model and also other variations of the Dory) to help guide me further where my inexperience was a blocker. Thanks everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cat tax!! Thanks for reading! 👋

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by ThirdCoast

[pwog]

Beautiful! You did an awesome job. I love the addition of the lobster trap, bucket and buoy!

[MrBlueJacket]

Congratulations Jami!

 

Your customer file now shows 10% off the next kit you buy from us.

 

Nic

 

[ThirdCoast]

13 hours ago, MrBlueJacket said:

Congratulations Jami!

 

Your customer file now shows 10% off the next kit you buy from us.

 

Nic

 

 

Thanks Nic! I'm sure I will be seeing y'all again soon! 

[Reg]

Great build and very well documented.

 

Greg

[ThirdCoast]

BONUS LOG POST

 

Even though this build is finished and I've already started my second, I wanted to do a quick follow up. I started to think about how this was my first experience with building model ships and, even though there is a lot of great content on MSW about the tools and material you'll need to get started, I was still kind of fumbling around as I went along. A lot of things maybe aren't really needed at this level and there were also a few things along the way that I found that I needed to modify this specific kit (like adding buoys). I was also curious to see how much it truly cost to get started in general. 

 

With that said, I put together a spreadsheet listing all of the things that I ended up buying and a few things I already had on hand. This probably isn't exhaustive but it did give me a good idea of what I had gotten myself into to the tune of $268. 😅

 

Of course your mileage may vary if you already had these tools on hand or were a lot more thrifty than myself and of course I'll continue to use the things I've purchased on my future builds but it was a fun exercise none-the-less.

 

Here is the spreadsheet I've put together listing everything I ended up using: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B-zNSLKuHEUt4c7CFK2Y5I9cFCGc4rRx3KkvFEBp1sA/edit#gid=0

 

Maybe it will help the next new model ship builder that comes along. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by ThirdCoast

[turangi]

Beautiful build and the spreadsheet idea was brilliant, although I didn't see labor on there! Look forward to your next build.