Captain John Smith's Shallop by Dsmith20639 - Ships of Pavel Nikitin - 1:32

[Dsmith20639]

Decided not to wait until I was finished with other projects to begin working on this kit. I have looked at several construction videos on youtube which make the construction look straightforward and easy,  but not it appears if you are heavy-handed and fat-fingered like myself. I thought I would be careful by dry-fitting the components of the first jig before gluing it together. I immediately had a problem as the tabs did not fit easily into their corresponding slots without a little pre-sanding. After a while, I gave up on the idea of dry fitting first and began the disassembly of the jig. It did not come apart easily due to the tight fit of some parts and I was too rough and clumsy and ended up breaking two of the long MDF parts at their weakest (thinnest) points.  I HATE MDF as I had similar issues with the MDF parts in my Fifie frame build, let alone the toxic dust when sanding the stuff. Unfortunately, it seems that the newer kit manufacturers are using more of it. For dimensional stability and cost, I assume. However, it seems to be subject to breakage in situations where real wood would just naturally flex, and pin holding ability in what would be the equivalent of end grain in real wood. I then managed to glue together the first jig with some minor damage caused by my being too heavy-handed with my hammer when trying to force a few stubborn tight-fitting parts instead of recognizing when I was getting into trouble and backing off when I should have. Anyway, I managed to complete the first jig, glued up the keel components after removing the laser char, and began construction of the individual frames. The frame pieces have laser markings to guide you in sanding for the hull fairing (which is a nice feature) however it takes some thought when assembling each frame to know how to orient the parts correctly when gluing up each frame in its jig. Hope I'm doing it right. An additional laser mark on the part or instructional note on which end goes down first in the jig would make the process less error-prone. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the construction diagrams save needing to have instructions in multiple languages, but I believe there are situations where a combination of both is needed.  I have similar issues with the instruction manual for my Amati Fifie kit where there are lots of step-by-step photos but not enough verbiage to complement the photos, leaving some steps unclear and ambiguous. Anyway, enough of my rantings, here are some photos of my progress thus far.

 

 

 

[Chuck Seiler]

On 3/15/2023 at 12:48 PM, Dsmith20639 said:

The frame pieces have laser markings to guide you in sanding for the hull fairing (which is a nice feature) however it takes some thought when assembling each frame to know how to orient the parts correctly when gluing up each frame in its jig.

    When the frames go in, the floor futtock is always forward of the first futtock.  The first futtock goes into the frame assembly jig first and the floor futtock on top of these.  Since the frames taper towards the ends of the boat, the tapers should be towards the "floor" side of the frame in the bow and the "First futtock" side in the stern.  With this in mind (if I have figured it out correctly) the side of the frame pieces with laser markings for sanding should be face down in the stern and face up in the bow.

 

    The frame parts SHOULD be marked in such a way to ensure this occurs.  Looking at the parts and how they are number (with left and right first futtock identified), it doesn't seem to be the case.  As I get closer to that step, I will look closer.

 

    In the middle frames, the taper is so slight, I don't plan on fairing until the frames are in place, so face up or face down is not important.  When the taper becomes severe, however, ensure bow frames are face up and stern frames are face down.

[Chuck Seiler]

    Now that the St. Paddy's Day beer has worn off...

 

    I checked my pieces-parts, and it appears (with my kit) if you install the parts in the jig as directed (left and right futtocks) frame 19 is face up while frames 20 and 21 are face down.

 

    Anybody else with the kit, please confirm or refute these findings.

[sirdrake]

Chuck, I can confirm this. I started with frame 21, and 21L goes into the right side of the jig, and 21R into the left side, with the floor futtock on top. So I first thought, R and L refer to starboard and port side of the ship, not the left or right side of the jig's slot.  But now as I read your post I checked and can clearly see that part 19 breaks this rule, as L and R are switched compared to 20 and 21.

 

The drawings in the instructions clearly don't help much either... Obviously the pieces are marked inconsistently.

 

Confusing. I guess the only way to deal with this is to always keep in mind how the frame parts are to be oriented towards the stern or the bow in the boat, which decides the direction of the fairing, and then place the L and R frames into the jig accordingly.

 

Frank

Edited March 29, 2023 by sirdrake
small addition made

[Chuck Seiler]

    Knowing that I am easily distracted, I attempted to make it semi-foolproof.  On a piece of paper I made a side diagram of two frames.  I marked one bow and one stern, so I would remember orientation.  Then I marked :face up" or "face down".  As I said, for me this is only critical at the ends.  The middle frames will be left unbeveled until I get them into the frame.

 

    I them marked next to the end 3 or 4 frame slots on the jig "Face up" or "Face down".  We'll see how that works out.