Lowell Grand Banks Dory by Galkar - Model Shipways - 1:24

[Galkar]

Hello everyone, it's time for yet another build log of the Model Shipways Grand Banks Dory!

 

This is my first ever model boat/ship, and I'm coming at this with precisely zero woodworking experience, so hopefully I am the target audience for this kit. My long-term goal is to work my way up to Vanguard Models' Speedy, so to that end I got the Model Shipways 3 kit learning set to get me on the road to a more complex ship.

 

To any experience builders who may read this build log - I welcome any feedback at all! If you spot that I'm doing something stupid that I seem oblivious of don't feel bad about letting me know - I'm here to learn a skill that's totally new to me and any feedback (including critical feedback) would be very helpful .

 

To start with, I took an inventory of all of the listed parts. Since this was the 3 kit set, this also came with tools and paints. All of the listed wood parts were there including an extra strip of 1/8" basswood. The tool set was missing the sandpaper and the chisel blades, but it did come with some pliers, clippers, a pair of (not very good) files, and a pin vice drill and bits, none of which were listed which was nice.

 

It was a bit shocking feeling just how thin the plank sheets are. It's one thing to read a number like 1/32" and another entirely to feel it in your hands. I'm afraid it'll snap if I look at it wrong!

 

Gluing the bottom together was pretty straightforward. Oddly the two side pieces didn't have a full set of laser markings and the ones that are there look like they were done by hand, but this didn't interfere with the assembly.

 

The bottom cleats were also straightforward. Since the kit didn't come with sandpaper I had to make due with what I had lying around. The instructions suggest to use 150 and 220 grit sandpaper. I only had 120 (which seemed too course) and 220, so I stuck with 220 for everything. At first I was worried this would only be good for finishing and not for removing material, but after using it to shorten the cleats to the proper length and bevel them I wonder what you would even want the 150 for. This wood is so soft that the 220 made quick work of shortening the cleats and I found it was easy to accidentally over-bevel with even just a couple of back-and-forths. For the two cleats on the ends where the angle of the bottom's side is most extreme I figured I would try to match that angle as a way to practice beveling to an intentional angle.

 

Attaching the stem and transom assembly was a bit trickier. It was hard to figure out a good way to make sure they were truly even with the center line of the boat. I did my best using the straight lines on my cutting mat as a guide and to my eye they look correct, but I do slightly worry that since I didn't use any kind of jig to ensure straightness, any imperceptible deviations may be magnified later in the build.

 

With the transom assembly, though, I worry I may have already made a mistake. I lined up the stern knee with the marks on the boat's bottom just as I did with the transom, but doing so resulted in a bit of an overhang where the knee/transom stick out a bit past the point of the bottom. Looking ahead in the instructions I see that a photo shows their stern knee glued very close to the rearmost bottom cleat leaving no overhang, so I am considering breaking out the isopropyl and redoing this step. But on the other hand, a quick survey of build logs shows at least a couple that appear to have done the same thing I did with no apparent problem. Any thoughts on if it's worth trying to remove this glue and redo this?

 

 

At the moment the bottom is sitting in the bender. Later today I'll start working on the frames while I decide whether or not I want to redo the transom.

[Dan Poirier]

This was my first model kit and brings back some good memories.

 

I think I redid my knees several times until I was happy with them. It's so nice being able to re-do a glued joint, and I take advantage of it regularly 🙂

[Jim M]

i had a lot of fun with that model too.

[druxey]

Having the transom too far aft may come back to bite you. The planks may fall short at either bow or stern. I'd go for the isopropanol for a do-over. It won't hurt a bit!

[Wawona59]

Kudos to you for starting out with the 3-kit shipwright's set.  I think this is one of the best ways to begin building wooden ship models.  You will always remember your first wooden model.  Don't worry about the mis-glued stem or stern.  If you are using PVA (Elmer's white glue or Titebond yellow glue) which I hope you are, mis-glued parts can be un-glued using isopropyl alcohol.  Take your time and use a brush and eventually they will come free.

 

There is nothing on a wooden ship model (except perhaps catching on fire) that cannot be un-done or a new part made from scrap from the kit.  Consider making some sanding sticks using different grits of sandpaper.  Always use a backing of some sort, I use and re-use popsicle sticks and the free paint stirring sticks from the local home improvement store.

 

Check out the many excellent build logs on MSW.  Although the instructions are well done IMHO, there are a few areas that are unclear.  See how other modelers have dealt with these issues when they arise.

 

Most importantly, enjoy the journey and don't be afraid to make this model your own.  There is no rule that says that your model has to be ochre and green.

 

I'd like to follow your build if you don't mind.

 

[Galkar]

22 minutes ago, druxey said:

Having the transom too far aft may come back to bite you. The planks may fall short at either bow or stern. I'd go for the isopropanol for a do-over. It won't hurt a bit!

Yeah I think I will. Even if it ends up not being necessary here it's probably good practice to try this regluing process now when it should be fairly easy.

 

7 minutes ago, Wawona59 said:

Kudos to you for starting out with the 3-kit shipwright's set.  I think this is one of the best ways to begin building wooden ship models.  You will always remember your first wooden model.  Don't worry about the mis-glued stem or stern.  If you are using PVA (Elmer's white glue or Titebond yellow glue) which I hope you are, mis-glued parts can be un-glued using isopropyl alcohol.  Take your time and use a brush and eventually they will come free.

 

There is nothing on a wooden ship model (except perhaps catching on fire) that cannot be un-done or a new part made from scrap from the kit.  Consider making some sanding sticks using different grits of sandpaper.  Always use a backing of some sort, I use and re-use popsicle sticks and the free paint stirring sticks from the local home improvement store.

 

Check out the many excellent build logs on MSW.  Although the instructions are well done IMHO, there are a few areas that are unclear.  See how other modelers have dealt with these issues when they arise.

 

Most importantly, enjoy the journey and don't be afraid to make this model your own.  There is no rule that says that your model has to be ochre and green.

 

I'd like to follow your build if you don't mind.

 

Thank you for the encouragement! And of course, feel free to follow. I welcome any feedback at all!

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice start, I'm looking forward to following along on this build!

[Galkar]

I did end up detaching and re-gluing the stern knee from the bottom. This ended up being a much more difficult process than I expected. I thought the 99% IPA would make fairly quick work of the glue, but after about 10 minutes of constantly flooding the join with IPA it was still completely solid. The only way I was eventually able to get it off was to gradually worry an xacto knife blade in between the two pieces and very slowly cut through the glue. This worked well enough here because there was easy lateral access to the seam between the two pieces, but I have no idea how I would do this in the future on a join where I don't have that kind of access.

 

Next big step was to assemble all of the frames. I wanted to use the included plans as a template as suggested to make sure I had the two halves of each frame properly lined up, but unfortunately the plans were not quite printed to scale. Luckily the instructions are available online so I was able to print them out scaled up slightly. In another build log I saw a suggestion to tape down the cross-piece, and this helped a lot.

 

Attaching the frames to the build board was no problem, they all fit snugly with no need for sanding or shims.

 

When it came time to attach the transom holder, though, it was way too far back to be able to properly hold it. (Ironically if I had left the transom assembly the way I had originally glued it I think it would have worked.) If I installed the holder as suggested the transom would have been halfway up the diagonal slot and way above and not even close to the two side blocks. To fix this I sanded down the bottom front of the holder piece, put a shim behind it to force it forward, and glued the two side blocks much further up. I didn't take a photo before my modifications to show how it was off, but here is how it looks afterwards:

 

Next step is to glue the bottom to the frames. I'm not really sure how to ensure that I have it properly centered side-to-side on the frames. It's a bit tricky to eyeball because of the asymmetry on the frames. I'll check through some of the other logs to see if I can find anything, or just eyeball it if I can't.

Edited October 25, 2024 by Galkar
added bit of info I initially forgot

[Dan Poirier]

In my experience the isopropyl doesn't completely dissolve the glue, but it does soften it from rock-hard to a thick sticky paste and then I can carefully pry the pieces apart. Sometimes the hard part is getting the alcohol to reach the glue.

[SiriusVoyager]

I had this same problem with the transom knee alignment.  It seemed to workout ok with my model, but I think you will be glad that you moved it.  Great start with your Dory.

[Desertanimal]

The other issue you may be having with the glue and alcohol is letting it dry. Then it gets hard again. Usually works in a minute or two. Keep at it!
Chris

[Galkar]

I've got the first garboard plank glued and the second one clamped for bending at the moment, but looking ahead I'm a bit confused about how the beveling should for the broad and sheer planks. The instructions mention these needing a bevel on their inner side, but only mention giving them the rolling bevel at the ends, and not the same full bevel along the whole length of the inner side. Is this correct? If the only bevel on the inner side is done at the fore and aft ends, then for most of the length of the boat the outer bevel of the plank beneath would be overlapped by a flat, unbeveled plank. It seems like adding the half-width bevel along the full length of the inner side would make for a smoother join there (while still leaving a visible overlap).

 

Anyone who has built this boat, do you remember how this part went for you? I haven't yet found any mention of this in the 5 or 6 build logs I've looked through today.

[davec]

On the inner side, the lower edge of the plank should only be rolling beveled at the bow and stern.  It should be full thickness for the bulk of its length.  This allows the planks to lie flush at the bow and stern.  The overlap for most of the length should be full thickness. This gives the clinker appearance and was probably important for holding fasteners when building full sized boats.

[palmerit]

Doing these bevels at the ends means that the two planks are flush (without a gap) at the bow and stern ends - if they were just overlapping and full thickness, there would be a small gap (and being a boat, you wouldn't want that gap). Along the length of the boat, yeah they overlap (clinker appearance) but there is no gap between them. It's only at the end (where they run up to the bow and stern pieces) that there would be a gap if they were left unbeveled. If you next do the Norwegian Pram, which I'm working on now, you do a rabbet cut at either end of the plank for a similar reason - not doing so would leave a small gap. I don't think I fully understood why I was doing the bevel when I built the Dory. I didn't fully understand the reason for the rabbet either when building the Pram, but then as I thought about it and played with the pieces a bit, it made sense. And then when I did the rabbet on one plank and compared it to the one without (holding them to the stern end) I could see that the one with the rabbet fit snug without much gap and the one without the rabbet had a gap. I wonder if they just had a rolling bevel on the Dory because it is a little bit more challenging to make a rabbet, so they included that in the second model, the Pram.

Edited November 21, 2024 by palmerit

[Galkar]

This project hasn't been abandoned, I've just been away from it for a bit due to some travel and holiday stuff. But I'm back now with an update!

 

I've finished planking the boat and have removed it from the frame. I'm mostly happy with how that went. There were some struggles and a couple of mistakes, but nothing catastrophic. I appreciate the suggestions in the previous two posts, although by that time I had already added the first broad plank and decided to bevel the full length of the inner side. I knew that was probably not the technically correct thing to do but I figured worst case scenario it wouldn't really cause any issue and would give me some more beveling practice, and in the end I do think it may have helped a bit.

 

The first mistake I made was that I accidentally snapped the corner off of one of the garboards while doing a little bit of sanding. Once I get some wood filler this should be easy to fix, but I was still pretty annoyed at myself. Good lesson about carelessness!

 

The two garboards went on pretty easily, but when it came to the broad and sheer planks those were much trickier. I don't know if I somehow attached the frame to the build board poorly or something, but when it came time to bend and then glue the broad and sheer planks, it was very hard to get them properly aligned. I could get 90% of it lined up with the previous plank just fine, but always the last segment towards the front would deviate significantly almost as if there wasn't enough of a pre-cut curve in the piece. Some aggressive handling and rubber banding/clamping during the bending stage did help with this a bit, but still there's a noticeable gap of 1-2mm between the etched beveling mark and the edge of the next plank in some places.

 

Another issue I had was that getting the broad and sheer planks to make good contact with the actual frame for gluing was a bit difficult in some places as the planks tended to only want to touch at the edge farthest from where they overlapped the previous plank. This wasn't too hard to solve by pressing hard on the planks after gluing, but it did mean that I had to spend a decent amount of time holding the planks with my fingers since in a couple of places I couldn't get the rubber bands to hold tightly enough. This is exactly what I was worried about and wanted to pre-address with the full-length inner bevel, and I imagine this problem would have only been worse if I hadn't done that. Fortunately this doesn't seem to have interfered with the overlapping "clinker" appearance of the planks. On the topic of beveling, though, I had mixed success with the rolling bevel producing a flush meeting at the stem and transom, so the boat looks a bit rough there.

 

Nevertheless, the planks are all glued and the boat is removed from the build board. There's still some sanding/filling and general cleanup that needs to be done before moving on to the details, but it's very satisfying to see the basic structure of the boat completed. One other piece of trouble I had which can be easily seen in the below photos is that I found it very hard to clean up errant glue when gluing the planks. Partly this was just because it always felt like a race against time getting the rubber bands on and everything clamped after the glue was applied but before it began to set and often by the time I was satisfied that everything was secure, the glue was already to a point where it didn't respond well to a wet brush. But even if that hadn't been an issue, the other problem was that once you put the second of a pair of planks on it becomes very difficult to even look between the build board and the attached planks to spot any errant glue inside the boat, let alone get at it with a brush. I'm not really sure how I could have done that better, but I'm guessing it shouldn't be too hard to clean up after the fact.

 

Pleased with the alignment after the garboard and broad planks:

Although you can see there's also a bit of a gap where the starboard garboard meets the transom, so that will also require some wood filler.

 

Clamping the final sheer plank:

 

The boat after being removed from the build board but before really cleaning it up:

 

I'm excited to be back to work on this project!

[Ryland Craze]

12 minutes ago, Galkar said:

The first mistake I made was that I accidentally snapped the corner off of one of the garboards while doing a little bit of sanding. Once I get some wood filler this should be easy to fix, but I was still pretty annoyed at myself. Good lesson about carelessness!

 

Since the model will be painted, I would glue the piece back on that broke off or glue a piece of scrap wood on the edge.  Once the glue is thoroughly dry, you can carefully sand it to match the unbroken side.  This is what I like about working with wood.

[Capt. Kelso]

FYI, you may find it helpful to remove the laser burn before assembling, especially on parts that will be painted. It's more difficult to paint over the laser burn and get color consistency.