Norwegian sailing pram by Kenchington – Model Shipways – 1:12

[Kenchington]

I am one of the many working my way through the Model Shipways beginner's series. There were already many and excellent build logs for the banks dory and I had nothing to add to those, until it came to scratch-building the fishing gear. I doubt that anyone will want to follow me down that path, so I did not prepare a log for that build. Now it's time for the pram and I think that, this time, I will have something to contribute. If nothing else, I can offer a sailor's perspective. I'm not the only one here who can do that, but I see that some people come to the kit without experience of small, traditionally rigged boats. That can be limiting, considering the abbreviated (not too say "deficient") instructions.

 

It will be a little while, maybe as much as a couple of weeks, before I put craft knife to basswood. However, I have started preparations, so this is probably the right time to start a log.

 

First, I figure that it's a good idea to have a vision of where you want to end up before starting out. I may be unique but the dory meant something to me, emotionally, and was always more than a learning and building exercise -- though it was that too. In contrast, I can't feel much affection for the pram. I can and do love small, traditional boats but I love them in full-scale, for sailing. I just don't feel much interest in them as subjects for modelling. Maybe I will one day scratch-build a miniature of my own pride-and-joy (a Drascombe Longboat, if anyone cares) but I just can't get excited about recreating another man's recreational toy. So the pram kit will be learning exercise only, for me. I'm not aiming for any embellishments, just a stand-alone display model. That's a shame in a way as 1:12 is a common dollhouse scale, and those so inclined could dress up a finished pram with any number of accessories (wine bottles keeping cool under the sternsheets, perhaps?), as well as figurines of humans and their pets. That's not for me, though.

 

Still, there's no denying that the prototype is a pretty little thing -- much prettier than the plywood pram that was my first boat, a lifetime ago. So I aim to emphasize her prettiness in a finished model. To meet its objectives, my dory needed a good thick coat in a shade still known in this part of the world as "dory buff", but it hurt to hide all the woodwork that I had sweated over under that first coat of primer! So I aim to give the pram a clear finish, which means that she has to be built without glue stains or filler (save for a little white glue and sawdust mix, if necessary). That will add to the challenge and hence to the learning experience. Or I hope so.

 

Enough preliminaries. Next: Preparatory steps.

 

Trevor

[Kenchington]

Preaching to the choir here, but my initial step was to read right through the instructions, underlining key points. Looking at other people's build logs, I get the impression that some got rather lost amongst the wording and, in retrospect, I can understand why. The only full-size boat I ever built was a plywood kayak but I've been maintaining and studying boats for most of my life (even owned a traditional lapstrake hull at one time). With that background, even a first read-through made enough sense to put the whole build into shape in my head. I figure that will be a big help going forward. Maybe I'll be able to communicate some of it as this log unfolds.

 

Next, I worked through every build log for this kit that has already been posted on MSW. I've always seen a lot of value in the adage: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself". More positively, those logs contain a lot of very good ideas from a lot of people -- most of whom were learning as they went along, strangely enough, rather than those more experienced dipping in with aid and suggestions. As I went through, I noted the good ideas, special challenges and possible solutions to them, all scribbled into spare space in the kit instructions. The end result looks something like this:

img20250303_14125545.pdf

I didn't even try to keep records of who had contributed each bright idea, so I'll apologize once for all but I won't be able to acknowledge you individually when I use your techniques.

 

Nobody else could follow my notes and I won't be making a fair copy as some sort of improved instruction booklet, even if I had any right to something so presumptuous. At each step of the model construction, however, I'll merge my notes with the text offered by the kit designer. In a sense, I'll be building with the combined weight and experience of MSW at my back. And that's encouraging when taking that first leap into the unknown. I'll try to explain what I've done in this log. Then everyone will be able to see what a mess I've made of it!

 

Now: Time to order a bunch of tools. Lee Valley does such a lovely line of miniatures, just right for shaping those pesky gains in the plank ends!

 

Trevor

[palmerit]

Otto Frei (https://www.ottofrei.com) also has some descent tools. I bought my Optivisor from them (lots of knockoffs on Amazon) and got my tiny metal files from them. In one of the orders I placed, I also bought a couple of tiny squares, some tiny drill bits (the .5 and .6mm ones that break so easily), and some 100-packs of scalpel blades. They make stuff for jewelry but those tools can be used for model ship building too.

 

I also bought some stuff from J. Stockard Fly Fishing (www.jsflyfishing.com) - some nice scissors for cutting rigging, a whip finisher (we'll see if that actually works - it was pretty cheap), a bobbin holder that might help with rigging (we'll see), and some very fine thread.

 

If you ever opt to get some Quad Hands, order directly from them (www.quadhands.com). Seems like a lot of them on Amazon and elsewhere are knockoffs. 

 

Early on, I bought some nice tweezers from Tamiya (they had more in stock than some of the places online that see them).

 

If you're doing airbrushing, and use Vallejo air paints, www.scalehobbyist.com has the best prices and selection that I've found.

 

I also bought the Lee Valley micro trio. They are nice. I also visited a Lee Valley store in Niagara Falls when visiting family.

Edited Monday at 07:19 PM by palmerit

[Kenchington]

Thanks, Palmerit!

 

I avoid Amazon unless I know exactly what I intend to buy. They bombard me with irrelevant ads, then confuse me with the mass of dubious alternatives. The other day, I tried to get acid flux for soldering stainless steel. I was showered with listings for cheap, Chinese products that had "stainless steel" in their titles but were normal flux, not the special acidic stuff. Amazon did sell the proper thing but I had to find a manufacturer and the right product name, then go back into Amazon. Even then, the alternatives on offer were the wrong kind.

 

I get some useful tools in the local hardware stores, though the smallest they sell are at the upper end of size for ship models. Next is the one local hoppy shop (Great Hobbies -- a Canadian chain, I think), then Lee Valley. Its local outlet is awkwardly placed for me, on the other side of Halifax Harbour. Beyond those, it's internet orders with shipping costs often more than the items I am buying. But that's the price to be paid for living in this corner of paradise!

[robert952]

I agree: research is a must before you cut a single piece of wood or use a single drop of glue. Even if you only read through the instructions a couple of times. 

 

I will add a software that I am beginning to use more often: OneNote. If  you have Word/Excel/PowerPoint you likely have access as it's part of the Office 365 suite. I use this to organize my notes (Sails, build log links, magazine articles). OneNote has a good OCR (Optical Character Recognition) that will copy text from an image that you  can paste into whatever software (including OneNote).  Here's a screen shot of my Maine Peapod file (Sails Tab).  Just c;ick and drag images, weblinks, etc from websites. Great way to organize notes and research. 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:45 AM by robert952
clarification

[Kenchington]

Round 1, Step 5 ... as in my first round on the pram but Step 5 of its kit instructions.

 

Before I begin: Apologies for the large size of the images. I have reduced the file size but I don't know how to stop the MSW software from filling the page!

 

 

I wasn't supposed to start for a few more days but I've run out of dye for the leatherwork project that I should finish before starting on this model. Until I can get back into the city for more, here's a very good way to fill my time! Rather than get stuck in to the transoms, however, I've prepared the building board.

 

To my eye, the most serious gap in the banks-dory kit's instructions is their lack of any emphasis on the critical importance setting up the building board and moulds accurately and carefully. That's OK for me. I've read through enough guidance on full-size boatbuilding to have the requirement hammered into my skull: If you start off with even a minor error, it will grow as the build proceeds until it ruins the whole. Working through build logs on MSW reinforced that lesson but in a bad way. It was sad to see so many efforts fail almost before they began, because enthusiastic people starting their first model weren't told to take care of the initial set-up. The pram's instructions do nothing to fill that void. 

 

Other people's dory build logs did offer some ways of getting the set-up straight and square, so I tried those. They worked for me and I have repeated them for the pram.

 

First step was to strike a centreline, with a sharp pencil. That's the centre of the boat-to-be, not necessarily of the building board, so it's drawn from the centre of the bow notch to the centre of the stern one. Next, with set square and ruler, I drew perpendiculars at the mould slots:

When I did that with the dory, I found some slots nice and square, some skewed left and some skewed right. This time, the forward slot was very nearly square but the after one noticeably off. However, both were too narrow to take the tongues of the moulds. While filing the after slot wider, I worked down the after edge of one side and the forward end of the other, fixing that problem. So far so good.

 

Next, I took out the two moulds and marked their centrelines too. Then I traced around one side of one mould, flipped it over and traced the other side:

My first effort only proved that I'm not good at drawing centrelines. After checking and adjusting, the mould is confirmed as nicely symmetrical. No problem there.

 

The instructions say not to worry about the char on the moulds but other people have found that it marks wet planks when they are laid on for bending. As I'm aiming for a clear finish, I sanded off the worst of the char, then re-checked for symmetry. Still OK.

 

Next check was for the mould centreline to match the building-board line, when the mould is in its slot. One was good, the other not:

Out of focus on the critical point but you can see that slot and tongue are quite markedly off. That only needed a few strokes of a file but they will make all the difference later.

 

A few build logs for the pram have mentioned that the kit's building board isn't stiff enough. I cut up the outline of the sheet from which the board came and glued two longitudinals to the board's underside. Maybe those are optional but I also put cross pieces where they will support the transom holders. I don't see how those could be firm enough without some support beneath. The end results looks like:

The dory's moulds were also the model's frames and so had to come free from the building board when the planking was finished. The pram's instructions for its moulds likewise say "Simply slot them in place" but there's no reason to be so cautious as no part of the model gets glued to the moulds. I glued them down, so adding to the stiffening of the set-up.

 

Each centreline was carefully aligned, the moulds pressed fully down to eliminate any sideways misalignment and their fore-and-aft squareness checked with a mechanic's square. Unlike my dory's moulds, both of the pram's went in nicely square, without adjustment. To keep them that way, I resorted to the Lego-blocks-and-masking-tape method that had worked for me last time:

Note the slight gap under the mould. I had to remove the Lego after taking those pictures, press the mould down more firmly and repeat the squaring up.

 

The bow transom holder went in straightforwardly. As others have found, the slot in the building board was too wide but a sliver of business card filled the gap and pressed the centre of the holder almost exactly onto the marked centreline:

Also like others, I broke the stern transom holder while extracting it from its sheet. The problem seems to be that the laser cuts are very narrow and the sheet rather thick. As I tried to push the holder free, after successfully cutting its tabs, it split along the grain. Another time, I would cut where I have drawn a red line, then extract and discard the piece in the slot, after all was removed from the sheet:

With two pieces of scrap glued on as butt straps, whittled away from any obstruction of the slot for the transom, then sanded to just reach the top of the building board, the whole thing was glued in place and will be much stiffer and stronger than the kit's intended arrangement:

Speaking of the two transom holders, the instructions say "Only glue the bow one in!" but there's no need to remove the transom from its holder until the pram comes off its building board and, at that point, I'll simply cut away one or both holders. 

 

And that's it for today. Judging from what others have found, I'll need to add shims to the building board to stabilize the transoms but those must wait until I have something to stabilize! Otherwise: Step 5 completed.

 

[SaltyScot]

I am going to hop on board here and follow along, Trevor. I am intrigued as to how this will turn out, I have no idea what a sailing pram is and, to be honest, I don't want to even research it. I would like to see it unfold before my eyes right here. 

[Kenchington]

I am honoured to have you along for the voyage.

 

Trevor

 

 

As your signature block reminds us that "Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen", I'll add that horses do too. And so do sailing prams.

[SaltyScot]

4 minutes ago, Kenchington said:

And so do sailing prams.

 

Bought a smile to me face ye did, sir