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

[SaltyScot]

9 hours ago, Kenchington said:

My alternative was to cut a new bottom piece for the step from the same sheet of basswood..... I made sure that the grain ran along the length of that bottom piece

 

Good call, Trevor. That was just a split waiting to happen with that grain on the footer the way it was.

[Kenchington]

Step 15, inwales, completed; Step 26, rubbing strakes, largely done; Step 40, display stand, begun

 

The pram has the upper edge of the sheerstrake sandwiched between 3/32-inch square-sectioned "inwales" (ugly term but I don't think there is a better, standard one) and 1/8-by-3/64 "rubbing rails" outboard, lengths of appropriate stock being supplied in the kit. The former need to be steam (or alternative) bent and I should have set that up to dry overnight. However, they are so thin that they dried quite swiftly, without loss of time. I bent them along the outside of the sheerstrakes, which worked well.

 

Getting them to fit inside was more tricky, as there has to be a 3-D bevel at each end, to fit against the transoms, while the length has to be just right to put both bevels into place. After a long job with the first one, I evolved a better solution:

 

With the bent inwale loose in my fingers, I held one end against the edge of the transom and drew a pencil line where transom and inwale crossed. After bevelling to that line, I worked by trial and error, first adjusting the second dimension of the bevel, then perfecting the fit (or close enough to perfect to satisfy myself). I then turned to the other end of the inhale and shaped the much more awkward bevel against the bow transom. That gave me a bevelled inwale but one much longer than the space available. I dry fitted the bow end in place, clamping to the sheerstrake and working aft, until I could  go no further. The surplus end of the inwale projected outboard of the stern transom and above the sheerstrake. I penciled a length mark, removed everything, cut at the mark and then aligned the cut-off end with the new cut. With the old end as a guide, I started the bevel of the new end.

 

Because of the rake of the transom, there has to be quite a bit more shortening, in order for the aft end of the inhale to drop down, flush with the top of the sheerstrake. That shortening gives plenty of opportunity to perfect the bevel. So I clamped the forward end of the inwale back in place, gently pried the aft end away from the stern transom, sanded the bevel, dropped into place, lifted, sanded some more, dropped back ... and on and on until everything fit.

 

Compared to all that, applying glue and clamping in place was easy:

(I bought all those pegs because that's how many the hardware store sold in one pack. Never thought I would us them all at the same time!)

 

The instructions leave the outboard rubbing strakes until later in the build but I decided to complete the strengthening and stiffening of the upper edge of the hull at one go -- not least because it will simplify sanding everything flush. So, once the inwale glue was set, I removed the clamps, glued and place the rubbing strakes and re-clamped. That was almost too easy: No need for pre-bending, as the stock is so thin, no worries over length, which was trimmed after, not even any char to remove. Just glue in place with the upper edges of the three layers flush. Even that need not be exact, as the combination will have to be sanded later.

 

The combined effect looks good, though only a small advance in the past 24 hours:

 

While waiting for the inwales to dry in their new curves, I made a start on the display stand. When building my banks dory, I wanted an unobtrusive stand that would not draw the eye away from the model. What I ended with was a fully functional stand that is downright ugly. Not a problem with a model that hardly needs a stand at all but a lesson for the future.

 

The pram has a long daggerboard, which necessitates a tall stand that cannot be hidden. The model should turn out to be a pretty thing but without much point except its prettiness, so the very visible stand needs to complement, not detract from, the appearance. The kit stand comprises two shaped cradles elevated on dowels, rising from a simple baseboard -- simple, cheap (as it should be in a beginner's kit) but not attractive. The cradles are necessary and I will use the kit ones. The instructions do suggest replacing the dowels with clear acrylic rod. $10 to Amazon is bringing me enough for a dozen pram models. I also have the good fortune to be within easy reach of a specialty timber importer, where they put the offcuts from orders of exotic lumber into bins that locals can rummage through. $5 bought me more than enough jatoba to make a good, thick plinth (with a nice, rich colour) on which to mount the kit's baseboard. (For $35, I could have had genuine ebony but that would be hard to justify!)  So, today, I put a 45° bevel around the kit-supplied base. Tomorrow, I'll paint that and run the edges of the plinth past a suitable router blade to give them some interest. If all goes well, I'll glue the painted basswood to the jatoba and add the acrylic at the weekend.

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

9 hours ago, Kenchington said:

Because of the rake of the transom, there has to be quite a bit more shortening, in order for the aft end of the inhale to drop down, flush with the top of the sheerstrake. That shortening gives plenty of opportunity to perfect the bevel. So I clamped the forward end of the inwale back in place, gently pried the aft end away from the stern transom, sanded the bevel, dropped into place, lifted, sanded some more, dropped back ... and on and on until everything fit.

 

Wether they are called inwales or inhales (forgive my sarcasm, couldn't help meself  ), it sounds extremely intricate. Is the build on a Dory aways that involved?

[Kenchington]

And I thought I had caught and corrected all of the gasps! I could ask why the MSW auto spelling-corrector doesn't use a custom dictionary with common shipbuilding terms included, but it doesn't. Every "inwale" I typed became "inhale" until bludgeoned into accepting that I did intend the "w".

 

I don't know whether the pram is really so very involved. It can't be as complex as a rigged model of a three-master and I doubt that it is as demanding as a plank-on-frame model with an exposed frame. It doesn't even have hood ends fit into rabbets. The only thing that makes it complex is the desire (in a large-scale;e model of a small, open boat) to replicate every piece of wood in the full-size prototype. That and my intention to give mine a clear finish, hence to build without using fillers.

 

Wait until the build progresses to the metalwork. Then you can watch my fumbled attempts to meet challenges far outside my comfort zone!

 

Trevor

 

[SaltyScot]

4 hours ago, Kenchington said:

That and my intention to give mine a clear finish, hence to build without using fillers.

 

Which you are doing a fine job at by the way.

[Kenchington]

Thank you, sir!

[Kenchington]

Steps 16 & 17, quarter knees, Step 20, transoms completion, and Step 26, rubbing strakes: All completed

Display stand (Step 40) advanced; spar-shaping jig (part of Step 42) assembled

 

Today's principal task was adding the four "quarter knees", which lock the sheerline assembly (inwale, top of sheerstrake and rubbing strake, combined) to each of the transoms. The long arm of each knee, which fits on the inboard face of the inwale) only needed removal of char. The curved face needed that, edge softening and some rounding of the toes into nicer shapes. It was the short arms of the knees which needed work. The ones faying on the stern transom had to be bevelled to an angle that was off-perpendicular in two dimensions. The forward ones were simpler.

 

Seen from inside the boat, the knees are angled upwards across the transoms, as they are at right angles to the sheerstrakes, which are slightly flared. I followed a recommendation from a previous build log and marked where the knees should lie, as any asymmetry is liable to stand out like a sore thumb. At the bow, however, I already had asymmetry which had to be concealed a little. Not a big problem, however, and the knees were readily glued in place.

 

One point to consider, however: Under Step 53, a length of line has to be fed through a hole in each stern quarter knee (the line forming the mainsheet horse, though it is curiously called a "traveller" in the instructions). I don't think that the instructions say anything about those holes, except that the line must be passed through them. I decided to drill them while the knees were still in their sheet, which gave better control. The instructions call for the mainsheet horse to be made of 0.7mm line. That seems a bit small to me and I may use larger, so I drilled 1.4mm holes (having a drill bit of that size to hand). That will be small enough that a figure-of-8 stopper knot tied in 0.7mm line won't slip through, while making it easier to pass 1.0mm.

 

With the knees in place, the whole sheerstrake structure could be sanded to its proper form: Ends of everything sanded flush with transoms, then the ends of the rubbing strakes rounded off, the top surface of the inwale, sheerstrake, rubbing strake and quarter knees sanded flush (and perpendicular to the sheerstrake), finally the upper and lower angles of the rubbing strake rounded a little. (I have left softening the inboard angles of the inwale until the rowlock structure is in place.)

 

While I was at it, I cut off the extended parts of the transoms (which had served to hold the boat on its building board), sanded the transom tops down to their laser-cut marks, rounded everything off and finally filed the sculling notch in the stern transom. The instructions call for the latter step to be done with a 3/8" round file. As has been noted before on MSW, that should probably read 3/16. No matter: I had neither size but worked the notch anyway with both a small round file and a larger half-round. The end result of that effort is falling far short of perfection but at least is looking increasingly boat-like:

 

While all that was in progress, I put together the kit's jig for shaping round spars from square lumber -- mostly just because that let me consign the remnant of one basswood sheet to the scrap pile. The jig accommodates five spar supports but the kit only provides four. The easy solution, having bought the combo set of three kits, was to pirate a fifth support from the lobster-sloop kit.

 

A word of warning for anyone assembling one of these jigs: The supports are very slightly too big for the slots they have to go into. However, it is not the charred sides that need to be sanded. Those can be left full-thickness, for a tight fit, while the other faces are sanded. (I did take the char off surfaces that the spars will lie on, to avoid staining wood that I want to keep.)

 

I also primed the kit's display-stand base, while shaping the plinth that it will go on:

Just a simple ogive, in keeping with the clean lines of the pram. The jatoba is a much redder shade than appears in this image and will be richer still once oiled.

 

Next up: Framing the upper parts of the hull, supporting the thwarts and stern sheets.

 

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

2 hours ago, Kenchington said:

Just a simple ogive, in keeping with the clean lines of the pram.

 

That looks a lot like the stand I made today for the Endeavour. It is red oak coated with a red oak stain, which turned it a nice deep golden brown (more golden that the image is presenting). I finished off by sealing it with a Minwax finishing wax. It still needs another polish. Great minds and all that.......

 

 

[Kenchington]

1 hour ago, SaltyScot said:

Great minds and all that.......

Indeed!

[Kenchington]

Completed internal structure, all Steps through to 22.

 

 

The pram has five pieces on each side that the instructions call "seat and thwart frames" but which fill similar functions to the futtocks and hanging knees of wooden ships. They support the two thwarts and a large after seat (the "sternsheets"). The instructions detail where the ten items should be placed, even including a paper template, but only their longitudinal positions and their orientations. As others have noted before on MSW, the booklet is entirely silent on the heights at which the thwarts and sternsheets should be, hence the heights at which the pieces should go in. I suspect that it says nothing because those heights are largely determined by the already-present structure -- though it would help if that had been explained.

 

The after edge of the sternsheets rests on the top edge of the lower transom (where it provides a shelf abutting the upper transom). The plans of the full-size pram indicate that the sternsheets should extend forwards parallel to the underside of the skeg, which follows the baseline of the design. Meanwhile, the upper surface of the midships thwart has to be flush with the top of the daggerboard case. One of the supports of the forward thwart is notched to fit under and around the inwale, thus defining the height of that thwart.

 

Seeing all that, the obvious thing was to start by dry-fitting the midships thwart, mark the positions of its two supporting pieces each side, and continue form there. Unfortunately ...

 

With the inwales in place, the hull is now too narrow for the full length of the midship thwart to pass! (Considering that the instructions call for the inwales to be fitted at Step 15 but the thwart not to be finally placed until Step 34, one might have hoped for some sort of warning.) Still, not a big deal: Mark the thwart for the available width, cut off the ends, surely the flare of the sides will make the maximum that can pass the inwales more than the minimum required for the thwart when in position? WRONG!!! Now I will have to make a new thwart from basswood stock and, once made, it will have to be passed below the inwales diagonally, then jiggled into position. That's not a job I want to do twice, so I will assemble the thing once and be done. The instructions want the final fitting of the thwarts and sternsheets to be delayed, so that the hull can be painted first and the three seats then given a contrasting colour. As I'm planning on the same clear finish on both, that's not a problem for me and I can go ahead and glue all three in place.

 

However, there are also battens supporting floorboards, which would be hard to fit once the thwarts and sternsheets were in place. So the only option for me was to re-arrange the whole sequence of the completion of the pram's interior.

 

1: Before the floorboard battens can go in, the position of the timbers supporting the forward end of the sternsheets must be determined (as the battens run to those timbers but not beyond). So the first step was to dry-fit the sternsheets. They comprise two pieces. The after one has to be bevelled to match the rake of the transom, so that it sits securely on the existing shelf -- securely but also neatly, as the junction will be prominent in the finished model. That done, it became evident that the sides of the piece needed a lot of shaping. (My guess is that the kit provides for models that have been allowed to flare out wider than the moulds.  A sensible precaution in a beginner's kit.) That done, the forward piece could be shaped and the process repeated, until the two pieces sat with their edges against the sheerstrake, forming a more-or-less level surface. The fore-and-aft positions of the two supports could then be marked on the planking, tucked comfortably back from the extreme forward edge.

 

With the sternsheets removed again, check measurements ensured that both marks were even, lengthwise. A bit of fiddling produced a satisfying height (very close to the inwale) and the draughting compass ensured that both sides had marks an equal distance below the inwale.

 

2: It was then necessary to shape the two pieces provided, until they fit into the places required. That was no small task, in part because each piece was so small but more because they were not even close to the right shape. The interior of the hull naturally has steps between the strakes (as their bevelling cannot come to a feather edge) but the laser cutting made no provision for those steps -- perhaps could not, as they are so small. I did not take photos of the first four pairs of pieces but they last, smallest and most difficult (the after pair under the forward thwart) looked like:

The upper one as it came from the sheet (aside from removal of char), the lower shaped to fit.

 

3: Once the pair under the forward end of the sternsheets was close enough to a good fit, I tidied them up with the usual edge softening etc.. and glued them in place. That was when I discovered how far each would move under my thumb, as I held it in place for the glue to set. Oh well, they will largely be hidden by the sternsheets!

 

4: It was then time to think about the floorboard battens -- "cleats", a the instructions term them. They are made from 3/32 by 1/8 stock and require bending to fit the interior of the hull. (Previous build logs have noted that trouble follows if the bending is ignored.) The instructions say something vague about shaping them in your fingers. I gave them the usual boiling-water treatment, then curved them over the exterior of the hull and left them to dry overnight:

The same stock is needed (and needed straight) for other parts of the model, hence the untroubled forward projections.

 

5: The battens sit on the outer edges of the bottom planks, with secondary ones along the inner edges abreast the daggerboard case. As the bottom is flat (athwartships), no bevelling is necessary. I just cut off the required lengths, tidied them up and glued them in place -- with the same shifting under thumb pressure. No images of that stage but my words will be easier to understand with the photo of the finished work:

 

6: Next up was figuring the locations of the four supports for the midships thwart, using the old, cut-off thwart as a guide. I figured that it will be easier to sand off too high a piece than to add above a low one, so erred on the side of going high. That aside, it was just a long, fiddly repetition of the pair under the sternsheets.

 

7: Before tackling the forward thwart, I glued in the mast step -- which could just as well have been done when it was first made.

 

8: The forward supports for the forward thwart are notched to fit around the inwale, which made them easier to work with. However, the thwart is notched to fit around the supports, so it was critical that they be equally distant from the bow.

 

9: The final pair of supports, besides being tiny, had no well-determined height. The plans show the thwart slightly angled, sloping down towards the stern. In the end, I placed the supports such that the thwart will just clear the heads of the "frame" that bears the mast step.

 

All in all, a long and trying process, leading to an ugly mess. Still, I don't think it will detract from the finished model, as most will be half-hidden.

 

Tomorrow, I will get busy fitting the sternsheets and thwarts (Step 34 in the instructions).

 

Trevor

[SaltyScot]

10 hours ago, Kenchington said:

perhaps could not, as they are so small.

 

I find it quite frustrating trying to hold mini pieces like that securely enough to be able to sand them properly. You had several to do I see, a true test of patience, Trevor. I don't think it turned out all that bad, it looks nice and neat to me.

[Kenchington]

35 minutes ago, SaltyScot said:

I don't think it turned out all that bad, it looks nice and neat to me.

Thank you, Mark!

 

I my mind's eye, everything will fall perfectly into place. Somewhere deep in my belly, I expect to mess up and ruin the hours already committed to the model. Reality always seems to turn out roughly in the middle. 

 

I expect that experienced model builders will tell me that that is how this hobby always goes.

[Kenchington]

Got the forward thwart and the sternsheets in today.

 

The thwart needed a lot of sanding, filing and checking -- as in: sand a bit, check the fit, sand a bit more, check the fit, file a notch a little, check the fit, increase the bevel, check the fit ... and on and on. When all was done, the underside (placed back into the gap in its sheet, to show how much I had removed) looked like:

It would not have needed so much work but I had put the supports (the ones that fit in those notches -- offering no wiggle-room) too far forward, where the pram's hull is narrower. Indeed, the thwart is so far forward that it will almost obstruct the mast:

 

I was aware of a possible problem and did check that the thwart would not be too close. Not sure what went wrong but I was so concerned to have the two supports equally far back from the bow that maybe I just didn't pay enough attention to other dimensions of their positioning. At worst, I will have to file a groove for the mast in the forward edge of the thwart.

 

Once everything was shaped and in place (with some filing of the after pair of supports for this thwart), I discovered that I had given it too steep a slope (downwards towards the stern). Not a problem for my model but not something to be copied by anybody who may follow this build log in future. Anyway, it looks nice enough:

 

The sternsheets had to be assembled from their two (already part-shaped) pieces, with a pair of cleats to hold those together. No cleats are provided in the kit but there is more than enough scrap to cut up.

Before assembly, I rounded off the forward edge of the forward piece -- not the usual softening of angles but more like a half-round section. Did the same on the two edges of the forward thwart too. I figure that the model sailors would prefer not to have any sharp edges against the backs of their knees!

 

The instructions call for a narrow gap between the two main pieces of these sternsheets (with softening of the four angles running along that gap). I don't know why that is needed but I left it anyway, with a business card inserted to ensure an even width. Then, to prevent everything moving around, I taped the two pieces to my cutting board, while using the board's markings to line both of them up -- so ensuring that the elegant curve in the front of the sternsheets would be centred relative to the transom (and hence the whole boat):

When the glue had set, that needed only some more sanding and bevelling of the sides until it fit snugly into place.

 

However, I then found that one of its supports was so far forward that it supported nothing.  I thought that I had marked for the two of them to be safely back under the sternsheets but one support proved to be optimally placed, right by the forward edge of the sternsheets, while the other was too far forward. Further examination showed that the pencil mark was opposite the other support but the troublesome one had shifted before its glue set. So: Out with the isopropanol, off with the tiny piece, clean up the mess and re-glue. After that, the sternsheets themselves went win without problems:

 

In the end, quite a pretty outcome:

 

As I wrote in my last update, I need to make a new midship thwart. The kit part is 3/32 basswood and the only stock I have is 1/32. I may have to laminate but I would prefer to pick up some 1/4 inch in Halifax next week, then sand down. So I can't finish the pram's interior yet. Plenty of other tasks to push ahead in the interim!

 

 

Trevor

 

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Nice job! I hadn't realized that the mast isn't supported by the thwart on this vessel. If you're concerned at all about the angled thwart, it would not be difficult to make a new one from scrap wood or a bit of basswood in the right thickness.

[Kenchington]

Thanks JacquesC!

 

I agree that it looks odd for the mast to be so close to the forward thwart and not pass through it. I'd not expect that in a traditional working boat. Then again, the plywood pram that was my own first (full-size) boat had a mast supported only by the step and the standing rigging. Come to that, so did the two racing boats that followed: an International Enterprise and then a Unicorn catamaran. It wasn't so uncommon for late- 20th Century recreational boats.

 

1 hour ago, JacquesCousteau said:

If you're concerned at all about the angled thwart, it would not be difficult to make a new one from scrap wood

True, but I don't want to go through the pain of re-creating the two supports (to fit higher in the hull), then shaping a replacement thwart. I'll just learn to live with what I have!