10 months ago by
๐บ๐ธ cjanik001 (
Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class)
Hello,
I purchased this kit for myself for Fathers Day this past June. This is actually my first commercial kit to construct, as all others in my harbor were scratch built. Since retiring my Beaver Tug boat some time ago, actually, it got sent to the scrap heap, my harbor has been looking for a replacement. At 24" long, this fits well with the other models I have made. Also, my Admiral (wife) won't allow anything larger.
The kit comes with all the wood for the vessel, railing, metal stanchions, other cast metal details like horn, lights etc. What it does not include are the running gear parts including stuffing tubes, props shafts and rudders. I held off purchasing this additional kit because I had been gifted a Dumas Trojan some years ago. While the Trojan was not very well built, I was able to remove many of the running gear parts from it before sending it to the scrap heap.
As you can see from the pictures, I have already constructed the hull skeleton. The pieces are removed with ease from the die cutting. I did have to use a hobby knife on some of the more thinner frame pieces to avoid breaking them, but for the most part everything came out clean and with minimum cleanup.
As far as instructions, they seem to be lacking. There is a 33 step, 2 sheet written instruction sheet, a parts I.D. sheet, along with a full size drawing of the boat exterior showing locations of the hull and superstructure details. There isn't a lot of visual details, so you must read the instruction text, and figure it out for yourself. To Dumas' credit, they did make this disclaimer in their write-up that instructions are minimal, and recommended for more advanced modelers.
I am at the stage now, where I need to plank the hull. The planking comes in 4 - 1/16" plywood sheets cut to fit the curvature of the hull on each side. I have never planked a hull with plywood before, only with strip wood. The ply seems to be sort of stiff, and will not conform to the hull without some serious bending and clamping. I need to ask this question, or maybe search other build blogs as to how to best accomplish this task.
Can thin plywood be wetted, (or soaked) in water so that it becomes more plyable and easier to clamp while being glued? or will this just warp the hull once it dries back out!
Hopefully, I will find my answer after searching the blogs, or a fellow follower will provide the answer. ๐
That's all for now, hope you enjoy reading the blog.