Model Expo MID978 1/10 Boston Whitehall Tender Model Kit, Multi-Colour

I was very excited to put together this kit. It came well-packaged and had seemingly nice instructions. I'm not a beginner when it comes to model crafts in general, but I've almost always worked with plastic models, not wooden ones.I thought trying a wooden kit would be a fun challenge, and based on the description, fairly straightforward.I got together the supplies outlined in the beginning of the instruction booklet, read all the way through, measured twice, and... the parts provided are seemingly the wrong length. No problem, I can cut and sand them. Oh... the wood breaks very easily, due to the grain... nothing some green stuff can't fill in, though, and it's just the boat form anyways.I meandered through the first steps of putting together the boat form, making sure to follow the instructions exactly. My first clue that something was seriously wrong was that the bottom and ends of the form, where the planks eventually would be flush, did not touch the strongback, nor the middle forms. I compensated for this by using extra wood leftover from the die cut pieces. Problem solved. Or so I thought. Then came the planking.Oh, the planking. This is where I gave up. You are provided with plenty of long, thin planks, about the width of a good matchstick. You are supposed to, for each of the 20-30 planks, bevel an edge onto them so they lay flush with the form and end pieces.I glued the beveled edge to the first end piece, wrapped it around to the other after waiting for the glue to set, and it held. Phew. But I had about three inches of extra length to the stick. Great, I thought, for cutting it to size; I can cut it to length, and leave a beveled ed- snap! The bond did not hold. I tried many times, and it never held, even when I made it to the other end piece. By the time I threw in the towel, I had nearly glued my own darned hand to the boat form.Between the vagueness in the instructions, the screwed up parts, the planking, and having cyanoacrylate bonded to every one of my fingers, I have decided to put this kit aside for when I am feeling too good about myself and need a reality check. I do not know if I happened to get a bad kit, or if I missed a page of instructions, but I think, truly, I just need more practice with wooden kits.So, in the end, I will rate this 3 stars for how nicely packaged it is and how I can kind of see how it could go together, given you have the time and burning passion to do so. But please do not buy this unless you have already built at least one other wooden model kit. Perhaps bring the patience of a saint with you. And lots of acetone.Two stars deducted for unclear wording in the instructions and mismatching/wrong-sized parts; both things that are unforgiveable in any model kit.

In the box is all the pieces you need and some spares and a set of instructions. This is my first ship model and I have enjoyed most of it.My biggest issue has to do with the planking. The instructions give a simplified description of glueing one piece to another, and as I started to work towards the keel, I could tell something was not quite right.I did a google search for this kit and found a blog of someone building this exact model. They went into detail about wetting each plank, bending it to the frame and letting it dry. If I had seen this before I had planked my model, I would have done a better job, and it just this one point in the instructions that I felt had let me down, especially for a beginner model. Lesson learned and I am better prepared for the next one.The rest of the instructions are great, and that blog post would help anyone building this.At the end of the day, I am glad I got this. I enjoyed the small lobster to put in the trap and feel this is an excellent kit. I wish there was better explanation on the planking step. I will be doing another kit, just deciding which one. From online reviews, midwest seems like a good brand for beginners. If I had to guess, this could take at least 40 hours to finish.

I consider this boat a level two not a beginner level. The kit does have extra materials to over for mistakes.