Dumas Products Inc. Ace Sloop17 DUM1102 Boats Kits Sailboat

It was a lot of fun to build and sails really well. The build required a lot of sanding to get the deck's to lineup. A dremel tool sander was very helpful. Building the frame was a little tricky to get things to line up, but it came out OK in the end.

Extremely hard to build

Probably not recommended for first-time modelers. But if you have some experience and a little creativity in making some of your own parts, you can get good results. Study the plan carefully because it does contain some crucial info not spelled out in the instructions. The die-cutting of the mahogany hull parts is not laser-perfect, so you have to fiddle and finagle a little. Some of the included parts are rather cheesy. I bought tiny brass eyes to replace the included steel ones, and made my own sail rings out of brass wire. Also made my own rudder post/tiller out of the same brass wire, and bought some thin brass sheet to make my own brass rudder, instead of the cheesy tin sheet they included. Made my own shroud adjusters out of popsicle sticks glued together, then cut to 3/4" length and drilled 3 holes in each, then stained. Made my own sail out of cotton sheet, doped with polyurethane/turpentine mix. Also used cotton twine dyed in tea for rigging. Probably spent $20 extra on brass wire, brass sheet, 5-minute epoxy, etc, but it came out nicely after about 30-40 hrs of work.

My first all wood boat kit. Sailed great until I adjusted the tension on the rudder to make it sail in a wider loop. It did, but never came back. I need to build another. I suspect someone else retrieved it as when I came back to look for it, it was gone. Next one will have my contact info on it.

Haven't built a model in a long time, but I have pretty good construction and assembly skills, and know how to use all kinds of tools.This Dumas kit is nothing short of atrocious. The instructions are poor to useless. The manufacturer put next to no effort at creating a readable document. The instructions consist of one paragraph on one side of a sheet of paper with no illustrations. There is a full size construction plan, but with scant details. It was a chore to have to decipher how to put this thing together.The wood parts were poorly die cut. The notches did not properly match the profiles of the stringers, leaving gaps. There is no excuse for this with any decent manufacturing equipment.The mix of soft woods with the hard woods was dubious, there should have been no soft balsa in this kit at all. The mahogany planking for the sides, top and bottom, however, were very good and ample in size and cut to get a good fit to the hull frame. It will look good when stained and varnished.The keel is well made of galvanized sheet and lead ballast. The rudder is cheap in comparison, made of soft tin bent around a stiff wire. The mast is of hard birch dowel stock, with mini screw eyes to guide the stays.The sails are just two triangular pieces of nylon cut exactly to size. Here it would have been better to have had them cut oversize, like the hull planks, so one can better finish the edges, if desired.This kit is definitely not for the inexperienced, mostly because the kit is poorly designed and the parts just thrown together with very little thought. Upon reflection, this kit looks like it was produced for 1907, not 2007.All in all, the boat is coming together, but it could have been so much easier.

First of all I am still a teenager and I got this. I found tha paragraph of instructions pretty easy to decipher along with the full scale layout. The full diagram itself had great detail and was easy to read. I have never made a wood model and wanted this one beacause wanted something I could use. It was a great ship and fun to put together.

Fun to build and with a little effort finish out beautifully.

It did not come with sails no Happy about this should be fun to build will but a rc in it