Hey there, this week I received my Northeaster Dory kit. So far I just got equipped and I tried to make some space in my garage and basement for the upcoming building process. Today I will unpack the first cardboard boxes to find all the pieces and line them up. I hope it’s fine to leave a dokumentation of my project here. I am really excited to start but a little bit anxious as well. Below is the cart I built to move the Dory in and out of the garage.
When you unbox and then punch all the pieces out of the sheets:
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Consider saving the box (and pallet?), it/they can make a good work surface(s) for later expoy or painting work, covering with plastic sheeting if necessary.
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A box cutter or fine-tooth small-pointed hand saw (pistol-shaped hack saw) is usefull for cuttting through the tabs, you don’t want to splinter up the edges of your wood parts by simply breaking them out.
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It is efficient to keep a sharp block plane or a palm sander with about 100 grit paper handy, and to remove all the tabs (smooth the edges of the parts) as one process during this initial handling and stacking of parts. Just be sure not to remove any of the (larger) alignment tabs when doing so. If you don’t do this now, it can be just a minor annoyance to have to do it each time you start an assembly process - you’ll have to find your plane or sander and create wood dust or chips at a time when you’d rather just be able to keep the shop cleaner and focus on assembly.
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Save as much scrap wood as seems resonable during the disassembly of the sheets. Really anything over an inch wide and 4 inches long is worth saving, and you can chop up / chop off some of the long thin points to make the scrap pieces easier to save and handle. You’ll find the okume ply scraps very useful for a number of things, on this build, your next build, or just to have around for other projects.
On a different note - not listed in the build guide - (after doing the puzzle joints on the lapstrakes) I recommend pre-coating and pre-sanding almost all of your parts and panels (except those that will be glassed over) prior to assembly (or after partial assembly of things like the laminated ribs). It is more efficient to get a good start on the coating/finishing process while the parts are all flat, and I personally don’t think you lose anything in structural soundness of the later epoxied joints. It is harder to coat the boat with epoxy when parts are assembled/vertical and there are all sorts of lapstake seams, and “inside corners” etc. that will need to be sanded.
Hopefully you have enough hand spring clamps - you can always get more, but it seems you can never have too many. ![]()
Good luck.

