This is the first build of my daughter Emelie (6 y/o), she saw me tinkering with my build and wanted to do the same. Perks of modelling in your living room instead of a separate workshop!

I have some experience with an older daughter, we started with a proper kit and completed the hull before she moved on to other hobbies.

This time I thought we should start slow with a simpler kit, let's build some super simple boat first and then pick a proper kit! Haha, boy was I wrong 😂 Follow the build to see why...

Starting conditions: a curious child with an interest in anything crafty. Drawing, building pearl bead stuff, puzzles, etc. So she can handle small parts, but no particular special skills for that age.

In this log I would focus on learning, skills and so on - and very little on the actual kit.

Hope it would help others, show that it's doable and inspire someone to try it with their child!

The kit is very old school, a few parts and pretty basic instructions.

Decent wood quality for that price. Nothing bad to say about this thing in particular, the only miss is a terribly unusable metal fitting of the oar locks, they are made of metal-colored wet noddles, bend when you touch them and break if you sneeze on them wrong. This is not an exaggeration. The rest of the parts are adequate.

First skill to learn - cutting parts off. Scalpel is a scary tool to use, but with a basic rule "keep your other hand away from the cut" it's relatively safe.

The hard part is keeping it straight. What we understand as "straight" is actually a couple of dimensions and takes a while for child to master, and scalpel wanders off if you hold it at an angle. Some squares for alignment help to bring the point.

After a couple of parts she was capable of holding it decently straight:

And, of course, sanding. I started with no dust protection, but quickly introduced her to the concept and we used a vaccuum hose and later an air filter. Dust masks are way too big for a baby face 😅

Gluing was easy, the technique was "a glue puddle on a plexiglas sheet, toothpick to apply". It was fun, she loved it! Especially the "wipe off the excess glue on father's hand" part 😁

Markup is challenging, a whole new thing of measurements, alignment, squareness, etc. It helps to arrange a proper working setup, show how to hold the pencil and be patient. The hard part is to "stop and think", and not just run and put a pencil mark. Somewhere in random place without thinking much.

Once the frame is glued in - the excess glue can be removed with a nylon bristle brush on a rotary tool. A good safety lesson - make sure to use the glasses (glue bits in the eye is not a nice thing), there are some that would fit a baby face. And make sure to keep the hair in a hair band, it would easily get tangled in a rotary tool, had that happen with an older kid, resulting in a need to cut off a significant strand of hair.

Some parts need to be fine fit, so it was a first introduction to disk sander, often used in "manual mode", rotating the disk by hand

Teaching to use proper clamping, reference surfaces and not trying to align parts by fiddling with it freehand.

And her favourite part - planing! She loves the miniature Veritas block plane, can recommend. A lot of adult modellers use it as well, I heard 😁

Do not forget to show that planing should not be done freehand:

Plane shavings are a good material for other crafts as well :)

This video says it all, the best part of the build!

Shaping the stem. Filing is another exercise in keeping the tool at a proper angle, needs practice on a scrap piece.

Scraping is similar, but easier than filing:

Gluing the stem in place, preparation is the key! A long flimsy part with tiny contact surface:

Cutting spacers for the next step. Sawing is hard, again it needs even pressure and consistent angle without wobbly hands. Practice, practice, and dust collection :)

Hull screwed to temporary base to get a proper bend:

Planking:

Trimming frame ends:

Sanding:

It is fantastic to see a kid do something else than using a computer or screen. The interaction you have with your daughter is precious and reminds me of the time I spent watching and helping my father build models, before I started building on my own.

Enjoy these precious moments with her.

Yves

I was showing her how to use the ruler, and along the way we accidentally discovered that a ruler can be used to add/subtract, and a hobby session turned into an impromptu math lesson 😂 We made own "number scale" to memorise it:

Making oars was a good opportunity to use the lathe,

Gluing oar blades to the oars required a milled plexiglas jig - the oar rod is inset to the precise depth that matches the location of the blades. Of course the contact surfaces should be flattened first

Some final cleanup:

Aaand the boat is done! Taking a proud space in my display case 😊

In summary: boat builds like this look simple, but are totally unforgiving and a bad beginner build.

Every single part is visible, irreplaceable, small and fiddly. There is no place to hide your mistakes, no room for error. Even two screw holes that we drilled as per instructions to attach the hull to temporary base to bend the bottom - are visible despite all attempts to hide them with sawdust and glue. There is no "first level planking", there is no web of bulkheads to ensure a smooth curve, just three flimsy frames, stem and transom, and they are all fully exposed.

Here are some pictures from her older sister's build what was ongoing roughly from the age of 6 to 8 and a bit again around age of 10.

A bigger model, a whole ship, but a much simpler classic construction - bulkheads, deck, glue it all together, we all know the drill.

What a wonderful way to engage with your daughters Mike. I hope Emelie is very proud of her first build - it looks like she did a fantastic job. Well done Emelie! I look forward to the next build.