The Lowell Grand Banks Dory is the first kit in Model Shipways’ Shipwright Learning Series. The Shipwright Learning Series offers model ship kits from level 1 to level 3 to help you learn the skills needed to build museum quality models. The kits are designed by master modeler David Antscherl to guide the beginner through progressively more complex models, each building on the skills learned on the previous kit.

The Dory was developed on the American East Coast in the 1800s from French settlers’ “bateaux” of the 17th and 18th Centuries. The boats were easy and inexpensive to build, and gained popularity throughout the fishing and lobstering industries. Simple yet very seaworthy, Grand Banks schooners carried stacks of dories nested together on deck to use when they reached the fishing grounds.

With easy lines, accurate laser-cut parts, and true plank-on-frame construction, this kit offers detailed pictorial instructions making it ideal as a first ship model, but results in a highly detailed scale model so it would also be a fun small project for an experienced ship modeler.

The kit also includes all the tools needed to complete the model, including spring clamps, a hobby knife with an assortment of blades, tweezers, sandpaper, yellow wood glue, paints and brushes. I would probably substitute CA glue, but the yellow glue is handy if you’re inexperienced, as it gives you more time to adjust the parts you are gluing together, and any errors can be debonded with isopropyl alcohol.

We are really excited that Model Shipways has asked us to take a look at the kits, and we’ll be doing in-depth reviews of each kit, so subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell icon to be notified when we post new videos.

We’ll also post links to the review pages here as we complete each review.

Model Expo on Amazon: https://amzn.to/34OSGPK
Model Expo on eBay: https://ebay.us/2bEb8m
Note: we may earn a commission from affiliate links