I know it isn't perfect

Wednesday, July 15

Today was a good day, we are starting to make a boat. Bruce, Rajan and I were assigned the task of getting the transom on the boat and getting it ready for planks. When you say it fast, it sounds like an easy task but it took most of the day. First of all, it is a three dimensional problem with none of the surfaces vertical and it floats out in space and has to be supported. We had it perfectly in place and one of the clamps went flying across the floor. After a few dirty words, we started over. You can always do something faster the second time. After a lot of measuring, sliding, bumping, nudging we got it “close enough” and screw it in place. Then we pulled the screws out removed it added a bunch of epoxy and repositioned it. Once you have the screw holes to go back into, it is an easy task to reposition it back on the boat.

After the transom is in place, it has to be beveled to match the plane of the surface of the boat. The transom is initially cut with square edges, which would leave big gaps when the planks hit the side of the transom. The angle of the bevel varires from top to bottom and it must symmetrical about the centerline. That is a bunch a picky, time consuming hand work but it is really neat to see the end result especially knowing what you had to do to get it to have a flush and tight joint.

Then we were on to planking the boat. Since we have two people in the class that have never built a wooden boat before Geoff took some time to teach how to figure out what a plank in the boat should look like. It is one of those things I read about, studied about and couldn’t quite comprehend. Then I came to the school the first time and watched Harry do one and the light bulb went off. It is so simple it just using basic plane geometry that you learn in high school and we use it almost every time we lay out a building on paper. I just never thought of applying it that way. You are basically just finding the intersection of a circle using the arcs off the arc of another circle. You can take the method and construct any irregular surface once you know the procedure.

We have the first plank ready to go on the boat. Since Geoff has built this boat, several times, he has a complete set of patterns for the boat and we can simply trace them. But, he took the time to teach Will and Rajan how to do it if you don’t have the patterns. Tomorrow we are going to be using the patterns and tracing the shapes from the patterns. The shapes of the boards are quite unusual. Many of the boards are almost “S” shaped. It is a three dimensional projection of surfaces that causes the shape. At one time, I knew how to sit down with drawings and figure all of that out. But, that was back from a freshman drawing class many years ago, for a skill I have not used since. Anyway, it wouldn’t make sense to try to pre develop the shapes because the forms are more than likely not perfect. I know for a fact the transom isn’t perfect.

The adjacent class was doing steam bending of frames today. They were having a blast doing it. I think everyone got a chance to do the bending and judging from the smiles on their faces, they were having a great day.

One of my former instructors John Brooks came thru the shop today. He told us he was “gainfully unemployed”. He works at the Brooklin Boat Yard and has been working a 90-foot boat for the past year. Apparently, the boat is finished and there isn’t another one behind it so they have laid off most of the workers.