Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Maine Boatbuilder's Show : Episode 2

As you walk into the show, you are first struck by the cavernous size of the building you are in and the overhead gantry cranes. If I recall correctly, someone told me that the building had originally been for the building or repair of railroad engines. I'll have to check up on that one.
Usually, there are two or three LARGE powerboats in the center of this space - this year was no exception. Immediately in front of me was Zogo - a hybrid diesel/electric launch built by French & Webb. It was a pretty boat, with a unique color... (Photo by Derek Davis of the Portland Herald.)


To my right was the display from Artisan Boatworks. This was Murmur; a Buzzard's Bay 15 day sailor designed by Nat Herreshoff. For the past three years that I've been attending the show, Artisan always has a fantastic display that draws a huge crowd. While my photos can't begin to do justice to this boat, here they are:


Attention to detail seems to be the rule here - from the flowers to the hardware, woodwork and finish.


To give you a better idea of the beauty of the boats that Artisan builds, here's a shot showing the deck and interior from their promotional materials.

A picture of one of these boats from last year's show has been a consistent draw here from the web.

To my left was Dick Pulsifer's Pulsifer Hampton strip-built center console workboat. Definitely a utility boat, but a well made and well finished boat suited to its purpose:


I'll admit that when I go to the show, I tend to ignore most of the large powerboats. Some of the smaller ones I find interesting, including an electric inboard launch that Thad Danielson of of Redd's Pond Boatworks brought to the show three years ago. However, unless there is something particularly interesting about a large powerboat, I tend to skip over them as I don't have much personal interest in them. Apologies if that was what you were hoping to find. Still, I do find some interesting - like the Zogo for it's hybrid drive and others for their shallow water jet drives.

Cape Cod Shipbuilding had another beautiful Herreshoff 12 1/2 on display again this year. This popular daysailor always seems to be a popular draw. This year, the boat on display was available for a mere $42,260.00. I'll let you enjoy their handiwork:



More to follow...

A new dish was served...

Osprey under glass:


The inlay that was put in place on the Osprey's deck was cleaned up and the deck was glassed. The end result is above. The various wood species really "pop" once saturated with epoxy.

Nice, huh?

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

The Beauty of the North Maine Woods
Photo courtesy of John "Fitzy" Fitzgerald
Wooden canoe nut and photographer.

I can't quite be wordless today. To me, that photo is what canoeing is about. A canoe is kind of like your own private time machine - not only does it take you places, but it might as well be taking you back in time before the world became such a crowded place.

A New Feature Strip

My students who are building the Prospector Ranger have been working on their stems and feature strips for the canoe over the past two weeks. Both the inner and outer stems were laminated together the week before Thanksgiving and the parts to create the feature strip were cut out just last weekend.

They have chosen to use Peruvian Black Walnut for the stems and trim on the canoe. They've selected Poplar and the Walnut for the feature strip as well. Here's a piece of the center that was dry-fitted to give an idea of what it will look like:


As I said, the strip is only dry fitted. When glued together, the joints that you see should disappear and the glued up blank will be about 1-1/2" by about 7/8" thick and 16' long. We'll clean up one side of the blank so that it is smooth and cut two 1/4" thick pieces (for both sides of the canoe) on the table saw and mold the edges with cove and bead.

One thing to keep in mind that many people forget. When you cut the "bead" side of the strip, you lose 1/8" of the exposed face, so if you want the top and bottom strip to be the same width when finished, you need to add an extra 1/8"!

Both students are beginning woodworkers and with very little prodding created a pretty design for the feature strip and executed it nicely! I'm very proud of their work.

Wordless Wednesday

(click on image for full size)

I am NOT Picasso.

As I mentioned in last night's post, I've been thinking of putting some decoration of some sort on the kayak's Dacron skin after it has been stretched on and given the basic finish coat of polyurethane. I've had a bit of inspiration from various sources over the years.

First, there was the first people's art of the Pacific Northwest that David Hazen put on his canoes. David is well known for the book, The Stripper's Guide to Canoe Building, one of the first books on the subject first published back in about 1972. It has some interesting information and some interesting pictures of his boats. Here is one of his canoes, below:


In Robert Morris' book, Building Skin-on-Frame Boats, he shows two children with their kayaks which have been beautifully painted with orca and sea turtle motifs in what must be beautiful, vivid colors. I don't think that I have that kind of painting ability in me, however - at least not without a bit of training.

Another great inspiration came from Dave Gentry over at the WoodenBoat Forum. Dave has built a few skin-on-frame boats including one of his own design - the wherry on the right. The other two designs are from Thomas Yost's website and are a Kidarka on the left and a Baidarka in the middle. The Kidarka was for a friend's child and I particularly enjoyed the artwork that he painted on the kayak. Nice work. (Click on images to enlarge)


Then again, Dave also built the anti-artwork boat - a Wee Lassie style skin-on-frame canoe with clear PVC for the hull material. Neat, no?


The friend that I'm building the kayaks with was recently out in the Washington state and brought back this book which I've been looking over for inspiration:


There are many interesting choices in here and I think that enlarging the artwork would allow me to trace the outlines on the hull or make stencils from Mylar to wrap around the hull and paint. That way, I wouldn't have to be Picasso!

What a tangled web we weave...

I was getting ready for work the other day and this web happened to catch my eye. It was just getting windy and I wanted to capture this fleeting piece of natural artwork before it vanished. A few of the strands of the web were already missing due to the wind.

There was no sign of the maker, but the workmanship (spider-ship?) was amazing - it's really incredible to me that spiders can create such intricate artwork. It used not only the plant hook, but also the hummingbird feeder for support.

The dew made it look like a jeweled piece of artwork.

(Click on the images to enlarge!)

Alex Low : Trad Rad

Galena (AKA Cockle)

Alex Low is a talented and hard-working boatbuilder on Gabriola Island in British Columbia and has been spoiling the members of the WoodenBoat Forum by allowing us to follow along on his build of a replica of a J.R. Purdon cutter that is at Mystic Seaport - Cockle. This particular boat was known by several names including Galena and Fox. This boat is a particularly large daysailer at nearly 19' long, and a displacement of about 5400 pounds. Both his website and the thread at the WoodenBoat Forum have a spectacular set of pictures taking you through the build process.

Keep in mind that although they had done a great deal of groundwork in getting the lines for the boat, lofting and arranging for materials, the actual building process started back in November. I'm going to abbreviate the process significantly, but I urge you to follow the links above to see the progress of their work

The main keel members were cut from Douglas Fir. Below are a few pieces from out in the yard - and they are the small ones! The keel timber itself was especially impressive as was the framing saw they used to cut it!




The next shot is nice as it shows the well-lit workspace they are in as well as the molds (against the rear wall), lofting (on the floor) and the keel timbers rabbeted and assembled in an upright position. Note the notches for the ribs.


The ribs are all steamed Pacific Yew - a very tough, but flexible choice for this location.


I particularly like the next shot. It shows the stern timber and the ribs and complexity of the rabbet looking up over the transom. Truly beautiful workmanship!


Starting at the keel, they attached the garboard planks which were of Douglas Fir. The remainder of the planking is Western Red Cedar.


About a week ago, the whiskey plank went on. Alex posted this beautiful shot. I think he should be selling posters of this myself. The light is cool and the shape is awesome even if the hull isn't faired yet!


They have the goal of completing this boat to have it in Port Townsend, Washington in the fall. Personally, I think that they're going to reach that goal. Particularly if they are working this fast.

It's been hard work, but Alex and his friends have made it look easy and done a beautiful job on the build in the process!

Snow

Snowflakes.

They're very beautiful, aren't they?

I just hate it when they gang up on me.

Fungus Tour of Central Vermont.

As the weather has proceeded to get colder, I was rooting around looking at some pictures stored on my computer. My family went on a camping trip to central Vermont this summer, and I was looking over pictures from the trip and enjoying the thoughts of the warm weather that we enjoyed.

Suddenly, as I looked at the pictures more closely, I was reminded that not only was it much warmer this summer, it was also much wetter as well.

How so?

Well, it seems as though every third picture was of some type of mushroom. That isn't to say that they weren't photogenic mushrooms, tho'.

What its all about...

"Jim Gallagher of Danville, Pa., paddles his kayak across the calm surface of Lake Chillisquaque, White Hall, Pa., while heading back to shore following sundown Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008."
(AP Photo/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise, Jimmy May)

Beauty. Simple as that.

The area where the WoodenBoat School is located, and particularly the campus itself are natural wonders of incredible beauty. It really is difficult to convey it all in words. Pictures sometimes don't even do it justice. If I had a dollar for every scene that I saw that I wanted to take a picture of as I drove around, I'd be a very rich man.

Wild Iris

The Frogpond

Beach Rose at the Boathouse

Marsh

Landscape

There were many boulder and stone strewn fields along the roadsides. Some had piles of massive rocks in the fields that looked like giants had been making cairns.

Harbor in Blue Hill

Donna's Bench

Probably one of my favorite pictures from the week. As I was riding to breakfast one morning, the sunlight on the back of the bench just beckoned to me to stop and take a picture. I passed this bench many times and only this one time was moved to take the picture. I don't know who Donna is or was - another untold story I wish I knew more about.

Cattails

To be honest, when I was originally scheduled to go up to the school I was a bit disappointed as I knew that I would be missing the WoodenBoat Show down at Mystic Seaport. My disappointment was tempered by the knowledge that I was there when the early summer wildflowers were all in bloom. Reflecting back on it, I cannot imagine a better time of year to be there.

Wordless Wednesday...

Ok, not wordless - oooooohhh, aaahhhhhhh... (and only about $35,000!!!)