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I’ve taken apart quite a few old wooden boats in the process of restoring them to their former glory. I’ve noticed that there are two fasteners that always seem to last forever: bronze through-bolts, and copper rivets. Through-bolts are nice, but they’re expensive and you need a good size hole to use them. Copper rivets […]
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OK, it’s not cool enough for a warm wool scarf, but it’s always perfect weather for a scarf joint! A scarf joint is usually used to make a piece of wood longer when you don’t have access to a wood stretcher. It’s a long ‘ramp’ shaped cut that matches an opposing identical but […]
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Boat Projects / Power Boat Projects / Restoration / Sail & Row Boat Projects September 11, 2015
Plywood doesn’t get much respect in the wooden boat world, but I think that is a shame. Frankly, if it weren’t for plywood, most of us wouldn’t be able to consider a wooden boat. Here are a couple boats that recently came into the shop. The first one is a Penguin class sailboat that […]
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Herreshoff 12 1/2 / Restoration / Woodworking August 28, 2015
So, I needed some green (unseasoned or dried) white oak for steaming some boat frames into shape on a round bilge boat. I usually go to some local sawmills to get what I need, but they weren’t cutting white oak anytime soon. The farmer that owns […]
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Boat Projects / Restoration / Sail & Row Boat Projects / Woodworking August 21, 2015
If you’ve ever built a plywood kayak from a kit and then think that you could actually be a paid boatbuilder, then you should try to fit a plank on a traditional plank-on-frame boat. I’m not boasting mind you, I forgot how difficult this type of work is myself. I […]
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New Construction / Pelican / Restoration / Sail & Row Boat Projects August 14, 2015
Saying goodbye to Minots Light, a 41′ Nielsen yawl that I’ve worked on for many years now. I’ve had great difficulty finding a good crew of shipwrights in the last few years, so I’ve sent her to a shop that can better serve the boat and the customer. She came […]
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Here are some nice little transom windows to watch the fish as you sail past. Not really, they’re transom flaps that will let water out of the boat if you capsize, but keep the water from entering while sailing upright. One of the best things about wooden boat work (second […]
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We’ve built some replacement spars for a cold-molded pocket cruiser we have in the shop, and we’re finally getting some finish paint on them. It’s fun making things shiny! This is the result of my post last week showing part of my clamp collection. I’ve got the sheer clamps glued on the Pelican, and […]
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I’m working on the Herreshoff 12 1/2 this week and one of the things I needed to do is to deepen the garboard rabbet so that I can get a fastener through the plank and into the keel in that area to help keep the water out (a handy thing for a boat). A garboard […]