A Shipwright in Training

The last weeks of finishing a boat when you’re on a deadline, or any project I suppose, does weird things to time. It’s like the once expansive sea of time has suddenly condensed into a very narrow rushing stream. For the last week I’ve felt this continual sense of urgency to get things finished. I don’t want to waste any time because I know there are too many little unknowns at this stage to trust that everything will just fall in place on time. Here’s one such thing.

The deck hardware. Simple enough, take the deck hardware and screw it to the deck. Here you can see the 2 blocks (pulleys) for the sail halyards next to the mast hole, the cleat for the bowline aft of that, and the 2 cleats for the halyards in front of the coaming.

The only simple thing in this photo is attaching the 2 blocks. That’s because, if you recall, beneath those blocks is a solid chunk of oak, the mast partner.

Those suckers will be bolted to the partner and, pod’ner, they ain’t goin‘ anywhere.

Now, the bowline cleat, that may or may not be above the mast partner. I’ll have to do some measuring. If it’s above the yoke (the crosswise member attaching to the aft end of the mast partner), I have to make sure I’m not going to screw into one of the screws that attaches the yoke to the partner. It’s a little tricky to figure that out now that the deck is on and canvassed. Now, a portable x-ray machine, that would be a perfect boat builder tool.

Speaking of the bowline cleat, in front of the that cleat is the bow chock (that funny shaped thing up near the bow). That sits right on the edge of the deck. If you screw straight down, your screw will poke out of the hull, since the hull curves inward. And what exactly is below that? Is there an edge of the mast partner? Is there a bit of sheer clamp? A short deck beam attaching to the mast partner? Or am I going to screw just into cedar decking and thin air?

Working back to the 2 cleats for tying off the halyards. Are they over deck beams or just decking? Either way, I have to make an oak support block for them to screw into that will go beneath the deck. So, do I need a backing block big enough for 2 screws to go into it or just the one that doesn’t go into the deck beam? That sucker should be primed and, hopefully, painted beetle gray. Paint takes time to dry. Must factor that in.

If we had a month, things would proceed at a leisurely pace, but we’ve got 6 days until launch day (ok, 8 if you count the weekend) and it feels like this project has grown teeth.

Thank god for turning.

We make beads, called parrel beads, by turning them on the lathe. Now, you could just grab a handful of beads from one of those car seat covers that people who drive a lot use, but it’s way more fun to make your own.

What’s a parrel bead? Well, let’s take a look at the gaff again.

The gaff will go up against the mast. To keep it from slipping off, we string a short line between the ends of the gaff jaws and put 5 parrel beads on that line. That way, when the gaff rides up the mast, the line and beads will trap the mast in between the gaff jaws. The beads act as little rollers to protect the line from chafing on the mast.

We make ours out of mahogany, and we turn them on a lathe. We start with a 7″ or so length of wood, called a blank, that’s been cut so that it has 8 sides. We pop that sucker on the lathe and begin to cut it as it spins with a gouge. The result is that we now have a round rod. Then we can use a variety of tools (I mostly use a small skew chisel) to shape that rod.

Here I haven’t quite rounded the rod yet, so you can see the darker color of one of the 8 sides. I have, however cut the edges of each bead.

A little farther along. The bead at the right is about done.

I made the mistake of cutting the end of that rightmost bead just a little too small and the whole thing snapped there and flew off the lathe. Woah. After my heart went back down a a comfortable 200 bpm I put it back on the lathe at the broken joint and finished the string.

After that, you cut the beads apart

drill holes through them, and give them a good sanding. Viola!

Pretty cool, eh? The little lines were just decorations.

However, the coolest thing about this whole process is the turning itself. Turning is a blast. It’s like throwing pots on a wheel, only with wood. You make a little cut with your tool, and you can see the curved shape you’re creating appear on the wood as if by magic. It takes full concentration, because if things go wrong here, they go wrong really really fast. I find it relaxing, absorbing, and just too much fun. I can see why people get hooked on this.

So, turning saves one from thinking about all the stuff that needs to be done before launch day.

The work at this point is mostly taking care of tons of small details. For example: do you paint into the cut waterline with your bottom paint, or do you paint into that cut with your topsides paint? Hmmm? Which will make the crisper line?

Or, making sure the bungs you install to cover the screws in the rub rails

and coamings

go in with their grain parallel to the wood they’re going into. And then you have to make sure that when you cut them off

you do so very carefully to avoid chipping them out below the level of the wood they’re going into.

You get the picture. Lots of fiddly stuff. It must be like this when people plan weddings.

Those of you who know my work will see this as a Tom thing right away:

Yep, it’s the ubiquitous slight arch. That butt block at the front of the coaming is usually square, but I couldn’t resist. The square butt blocks are so… pedestrian and boring. This adds just a touch of class.

Oh, in that photo you can also see where we sanded down the bungs after cutting them off. Next we sanded the entire inside of the coaming so that the varnish would blend in more seamlessly with the sanded areas. Details. Fiddly little details that make a little job suddenly a big job.

The main thing we’re doing right now is trying to get our 7 coats of varnish on all the wood surfaces. This is called Bright Finishing for those of you who aren’t particularly salty. The varnished wood is called Brightwork. Emphasis on Work.

Our transom is looking quite hansom though. That’s just 3 coats. Each coat adds depth.

The 2nd years have pretty much finished their Herreshoff 12 1/2’s and most have moved on to working on a couple of lapstrake boats. The other day they put up the sails and tested out all the rigging. Here, the sloop-rigged one is set up. It looks like a toy.

And now a brief pause to smell the flowers.

My bike at the Y beneath the cherry tree.

One of the things about Newport is that there are LOTS of people with dogs here. it makes me miss Barkley. Last week I was in Madison for my friend LJ’s wedding, and I got a good dose of him. Here he is doing the border collie stare with Jan, for god knows what reason.

He holds that focus for a long long time. It’s a little unnerving really, but it’s part of his personality. And you gotta love a dog with personality.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Classes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.