[schmitt32linedrill]

A few years ago we were on a vacation in Maine. We toured a lot of sea ports each with it's ship building museum. The size of some of those huge schooners, one 600 feet long with 6 masts over 200 feet tall, was really amazing. 16 inch square keel timbers and 8 x 8 ribs and 8 inch thick planking pinned together with Oak dowels, hard to comprehend. Don't quote me on these numbers, they're just from memory.

At one place there was a work in progress, some old guys building a small wooden boat from scratch using traditional tools and methods. I watched for awhile and thought I could probably do something like that.

I had always loved the shape and look of the dory. So when I got home, I found a copy of "The Dory Book" by john Gardner. He had done a study and discussion of boats built along the Eastern sea coast in the early 1700s, There was a small scale plan with dimensions on one of the pages. Following Gardner's plans mostly, I cut down a Pine tree and a Basswood tree on adjacent property, milled it to 3/4 inch and 1-1/4 inch on my Woodmizer Sawmill, dried it on a rack in my heated shop for 2 years, then planed the boards to 1 inch for the bottom and 9/16 inches for the sides.

I've got things to do so I'll write more details and show more photos in another post, later.

 

[old55]

Pulling the chair back to watch this one.

 

[marecat3]

WOW!

 

[woodworker47]

Hope you have a door big enough to get it out. Great job.

Frank

 

[sreilly]

Great long term project. Hopefully the neighbor was aware of the tree cutting before hand Story like this posted in the latest Woodworkers Journal. Lookig forward to the rest of the story and more pictures as well.

 

[Chris Itin]

Simply beautiful!

 

[roxanne562001]

Very cool project!!

 

[ScottyDBQ]

Really great project!!

 

[thomas1389]

It's not 600 feet long but it sure does look nice. Credit to you for having the skills required. Good job.

 

[DesertRatTom]

Man, what gorgeous curves! No wonder boats get feminine names. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[roofner]

Nice you have something good to look forward . Keep the pictures coming. What are you going to use to water proof?

 

[schmitt32linedrill]

A few years ago we were on a vacation in Maine. We toured a lot of sea ports each with it's ship building museum. The size of some of those huge schooners, one 600 feet long with 6 masts over 200 feet tall, was really amazing. 16 inch square keel timbers and 8 x 8 ribs and 8 inch thick planking pinned together with Oak dowels, hard to comprehend. Don't quote me on these numbers, they're just from memory.

At one place there was a work in progress, some old guys building a small wooden boat from scratch using traditional tools and methods. I watched for awhile and thought I could probably do something like that.

I had always loved the shape and look of the dory. So when I got home, I found a copy of "The Dory Book" by john Gardner. He had done a study and discussion of boats built along the Eastern sea coast in the early 1700s, There was a small scale plan with dimensions on one of the pages. Following Gardner's plans mostly, I cut down a Pine tree and a Basswood tree on adjacent property, milled it to 3/4 inch and 1-1/4 inch on my Woodmizer Sawmill, dried it on a rack in my heated shop for 2 years, then planed the boards to 1 inch for the bottom and 9/16 inches for the sides.

I've got things to do so I'll write more details and show more photos in another post, later. View attachment 396192

View attachment 396192

A few years ago we were on a vacation in Maine. We toured a lot of sea ports each with it's ship building museum. The size of some of those huge schooners, one 600 feet long with 6 masts over 200 feet tall, was really amazing. 16 inch square keel timbers and 8 x 8 ribs and 8 inch thick planking pinned together with Oak dowels, hard to comprehend. Don't quote me on these numbers, they're just from memory.

At one place there was a work in progress, some old guys building a small wooden boat from scratch using traditional tools and methods. I watched for awhile and thought I could probably do something like that.

I had always loved the shape and look of the dory. So when I got home, I found a copy of "The Dory Book" by john Gardner. He had done a study and discussion of boats built along the Eastern sea coast in the early 1700s, There was a small scale plan with dimensions on one of the pages. Following Gardner's plans mostly, I cut down a Pine tree and a Basswood tree on adjacent property, milled it to 3/4 inch and 1-1/4 inch on my Woodmizer Sawmill, dried it on a rack in my heated shop for 2 years, then planed the boards to 1 inch for the bottom and 9/16 inches for the sides.

I've got things to do so I'll write more details and show more photos in another post, later. View attachment 396192

View attachment 396192

Unfortunately, as usual, I didn't think to take photos of the first steps in building the strong back frame used to hold all the structural components in exactly the right positions as the stresses of bending the thick bottom boards and later the side planking were applied. I started with a 3 x 12 pine beam, then screwed on plywood temporary bulkheads to fasten the ribs in place. Additional temporary structure was used to hold the Oak transom, knee, and and stem in place with lots of bracing screwed on all over the place to prevent twisting, sideways shifting and upward arching.

All the framing parts were cut over size so that when they were cut to final dimensions, the screw holes from temporary fastening would be gone. I made the 5 rib frames from Oak, epoxy glued and bolted at the chine. Gardner's plan called for Tamarack roots with natural bends to form the ribs. They would have been sawed into flat "L" shaped boards then lapped at the center of the bottom and nailed together. After all my frame parts were secured in position, bending and installing the first center plank on the bottom firmly tied the whole thing into a rigid structure.

I continued bending and attaching all the bottom planks, per Gardner's plan. He called for a slight bevel to all these edges to make a tight fit at the inside, and a gap of about 1/8 to 3/16 inches along each seam at the outside to provide for packing oakum calk roping into them from the outside. I made the bevel edges, but didn't use the oakum. After the boat was complete I used a super 3M marine calk to seal any gaps.

After all the oversized bottom planks were attached, I, according the Gardner's plan, used a flexible thin wood strip as a guide to draw a pencil line on the bottom to follow with a hand saw to cut the pointed oval shape of the bottom. The edge was then hand shaped with a plane to the correct curvature and angle for the side planks to be attached.

Too much text already. Here are the first pictures I took of the project.

 

[schmitt32linedrill]

Unfortunately, as usual, I didn't think to take photos of the first steps in building the strong back frame used to hold all the structural components in exactly the right positions as the stresses of bending the thick bottom boards and later the side planking were applied. I started with a 3 x 12 pine beam, then screwed on plywood temporary bulkheads to fasten the ribs in place. Additional temporary structure was used to hold the Oak transom, knee, and and stem in place with lots of bracing screwed on all over the place to prevent twisting, sideways shifting and upward arching.

All the framing parts were cut over size so that when they were cut to final dimensions, the screw holes from temporary fastening would be gone. I made the 5 rib frames from Oak, epoxy glued and bolted at the chine. Gardner's plan called for Tamarack roots with natural bends to form the ribs. They would have been sawed into flat "L" shaped boards then lapped at the center of the bottom and nailed together. After all my frame parts were secured in position, bending and installing the first center plank on the bottom firmly tied the whole thing into a rigid structure.

I continued bending and attaching all the bottom planks, per Gardner's plan. He called for a slight bevel to all these edges to make a tight fit at the inside, and a gap of about 1/8 to 3/16 inches along each seam at the outside to provide for packing oakum calk roping into them from the outside. I made the bevel edges, but didn't use the oakum. After the boat was complete I used a super 3M marine calk to seal any gaps.

After all the oversized bottom planks were attached, I, according the Gardner's plan, used a flexible thin wood strip as a guide to draw a pencil line on the bottom to follow with a hand saw to cut the pointed oval shape of the bottom. The edge was then hand shaped with a plane to the correct curvature and angle for the side planks to be attached.

Too much text already. Here are the first pictures I took of the project. View attachment 396220 View attachment 396222 View attachment 396223 View attachment 396220 View attachment 396220 View attachment 396223

Unfortunately, as usual, I didn't think to take photos of the first steps in building the strong back frame used to hold all the structural components in exactly the right positions as the stresses of bending the thick bottom boards and later the side planking were applied. I started with a 3 x 12 pine beam, then screwed on plywood temporary bulkheads to fasten the ribs in place. Additional temporary structure was used to hold the Oak transom, knee, and and stem in place with lots of bracing screwed on all over the place to prevent twisting, sideways shifting and upward arching.

All the framing parts were cut over size so that when they were cut to final dimensions, the screw holes from temporary fastening would be gone. I made the 5 rib frames from Oak, epoxy glued and bolted at the chine. Gardner's plan called for Tamarack roots with natural bends to form the ribs. They would have been sawed into flat "L" shaped boards then lapped at the center of the bottom and nailed together. After all my frame parts were secured in position, bending and installing the first center plank on the bottom firmly tied the whole thing into a rigid structure.

I continued bending and attaching all the bottom planks, per Gardner's plan. He called for a slight bevel to all these edges to make a tight fit at the inside, and a gap of about 1/8 to 3/16 inches along each seam at the outside to provide for packing oakum calk roping into them from the outside. I made the bevel edges, but didn't use the oakum. After the boat was complete I used a super 3M marine calk to seal any gaps.

After all the oversized bottom planks were attached, I, according the Gardner's plan, used a flexible thin wood strip as a guide to draw a pencil line on the bottom to follow with a hand saw to cut the pointed oval shape of the bottom. The edge was then hand shaped with a plane to the correct curvature and angle for the side planks to be attached.

Too much text already. Here are the first pictures I took of the project. View attachment 396220 View attachment 396222 View attachment 396223 View attachment 396220 View attachment 396220 View attachment 396223

My apology for all the repeating photos. I have no clue how they got there or how to delete only the extra ones, and I can't seam to add or correct text after attaching photos.

 

[TenGees]

Looks great, Art.

 

[schmitt32linedrill]

Nice you have something good to look forward . Keep the pictures coming. What are you going to use to water proof?

I used a super 3M marine calk. I think it was 3M 5200, but I can't rememberr for sure. It's really super adhesive, and durable but takes about a week to cure. The whole boat was primed and painted with some high end stuff from James Town Distributors. I think the paints were branded "Total Boat" The paints and calk were by far the most expensive part for me.

 

[schmitt32linedrill]

I used a super 3M marine calk. I think it was 3M 5200, but I can't rememberr for sure. It's really super adhesive, and durable but takes about a week to cure. The whole boat was primed and painted with some high end stuff from James Town Distributors. I think the paints were branded "Total Boat" The paints and calk were by far the most expensive part for me.

Just one more post about my boat: After completing the boat, I made two sets of oars from clear Basswood that I sawed on the Woodmizer. 2 inches at the thick ends tapered to about 7/8 on the thin ends, 7 inches wide, by 12 feet long as recommended by John Gardner. I cut to rough shape on my 14 inch band saw and did the real shaping with draw knife, plane and spoke shave. It was pretty easy and they looked good. I also made 3 sets of oar locks from stainless steel scrap from the junk yard. A little welding and some lathe work was all it took. The hardest part was fitting the double compound curved wood locks that hold the oarlocks. Look closely at the photo of the boat in the water.

After my wife and I spent a few minutes trying to row, it became obvious that you would need to be a gorilla to swing those 12 foot oars for very long, So I cut her's off to 8 feet and mine to 10 feet. That worked much better but it still took a while for us to coordinate rowing together without getting our oars tangled togethert.

A large part of the work on this labor intensive project was the hand planing of the bevels on both sides of each side plank. These planks were held together by about 400 copper rivets with burrs, and atached to framing with stainless screws and cup washers. A simple oak cap board closed the openings between planks and stem and planks and transom. These were

thoroughly sealed with the 3M calk.

 

[schmitt32linedrill]

Just one more post about my boat: After completing the boat, I made two sets of oars from clear Basswood that I sawed on the Woodmizer. 2 inches at the thick ends tapered to about 7/8 on the thin ends, 7 inches wide, by 12 feet long as recommended by John Gardner. I cut to rough shape on my 14 inch band saw and did the real shaping with draw knife, plane and spoke shave. It was pretty easy and they looked good. I also made 3 sets of oar locks from stainless steel scrap from the junk yard. A little welding and some lathe work was all it took. The hardest part was fitting the double compound curved wood locks that hold the oarlocks. Look closely at the photo of the boat in the water.

After my wife and I spent a few minutes trying to row, it became obvious that you would need to be a gorilla to swing those 12 foot oars for very long, So I cut her's off to 8 feet and mine to 10 feet. That worked much better but it still took a while for us to coordinate rowing together without getting our oars tangled togethert.

A large part of the work on this labor intensive project was the hand planing of the bevels on both sides of each side plank. These planks were held together by about 400 copper rivets with burrs, and atached to framing with stainless screws and cup washers. A simple oak cap board closed the openings between planks and stem and planks and transom. These were View attachment 396272 View attachment 396273 View attachment 396272 View attachment 396273 View attachment 396272 thoroughly sealed with the 3M calk.

Obviously, I'm doing something totally wrong when I attempt to attach photos. Can anybody help?