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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.
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.
