Micro Inventions

Some call them woodworking 'tricks', but I call them micro inventions -- simple, but non-obvious inventions that some wood worker discovered hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago -- that are passed down from worker to worker because they are so darn useful. They're easy to recognize when you see them -- they make you slap your head and utter the word 'Wow'... at least that's the effect they have on me.

Here are three that I used just this week. Notice how they all reduce the complex mathematical problem of capturing a shape or angle to a simple tool. Brilliant!

The first is from my new friend in Brazil, Diego de Assis. I have been trying to learn the art of sharpening edge tools like planes and chisels. Unless you are a wood worker, you would not believe the number of tool-sharpening 'systems' on the market, each one more exotic and expensive than the next.

One of the problems of sharpening is honing the blade at precisely the right angle. A few degrees can make the difference.

Despite my devotion to the philosophy of Economy taught by my mentor, the original American genius, I admit to lusting after a complicated honing guide, equipped with brass adjusting knobs and a darling little roller... you know the type.

Luckily, before succumbing to Temptation, I stumbled across this photo in Diego's blog:

A honing guide for the rest of us

Photo by Diego de Assis

A block of wood, a long screw, a couple washers, and a wing nut are all you need. The angle (notice the mathematics captured by this simple invention) of the sharpening bevel can be adjusted by moving the guide up or down the slot, or by using a shorter or longer guide. It's easy to imagine a similar tool for sharpening a chisel, and I plan to build one this weekend. Why would you need anything more?

The second invention solves an even more complex geometrical problem: How to cut a stem rabbet when all you have is the rabbet line from the profile plan, and the angle of the side planks from the half-breadth plan.

Information available on plan

Here is what you start with: the rabbet line, and the angle that the outside of the planking strikes the stem, and thickness of the plank.

Starting Info

diagram by jalmberg

Here is what you want to end up with: a nice, right-angle groove in the stem that the plank fits into perfectly. Just to be clear... the rabbet is the V-shaped groove in the stem, between the rabbet line and the bearding line, that the plank fits into.

But how is a poor boat builder to draw the bearding line, which is not specified on Cabin Boy's plans? And once drawn, how is he to cut the rabbet at precisely the right angle?

I'm sure the boatbuilding-industrial complex makes an expensive, brass-knobbed thingamajig, probably equipped with a GPS and laser, but Greg Rossel passes down a simple micro invention in his book, "Building Small Boats":

Finding the bearding line using the chisel-and-fid micro invention

photo by jalmberg

You can find the bearding line by holding a chisel, flat side down, at the correct angle (using a bevel guage, not shown), and then holding a 'fid' to the back of the chisel. Where the fid touches the wood is where the bearding line must be.

(This micro invention might seem trivial, especially to experienced wood workers who are be jaded by the brilliantly simple tools they use every day. But to a mathematically-inclined newbie like me, this is a real head-smacker. The amount of geometrical information encoded into this simple device is quite spectacular. Just try to find the bearding line without this invention!)

So, what is a fid, you ask? It's nothing more than a right rectangular hexahedron, the same thickness as the plank you will use, in my case, 7/16"

Where do you get a a right rectangular hexahedron? You make one, of course! I made mine out of white pine, using my amazing new Japanese pullsaw, which is even better than my bandsaw at making clean, near-right angle cuts. I cleaned it up using a small block plane.

Making a fid out of a scrap of white pine

photo by jalmberg

A very useful right rectangular hexahedron, or 'fid'

photo by jalmberg

I'll talk about using the fid to actually cut the rabbet (which I haven't done yet), in a future blog post.

Finally, after carefully lofting a part of the boat, like the stem, on the lofting board, how do you 'pick up' the pattern, so you can cut out the actual part?

Well, the words 'pick up' have entered the boat building vocabulary because of another brilliant micro-invention, that must have been discovered around the same time as lofting itself, if not earlier. That is, several hundred years ago, in the great Age of Sail.

This is the simplest invention of the 3 I discuss here. In fact, it might better be called an Innovation, because it probably improved on whatever method was used previously.

The innovation consists of laying small nails on the lofting board, points out, with their heads aligned with the lines of the part you are trying to 'pick up'.

This photo also demonstrates why lofters should use old-fashioned pencils, NOT the markers recommended by some who will be left unnamed. The white lines are made by White Out (how embarassing.) The nails are laid on the correct lines.

 Small nails, lined up on pencil lines

photo jamberg

close up... 

photo jalmberg

Then you carefully lay a small bit of plywood on top of the nails. I used 1/4". I worried that the nails would roll around under the plywood and get out of place, but this wasn't really a problem...

Plywood, laid on top of nail heads

photo jalmberg

Then, you step onto the plywood board, and carefully squash the whole piece onto the nails, so that the edges of the nail heads press into the plywood making little indentations.

Then you 'pick up' the plywood and circle all the indentations, so you don't lose them. In my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of this stage, however, you can see them on the next photo, where I have nailed the same nails into the plywood board, one into each indentation. You can then bend a batten around those nails and draw a line.

Using a batten to smooth the line

photo jalmberg

And on the other sides

photo jalmberg

After you've connected all the dot's you've picked up from the lofting board, just cut along the dotted-line. The result is a pattern that is precisely the same as the one drawn on your lofting board.

The lofted stem, and the 'picked up' pattern

photo jalmberg

The pattern, cut out
photo jalmberg

As usual, experienced boat builders won't have learned anything new in this blog post... except, perhaps, a new sense of wonder at these marvelous micro inventions... okay, tricks... that connect us to the really brillant people who discovered these simple, but mathematically complex techniques, so very, very long ago.

>> Next Episode: The Quest for Wood

I hope you're enjoying "The Unlikely Boat Builder" as much as I enjoy writing it. Some people have asked for a way to be notified automatically when I post new episodes. I've just figured out how to do this, so if you'd like to be notified, please click on the link below. I promise I'll never spam you (and Google will have my head if I do.)

Thanks for your interest!

-- John

Get notified automatically

Man, The Tool Maker

"There is nothing particularly difficult about sailing," my friend John V. mused as we drove across Peconic Bay last weekend into a cold, 20 knot breeze. "But there are an enormous number of simple skills to be mastered."

At that particular moment, I was trying to master the skill of staying warm under the dodger, while John squinted into the wind like the Ancient Mariner, seemingly unaffected by the ferocious wind-chill factor...

Illustration by Gustave Doré 

Wikimedia Commons

Still, I took his point. There were the basic sailing skills, like helmsmanship and sail trimming that you learned as a boy (or girl) in a dink or Sun Fish. Then there were the big boat skills you learned at the knee of your father or uncle, like knot tying, anchoring, docking, putting in a reef without getting blown off the cabin top, and crawling forward to change the headsail the middle of a Wednesday night race.

And when you finally ventured out of your childhood harbor, master of your own little vessel, there were the more serious skills of weather forecasting, coastal piloting, and the granddaddy of them all... celestial navigation.

Use of a marine sextant to measure the altitude of the sun

Wikimedia Commons

And this is forgetting the sailing-domestic skills of getting a hot meal out of a heaving galley, or maneuvering your way into a V-berth without dislocating your hip.

Yes, John was right. Learning to be a proper sailorman (or woman) took longer than getting a Ph.D. in Economics. So what was I doing, effectively doubling my lifetime course load, by opting for the 'double major' of Sailing and Boat Building?

The answer was, of course, enjoying every minute of it...

In the last couple weeks, I'd realized that Boat Building, like Sailing, wasn't a single skill but a whole collection of skills. I hadn't mapped them all out yet, but so far, they seemed to include "Wood Working" (and not the delicate kind), "Tool Buying, Refurbishment, and Sharpening", and even "Tool Making".

In preparation for cutting a rabbet in Cabin Boy's stem I had aquired a couple of beautiful chisels manufactured a long time ago by the Union Hardware Co.

Union Hardware Firmer Chisels

photo by jalmberg

But as I had recently learned from my new friends on the Old Tools online forum, such fine tools should NEVER be struck with a steel hammer. I needed an old fashioned wooden mallet.

So far, I had managed to keep my tool budget within reason by trolling through garage sales and fleaBay. But I was running out of time. I needed to cut my rabbet soon to keep on schedule to finish Cabin Boy by spring.

I kept looking at the hunk of white oak left over from cutting out Cabin Boy's stem... Perhaps there was just enough left to make a wooden mallet?

But, could I really do such a thing?

I found a set of plans for one drawn up by a Brazilian wood worker named Diego de Assis. This seemed fortuitous as Helena is Brazilian. Maybe fate was guiding my hand again...

The plans seemed simple enough, and surprisingly, my now modest collection of old tools seemed sufficient for the job: saw, block plane, ruler, pencil, and an old steel-capped chisel that I could whack with a carpenter's hammer without feeling guilty.

I couldn't think of anything else I'd need... by gum, I would give it a try.

First, I cut the pieces -- the head and handle -- out of my scrap of oak, using my old Buffalo 12" band saw that Helena had found by the side of the road in someone's trash. I'd fixed it and finally figured out how to adjust it's blade (after breaking 3 of them!)

Mallet handle and head, cut from the same piece of white oak as Cabin Boy's stem

photo by jalmberg

I planed the sides of the handle flat with a low-angle block plane. And then took the hard, square edges off with a chisel, testing it every so often until it seemed to fit my hand.

Finally, I used some 120/150/220 grit sand paper to get it really smooth.

Working on the handle

photo by jalmberg

Even more interesting than getting the handle smooth was realizing that I hadn't picked those grades of sandpaper at random, but knew those were the right grades to use after smoothing with the plane and chisel. Wow... who the heck was I becoming???

I shaped and smoothed the mallet head in much the same way, and then faced the really difficult job -- cutting a tapered hole in the head exactly the right size to fit the tapered handle... presumably with a chisel.

Since I'd never cut anything with a chisel before, no less a precisely tapered hole, this was a challenge to my imagination. Such a challenge, that I forgot to take any pictures. However, after a lot of careful cutting and gouging, I ended up with a hole of approximately the right size. The handle fit into the head of the mallet like a hand going into a glove... well, close enough.

Assembled wooden mallet

photo by jalmberg

The result was a stout, oak mallet that made me feel as proud as Thor's apprentice. And I couldn't help but notice Helena's amazed -- I mean, admiring -- looks. Building a software program had never attracted the girls, but building Thor's hammer...

Hey, maybe there were some unexpected benefits to this boat building stuff...

So, now I was a tool maker... amazing. Where would this boat building adventure take me next?

Painting by Mårten Eskil Winge

Wikimedia Commons

>> Next Episode: Micro Inventions

I hope you're enjoying "The Unlikely Boat Builder" as much as I enjoy writing it. Some people have asked for a way to be notified automatically when I post new episodes. I've just figured out how to do this, so if you'd like to be notified, please click on the link below. I promise I'll never spam you (and Google will have my head if I do.)

Thanks for your interest!

-- John

Get notified automatically

I Am Bitten

The other day, I realized I'd been bitten. Not by a dinosaur, but by something just as powerful and a lot more sneaky: the boat building bug.

I was building the stongback for Cabin Boy -- a kind of ladder-frame structure that is used to erect the molds. Compared to lofting and building the molds, putting together the strongback was simple, even for me. Obviously I didn't say so at the time... no sense tempting fate.

Nevertheless, while doing this pleasantly easy work, I had a few brainwaves left over and found myself day dreaming.

Did I daydream about sailing Cabin Boy across Oyster Bay Harbor on an early spring morning, with a bone in his solid oak teeth?

Or maybe rowing down the Housatonic River, with my darling casting admiring gazes at my rippling pecs?

[Note from son: "Try not to embarass us, Dad"]

No, what I found myself daydreaming about was building the next boat.

Now, I have to admit that the sudden onset of this disease took me by surprise. Building Cabin Boy started off as a way to learn the basics of wooden boat construction so I would have some confidence in my ability to care for the larger wooden boat that Helena had fixed her mind on.

Build one small boat, learn the basics, get a nice dingy out of it. Move on. That's what I had in mind.

So what was I doing daydreaming about building the Atkin "Little Bear"?

Little Bear (sometimes called "Great Bear")

Design by John Atkin

This illness was easy for my new boat building friends to diagnose... They all had it too. They say it isn't fatal... most of the time.

They also say a picture is worth a thousand words, so rather than waste a thousand describing the process of building Cabin Boy's strongback, I give you this short video.

Cabin Boy's Strongback

Video by John Almberg

The music, by the way, is William Bolcom's "Graceful Ghost Rag", played by John Murphey. Highly recommended.

>> Next Episode: Man, The Tool Maker

I hope you're enjoying "The Unlikely Boat Builder" as much as I enjoy writing it. Some people have asked for a way to be notified automatically when I post new episodes. I've just figured out how to do this, so if you'd like to be notified, please click on the link below. I promise I'll never spam you (and Google will have my head if I do.)

Thanks for your interest!

-- John

Get notified automatically

The Essential Boat Building Tool

For about 54 years, I was an unhandy guy. There was nothing I could do about it, it wasn't my fault, it was just the way my genes were wired.

So, while Helena could spend a pleasant afternoon refinishing our 100 year old iron windows -- scraping away rust, cutting glass to replace broken panes, and carefully puttying them in place -- my jobs were exercises in frustrating futility.

My jobs always went wrong. I always had to rework them and every job took longer than it should have or -- more correctly -- longer than I wanted it to.

And the faster I worked, the more of a hash I'd make of the job, and the longer it would take.

Absolute, utter frustration.

Then, a couple years ago, Helena asked me to fix our bedroom door which had somehow changed shape so it was impossible to close. For some reason, I decided that instead of trying to rush through the hated task, I'd take whatever time it took to do the job properly, and I wouldn't allow any interruption.

Surprise, surprise, not only did I fix the door, I actually enjoyed it. I suddenly realized that I could probably do any type of handyman job, no matter how complex, as long as I did it slowly enough.

In other words, the most important (and unused) tool in my toolbox was patience.

That epiphany led me directly to building this boat and to the problem of the too-large mold in front of me. I must admit I considered pretending that my plans had been drawn to the outside of the plank... would it really matter if the boat was 7/16ths of an inch wider on each side?

But in the end, patience -- and the will to build Cabin Boy the right way -- won out and I got down to the task of reworking my beautiful mold.

The mold inset by the width of the side plank and bottom

Photo by jalmberg

The photo above shows the goal -- to inset the mold from the lines of the body plan by the width of the side planks (7/16") and the bottom planks (5/8"). To do so accurately is a simple job. You just need to remember to do it!

How to inset body plan by width of planking

Drawing by jalmberg

The trick is to set a compass (the two-legged type you use in school), to the width of your side planking. In my case, 7/16". Then put the pointy part of the compass on the body plan line, and draw an arc on the inside. Do this every few inches along the whole side, and then connect the peaks of the arcs with a straight edge and pencil. 

Repeat on the other side using the same compass setting, and on the bottom using the width of the bottom planking (5/8" in my case). Connect all the arcs, and your body plan is now inset by the width of your planking.

Of course, you have to do this for the body plan at all stations. It's easy work and it goes quickly, but the number of lines on your lofting board doubles and gets confusing fast.

I decided to use different colored pencils for each of the 4 inset body plans. I was also careful to label each station, putting the number of the station in each corner of the inset body plan. This reduces (but doesn't eliminate!) the danger of using the wrong line.

So, I re-cut my mold to fit the new, inset plan, and assembled it on the lofting board again:

Re-cut mold, back on lofting board

Photo by jalmberg

Here is where I made yet another error. They say you can't teach experience, but I mention this mistake so perhaps you won't make it...

After re-cutting the mold and assembling it on the lofting board (to make sure all the lines and angles are correct), I removed it to put the bottom piece (called the 'cross spall', I've recently discovered) back on.

BIG MISTAKE!!!

It is hard to see in the photo above, but there are 3 very important lines that cut through all of the molds:

1. the horizontal 'sheer line'
2. the horizontal 'load waterline' (l.w.l.)
3. the vertical 'center line'

The forgotten lines

Drawing by jalmberg

Before removing the mold from the lofting board, I should have carefully marked each line on the mold. I would need them later.

Of course, I was impatient to finish the mold, so it wasn't until I was admiring my re-assembled mold for the second time that I remembered the much needed, but missing lines.

And that's when I pulled my shiny new tool out of my tool box. I was pretty sure my patience would be thoroughly broken in by time I finished this project.

>> Next Episode: I Am Bitten
 

I hope you're enjoying "The Unlikely Boat Builder" as much as I enjoy writing it. Some people have asked for a way to be notified automatically when I post new episodes. I've just figured out how to do this, so if you'd like to be notified, please click on the link below. I promise I'll never spam you (and Google will have my head if I do.)

Thanks for your interest!

-- John

Get notified automatically

What you get when you build a boat

Whilst on my poor knees the other day, drilling away on the subject of a future blog post, it occurred to me that -- despite the sore knees and aching back -- building this boat was the most fun I'd had in years. And I wondered why, why it was so much fun?

It surely isn't the boat itself, or the future of rowing and sailing it promises. If I'm honest, I don't particularly need a small boat to go sailing. I did plenty of sailing this summer on other people's boats.

No, it's not the destination of completing the boat, so much as the journey of building it. It's the thrill of the possibility.  The high of anticipation. The first date with a band saw. That's what makes building boats so much fun for me.

I think I've mentioned before that this blog is not a how-to -- only a damn fool would try to learn how to build a boat from a complete novice like me. There are many boat building books (BBBs) that explain in detail the correct way to loft, or pick up a pattern, or do any of the million things you need to do to build a boat.

Unfortunately, boat building is an art, not a science. Thus the BBBs leave you plenty of room for 'creativity' -- that is, errors -- and I'm pretty sure I made every error possible in 'picking up' the patterns for Cabin Boy's bones.That's why I call this blog a how-not-to... Here we go.

After lofting the body plan, the next step was to build the 4 bones -- or molds -- that Cabin Boy's skin would be bent and shaped over. It seemed like a pretty simple process. Just cut a few boards to the correct shape, and screw together. Easy-peasy.

I build my first mold

Photo by jalmberg

 
Even I was able to do this without much fuss. Just line up a board with the side of one of the body plans, tick off the bottom line and floor line on the inside and outside of board, connect the ticks, and saw off straight.

Then just tack it onto the lofting board with some small finishing nails, leaving the heads sticking out a bit so you can pull them out later.

The Official Beer of the Unlikely Boat Builder

I will say again that this would have been easier to do if my lofting board had been on the floor, instead of on the wall. It is pretty awkward to line up a long board with a pencil line, and to hold it exactly in place while ticking off the floor and bottom lines. Gravity was definitely NOT helping! But with ample cursing and a Blue Moon or two, it can be done.

Next, I cut out and screwed on the bottom piece (I'm sure there are actual names for the pieces of a mold, but I don't know them. If you do know them, please let me know!) To keep the lines stable, I was careful to use 4 screws in each corner.

Attaching the bottom piece

Photo by jalmberg

The final step is to remove the almost-finished mold from the lofting board and attach the floor piece... Again, using 4 screws on each leg, just to make it really solid.

Attaching floor piece to mold, making sure floor and bottom lines are level

Photo by jalmberg

Beautiful, right? My breast swelling with pride, I stood back to admire this amazing feat of wood working, when a splinter of doubt began to niggle at me...

Hadn't I read something, somewhere, about the body plan sometimes being drawn to the outside of the plank, and sometimes to the inside?

This is an important distinction, because if the plans are drawn to the inside of the plank, then my form was the correct size, because it would be the inside of the sides and bottom that my form would touch.

But if the plans are drawn to the outside of the plank, then the builder must reduce the size of the molds by the depth of the side and bottom planking.

As I recalled, this should have been clearly marked on the plans. I studied them... carfully. Not a word. Now what? Maybe I was lucky and John Atkin had sensibly drawn the body plan lines to the inside of the plank?

I re-read the lofting chapters in all my BBBs. They all agreed: The default -- if not specifically spelled out on the plans -- is to measure to the outside of the planking.

This is the most flexible way to draw the plans, since plans are really just a guide... the designer has no idea what size planking you will use, so he leaves it up to you to buy the planking and then reduce the molds by the correct amount.

Very sensible, really... only my beautiful mold was wrong.

I'd have to to re-do the body plan on my lofting board to take into account the size planks I would use on the bottom and sides. Then I could remove all 16 screws from my mold, re-cut it to the correct size, and re-assemble it.

And that is what makes boat building so much fun.

>>> Next episode: The essential boat building tool

I hope you're enjoying "The Unlikely Boat Builder" as much as I enjoy writing it. Some people have asked for a way to be notified automatically when I post new episodes. I've just figured out how to do this, so if you'd like to be notified, please click on the link below. I promise I'll never spam you (and Google will have my head if I do.)

Thanks for your interest!

-- John

Get notified automatically

Another Blue Moon was in order.

Search for Sailboats

I'm always looking for the perfect sailboat, but it's a pain to search my favorite websites one by one. To solve this problem, I created a custom search engine that searches all of them at once. Pretty darn handy! Give it a try, and if you have another website you think I should search, please let me know and I'll add it in. The complete list of websites currently searched is listed below.

You will get better results with longer searches, such as:
     "blue moon sailboat for sale"

Websites currently searched:

http://www.yachtworld.com
http://sailboatlistings.com
http://usedboats.com
http://classifieds.woodenboats4sale.com
http://www.goodoldboat.com
http://www.hillyardyachts.com
http://www.ladyben.com
http://yachthub.com
http://www.boneyardboats.com
http://www.boatclassifieds.us 
http://www.boatquest.com
http://www.cwb.org/about-cwb/boats-sale
http://www.woodenboat.org/boats/for_sale/
http://www.spauldingcenter.org/boatfinder/
http://www.ybw-boatsforsale.com
http://www.ebay.com
http://www.craigslist.org