The Boatbuilder's Apprentice - The Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boats - Hardcover

Rossel, Greg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071464050 ISBN 13: 9780071464055

Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press, 2007

Synopsis

Learn the Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boats

Whether you are contemplating your first-ever boatbuilding project or trying to decide what design you'd like to build next, Greg Rössel can help. Here's just a glimpse of what's inside this complete overview of wooden boatbuilding:

• How rowing, sailing, paddling, and powerboat designs perform, and how they compare in cost, time, and necessary skills for building
• How wooden boats are built, including the pros and cons of carvel, lapstrake, dory lap, stitch and glue, strip plank, and other methods
• How to choose the best boat and building method for your next project
• How to loft a hull, steam bend frames, scarf a joint, cut a rabbet, laminate stems, and spile planks
• How to take the lines off an old classic whose plans have been lost
• How to make oars, spars, coamings, knees, gaff jaws, cleats, and more

Greg Rössel writes with warmth, wit, and an engaging style. The Boatbuilder's Apprentice is a must guide for anyone planning or even dreaming about building a wooden boat.

“Greg Rössel is a Renaissance man. While there are many talented boatbuilders in the world, only a handful are also good teachers. Even fewer can write or illustrate effectively. Yet this author is highly skilled in each of these areas. . . . The Boatbuilder's Apprentice is a successful blend of technique and wisdom, and is, I believe, destined to become a classic.”-Karen Wales, WoodenBoat Review

About this title

About the Author

Greg Rï¿ssel is the well-known author of Building Small Boats, co-author of Kayaks You Can Build, and a long-time contributor to WoodenBoat magazine. He is a columnist for Maine Boats & Harbors, his articles appear regularly in magazines such as Watercraft, and he teaches boatbuilding courses at the Penobscot Maritime Museum, WoodenBoat School, and elsewhere. He operates a boat carpentry business in Maine, doing new construction, repairs, and historically accurate restorations.

From the Back Cover

There is a peculiar form of insomnia that afflicts amateur boatbuilders. It consists of lying awake at night, reviewing the details of a boatbuilding project and wondering, "How am I going to do that?" Greg Rössel helps answer those questions.

Wooden boats have been called "the most lifelike" of man's creations. Their beauty can inspire even inexperienced woodworkers to attempt their construction, but their complexity can bedevil the most determined. In The Boatbuilder's Apprentice, longtime WoodenBoat writer and professional boatbuilder Greg Rössel helps weekend builders choose the best boat design and construction method for their first, second, or twentieth project.

Beginning with the question, 'why wood?, ' and focusing on wooden boats less than 20 feet long, Greg provides a complete overview of the methods used to build small wooden boats, from traditional carvel or lapstrake planking to modern stitch-and-glue, strip-planked, glued-lap, cold molding, and others. He discusses their pros and cons, their adaptability to different boat types, and their degrees of difficulty in both construction and maintenance. He explains the basics of boat design and of hull form and function and helps the beginner decide which type of boat will best suit his or her needs, skills, and desires.

Greg also covers the essentials of every boatbuilding project, including:

• Tools, wood types, fasteners, adhesives, and coatings;
• Shop setup and safety;
• Whether to build right-side up or upside down;
• How to go about steam bending, cutting rabbets, scarfing, and laminating;
• Oar and spar making;
• Building knees, gaff jaws, and cleats, and taking the lines off an old classic.

Writing with wit and an engaging style, Rössel makes light work of that most feared of all processes for the beginning boatbuilder-lofting. He shares his extensive experience on problem solving, shows you how to work efficiently, and offers hundreds of ingenious techniques for surmounting age-old difficulties. He also includes a glossary as well as an extensive appendix of sources for plans and materials.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

the Boatbuilder's Apprentice

The Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boats

By Greg Rossel

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2007 Greg Rossel
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-146405-5

Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Selecting a Small Boat to Build
Part One METHODS OF HULL CONSTRUCTION
1 Construction Systems
2 Carvel Planking
3 Lapstrake Planking
4 Dory-Lap Planking
5 Planking a Traditional Flat-Bottomed Boat
6 Batten Seam Construction
7 Strip Planking
8 Traditional Hard-Chined V-Bottomed Construction
9 Stitch-and-Glue Construction
10 Glued Lapstrake Planking
11 Cold Molding
Part Two SETTING UP SHOP
12 Traditional Hull Materials
13 Plywood
14 Hull Knees
15 Selecting a Glue
16 Fastenings
17 Bedding Compounds
18 Boat Finishes
19 Tools
20 Setting Up Shop
21 Wood Dust
Part Three BUILDING TECHNIQUES
22 Construction Planning
23 Lofting Basics
24 Let's Loft Some Boats
25 Construction Setup
26 The Backbone
27 Steaming Frames and Planks
28 Scarfs
29 Steam-Bent Coaming
30 Oars and Spars
31 Oarlocks, Pads, and Leathers
32 Bitts and Pieces
Part Four BOATS TO BUILD
33 Pulling Boats
34 Canoes and Kayaks
35 Dories
36 Sailboats
37 Powerboats
38 Taking the Lines
39 Young Folks and Boatbuilding
Appendix A: Tables, Lists, and Technical Specifications
Appendix B: Resources
Glossary
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Construction Systems

One of the most important and intriguing considerations when deciding on a boatto build is what system to choose for hull construction. There is a vast rangeof styles to choose from. From the complex, time-and-material-consuming, to therelatively quick-and-easy, each of the systems has something tooffer—that's why they were developed in the first place.

Considering boatbuilding historically, the business has always been aboutinnovation, using the best from the past and embracing (albeit, many timesbegrudgingly) the latest in technology. New fangledness, however, does notnecessarily make the method or the product better than the old way. Is a steelwarehouse better than a post-and-beam barn? Both do the job they were intendedto do.

It's all about using technology that is appropriate for the job. A laminatedepoxy composite hull is great, but if you are in a remote locale where there isno way to manufacture the laminates and the glue is prohibitively expensive orimpossible to import, building in the older plank-on-frame methods withindigenous materials makes a lot of sense.

There is also the matter of intangibles and philosophy. For many, there is acertain mojo when working with natural wood and time-tested methods. There is asmell and a tactile satisfaction that comes with shaping a cedar plank from rawmaterial that was obviously a tree—bark, knots, and all—not thatlong ago. For others, building a boat from raw wood is about as up-to-date asgargoyle carving and as practical as deciding to build an automobile startingwith iron ore and rubber trees.

Take planking for example. Not every style lends itself to every design. Forexample, stitch-and-glue is a wonderful innovation, but the technique isrestricted by the constraints imposed by the manufactured material (i.e.,plywood) used. There aren't many Herreshoff 12½-style boats being built institch-and-glue, much less any Friendship sloops. The hull shapes are simply toocomplex. For those designs, the highly versatile yet somewhat archaic carvelplanking is the way to go. On the other hand, the simplicity of stitch-and-glueand the strength of plywood and epoxy make that technique a top choice forbuilding a kayak. You could build a kayak in carvel, but the additional expense,time, weight, and maintenance hardly make it a first choice.

Then there are the versatile hull designs that can be built with a number ofdifferent techniques. Take the traditional Whitehall-type pulling boat. Abeautiful and reliable hull can be fashioned using carvel, lapstrake (clinker),strip planking (either edge-nailed or glued-strip with fiberglass), glued lap,cold molding, or thoroughly modern, computer carved LapStitch planking.

You'll note that I'm referring to planking methods and construction methodsalmost interchangeably. In many ways, the two are nearly synonymous. Traditionalcarvel and lapstrake planking inevitably imply the use of plank-on-frameconstruction. Strip planking is also known as strip construction, or stripbuilding, and since there's almost no structure to a strip-built hull besidesthe planks, this makes sense. The same goes for stitch-and-glue: it's aconstruction method that relies upon stitched-and-glued panels (in place ofplanks, per se).

PLANKING METHODS

Lapstrake

For hundreds of years, mechanics have had access to a plethora of plankingmethods. One of the oldest is the lapstrake or clinker method where the top edgeof each plank is beveled, overlapped by, and fastened to the bottom edge of thenext one up. Lapstrake boats are strong, relatively lightweight, and generallyeasy to keep tight (at least when new) thanks to the overlapping planks. Dorylap is a variation that uses a bevel on both the top and bottom edges of theplank. This is done to reduce the thickness of the lap. The glued plywoodlapstrake method (or simply "glued lap") was introduced just a few years ago,taking advantage of the benefits of plywood and epoxy to increase the durabilityof the planking, eliminate leaks, and cut down on the number of frames required.

Lapstrake construction in general is best suited for a hull without a tremendousamount of shape or large changes in girth or circumference in the hull movingfore to aft. For a good-looking job and for easy planking, care must be taken tocarefully predetermine, or "line out," the plank locations. Curiously, lapstrakeboats are somewhat "noisy" or musical as the moving water chortles past thelaps.

Traditional lapstrake fares well out of the water for extendedperiods—that's why the method was often used for lifeboats.

Carvel Planking

Smooth or carvel planking has the classic look that is often associated withyachts. Any kind of hull can be built with edge-to-edge-fit carvel planking, aseach individual plank is patterned and sculpted to shape. Where lapstrakeplanking is a series of flat planes with a bevel on one edge, the carvel plankis hollowed on the inside, rounded on the outside, and compound-beveled on oneedge (occasionally two) to fit tightly against its neighbor. Watertightnesscomes from both this high-level joinery and a strand of cotton caulking driveninto the seam between the planks. The driven cotton also stiffens the hull.Unlike lapstrake, carvel does not have the reinforcement offered by lapping eachplank over its neighbor, so the planking must be heavier. With the requirementto not just cut, but also form, each plank in three dimensions, traditionalcarvel is probably the most complicated of the planking methods.

Access to an electric planer is almost a must. A pattern must be made for eachplank, in a process called spiling, and the bevels must be recorded and planed.After the planks are hung, the hull must be caulked with cotton.

Traditional carvel is good looking and very durable if well cared for. It ishappiest when it can stay in the water throughout the season. That said, in amoderate climate and with a bit of care, a carvel hull can live happily on atrailer.

Some designs call for batten seam construction, in which a reinforcing hardwoodbatten runs behind each seam along its full length on the inside of the hull.Often seen on V-hulled power and sail boats, this adds strength andwatertightness and a bit more complexity.

Both lapstrake and carvel are demanding of time and materials. Lapstrakeplanking is a lot more forgiving in the building process than carvel, however.Traditional boat planking is a bit like tailoring a suit, in that a pattern mustbe made for most pieces. The building techniques are not difficult, but theymust be done. Boatbuilding lumber is a specialty item that can be hard to find,and after finding it, there is a considerable amount of waste materialproduced—a natural result of cutting curved pieces out of (usually)rectangular ones. That said, the result is worth it. The traditionally builthull is good looking, durable, and flexible, yet ironically, it is the easiestto repair.

Strip Planking

Strip planking is another form of carvel planking. Instead of patterningindividual pieces of various widths and shapes, the builder uses long, narrow,flexible strips or battens. In traditional strip planking, the bottom edge ofeach strip has a compound bevel to match the angles of the previous strip. Alater advance involves milling a concave shape into one edge of each strip, anda matching convex shape into the other, for a cove-and-bead arrangement. Whenput together, the rounded edges conform to one another (sort of like ball jointsin a car), eliminating the need for careful beveling. Either way, the strips areedge nailed (and often glued) to one another, which makes for a very strong andtight hull, and the outside is faired smooth. Modern strip planking uses verythin planking that again relies on cove and bead joinery. By itself, this lightplanking is rather weak, but it actually forms the core of what can beconsidered a composite hull. When encased inside and out by glass cloth andepoxy, the result is a light but very strong, watertight hull that needs littlein the way of internal reinforcement.

Is there a fly in the ointment of strip planking? Of course. As every boat'sgirth varies from bow to stern, simply planking with those thin strips willleave you short of the sheer amidships. Various schemes exist to fill out theshortage, but the look is different from the elegantly tapered shapes oftraditional lap-strake or carvel planks, and strip planking can be tricky torepair.

Plywood

Plywood is yet another option—strong, (relatively) easy to find, andwaterproof. Early designs usually were slab-sided V-shaped hulls that wereconventionally framed, with the plywood basically acting as a replacement forconventional planking. A more modern innovation is the stitch-and-glue techniquewhere the shapes of the plywood panels actually drive the shape of the hull(which is built from the skin inward), and much of the lofting, framing,bulkheads, and setup are eliminated or reduced. Stitch-and-glue designer andbuilder Sam Devlin likens the concept to peeling a banana, eating the fruit, andthen reassembling the peels to create the banana shape again. Duringconstruction, the panels are provisionally sewn together into a boat shape withwire ties—much like a tailor would tack together a suit. Epoxy fillets(thickened epoxy radiuses on the interior) are toweled into the wired joints.The fillets replace the longitudinal chine in early plywood designs. Lightweightstitch-and-glue hulls, such as kayaks, are often covered inside and out withfabric and epoxy. The innovative technique is well suited for kit construction,and is one of the easiest ways to build a boat. Many stitch-and-glue boats aredesigned purely for function, however, and some boaters find their large, flatplanes of plywood and boxy lines downright ugly, while others find themperfectly acceptable from a utilitarian aesthetic. It is also possible to creategraceful and curvaceous designs for stitch-and-glue. Unfortunately, relativelyfew designers are developing such boats, and the number of available designs islimited.

A glued plywood lap hull is a near composite hull and therefore much moreresistant to changes in weather and humidity. The finished hull is elegant andit makes a great choice for someone who wants the look and heft of thetraditionally built hull but still needs to keep the boat on the trailer most ofthe time.

Cold Molding

Cold Molding is yet another way to go. This is the process of laminating thehull in place with wood veneers and epoxy. Picture a boat-shaped piece of high-quality plywood (or maybe a wooden bias ply tire). When well done, the result isstrong, fair, and good looking. The difficulty is getting to that point. Alaminated hull built entirely of veneers and epoxy requires a complex, elaboratemold to hold the floppy veneers fair and stable, and the process demands a lotof epoxy, nylon staples, and a vacuum pump. It is a very labor-intensive way tobuild just one hull, and you really have to like epoxy. (The time spent buildingthe mold can speed the production of additional hulls, however.) Another use ofcold molding, usually confined to 20-foot boats or larger, is to first stripplank the hull and then laminate veneers over of the strips.

MORE CONSTRUCTION DECISIONS

Depending on hull shape, frames in small craft can be steam bent to shape, sawn,or laminated. Steaming is quick and easy and requires no sophisticatedapparatus, and it is usually the method of choice for round-bottomed boats,providing the virtues of light weight and speed of construction. (Steaming canalso be used to produce a lightweight bent keel or an elaborate cockpitcoaming.) Steamed frames may be installed after the planking is in place on themolds, or longitudinal ribbands may be fastened to the building forms to providea foundation over which to bend the frames—and then the planks can befastened directly to the frames.

For hard-chined and multi-chined construction, sawn frames are the most popularway to go. The various sections of the frames are sawn to shape and thenassembled with fasteners and often gussets at the joints. A big advantage ofsawn frames is that they also serve as the building forms, eliminating a fewsteps of the construction process.

Laminated frames can be used for round and multi-chined construction. These arebuilt up from multiple layers of very thin wood, glued together, bent around aform, and held there with clamps until the glue sets. This method requiresperhaps the lowest level of carpentry skills, but it is by far the messiest.

Lastly there is the question of whether to build the boat right-side up orupside down. While it may seem counterintuitive, in most cases upside down hasthe edge. It's all a matter of accessibility and gravity. It's a lot easier tobend planking down into place than up. The builder spends a lot less time on hisor her back on a mechanic's creeper, and there is much less chance of beingclobbered by a falling clamp—not a small consideration. (See Chapter 25for a further discussion of this issue.)

COMPARISON SHOPPING

In trying to decide what kind of boat to build and how to build it, consideryour needs and make a list of your priorities. For example, you might want yourboat to do the following:

* Work well on a lake and a flatwater river.

* Have two rowing stations, so one of the children can assist at the oars.

* Be fast enough to get out to the island easily.

* Take a small outboard.

* Be big and stable enough to do a bit of fishing with the kids, but small enoughto trailer easily and manhandle when necessary.

* Look great in the plans and on the water.

Now you might want to do some comparison shopping, considering both the buildingprocess and the finished product. Whichever construction method you choose, fromancient to thoroughly modern, will produce a beautiful hull that will get youout on the water in style and elegance.

CHAPTER 2

Carvel Planking

It has been said that almost any kind of a hull can be built in carvel, as theindividual planks are actually sculpted to shape. This style of planking isreminiscent of the staves on a wooden barrel, which taper as they approach thebarrel heads. Carvel planking is dependent on and fastened to a system oftransverse frames that are either sawn or steam bent to shape. Water-tightnessand interlocking connective strength are gained from a fiber caulk (usuallycotton) that is driven into the seams between the planks.

Patterns are made for each plank. On a round hull, to accommodate constantlychanging girths and curves, each and every plank will be a different shape fromthe next. One can expect to see a plethora of shapes: crescents, lazy S's, andcurious planks that resemble handlebar mustaches. As opposed to lapstrake(clinker) planking, which covers a curved hull with flat planks of a singlethickness a bit like clapboards on a house, the inside faces of carvel planksare carved—hollowed, actually—to lie tight against the frames. Theoutside of the planking is also shaped. When the planking thickness is given ona set of plans, it is the finished thickness—after all the shaping hasbeen done. As the planking is coming around a changing curve, we can expect tohave to work in a compound bevel on at least one edge of the plank. Ohyes—there is also a caulking bevel planed into one edge as well.

A bit more work? Perhaps, but it's worth it. Here are some positives:

As mentioned, very elaborate and efficient shapes can be built with carvel. Ifdamaged, the hull can be readily repaired, because the hull is made up of manyindividual components, and only the damaged ones have to be unfastened andreplaced. If the hull starts to leak, it is a straightforward task to remove thecaulking and replace it with new. You can build with local materials and usestandard carpentry tools, and there is little need for drums of glue. Finally,it's hard to beat the classic look of a well-planked carvel hull.

SPILING AND PATTERNS

Wooden boatbuilding is more akin to dressmaking and tailoring than to, say,cabinetmaking. Domestic furniture is most often joined at right angles, plansare typically precise, and you can measure and cut the shape shown in the plansand expect the pieces to fit together if you've done your work carefully. Butconsider what goes into making a suit or a dress: you develop patterns thatallow you to wrap expensive, flexible panels of material around a complex,curvaceous surface. Considerations need to be made for movement of the garmentand the structure underneath it, and the more voluptuous and buxom the subjectis, the greater the need is for patterns. And the better the pattern, the betterthe product will be, wasting less material and time. So it is with boatbuilding.Hull forms range from simple to complex. The more complex the hull form, themore sophisticated the pattern must be. Indeed, it can be argued thatboatbuilding is all about pattern making.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from the Boatbuilder's Apprentice by Greg Rossel. Copyright © 2007 by Greg Rossel. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071464050
• ISBN 13: 9780071464055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352