Spars and sawdust

Few boatshop tasks generate more wood shavings and sanding dust than spar making.  Fairing a carvel hull is certainly right up there in dust and shavings production, but we haven't done that very recently at WoW, and only the masochists on the team are complaining about that.  This week, Jeff is finishing up the masts for the two whaleboats, and is beginning to work on the booms and gaffs.  All spars will be made of Douglas fir, and we have acquired some beautiful, straight grained timbers for that purpose.  Although trees tend to be round, for some reason timbers tend to be square, so Jeff's first task is to make them round again.

Jeff does final planing on the second whaleboat mast

Moving the sanding block faster than the camera can capture!

Bruce, meanwhile, fitted the new transom plank onto our abused Whitehall, Huffin.  It is just about ready for fastening, after which much varnish will be applied, paint will be touched up, and Huffin will be ready for another season of rowing around the basin.

Bruce test fits the new transom board.

One or two swipes with the Ryoba saw and she'll be good to go.

Carl is on "special assignment" making boxes to replace the crumbling cardboard storage boxes that fill the supply room.  Carl is doing finger joint joinery on the boxes, and it looks like he will be turning them out until there is no more white cedar left on the east coast, or at least in the shop.

Carl adding another to his pile of boxes.

Meanwhile, work continues on the multitude of widgets and parts needed to complete the second whaleboat.  The launch celebration is scheduled for June 8, so she will need to be turned over for caulking and painting very soon.  Hopefully, the interior will be completely finished before flipping the boat.

This week, the mast trough and forward lifting ring were added.

Jeff fastens the mast stowage bracket to the aft deck.

Filing shoulders off carriage bolts to fasten the tabernacle.

Gluing up a white oak block for the loggerhead.

John is "detailing" the boat.  Here he cleans up some bedding compound squeezeout.

As planned, Suzy motored down the river for rigging and some final installations.  She looks much more distinguished and notably smaller floating beside the ISM dock than she did in past months in the shop.

Suzy at rest alongside the ISM dock, all painted and rigged and ready to sail again.

A Big Empty Space

Suzy, the L. Francis Herreshoff Meadow Lark, left the shop on Tuesday, headed for Riverside, NJ and her return to the water.  She will return, via the river, to WoW shortly for rigging.  Her departure left the shop with a ballroom size space -- at least for a few hours.  It seems as if boatshops, like nature, abhor a vacuum. Consequently, by the end of Tuesday, a host of new nautical objects had been established and the shop is once again, happily crowded.

Suzy is hooked up and ready to roll

Bob gets ready for the big turn

Made it!

Bon Voyage, Suzy!

Much of the space is now occupied by huge Douglas fir timbers that are becoming masts for the whaleboats.  The masts are solid and will be heavy. The thought of stepping and unstepping them while at sea boggles the mind, but that is what was routinely during the whaling era.  The image that comes to mind is the flag raising at Iwo Jima, except that the platform on which the crew stood to raise the mast was narrow, uneven, and rocking unpredictably.

Suzy's former home is now a mast fabrication area.

Aside from being solid rather than hollow, and fir instead of Sitka spruce, the method of building the mast is the same as we always use.  First, the four sided timber is tapered per the design. Next, the timber is lined out into eight sides. Then, using a power plane, the square is shaved to the lines to make an octogon.  Next, the eight sided timber is lined out and planed again to 16 sides.  Finally, using a hand plane with a curved iron, the mast is rounded to its final shape.

Bruce planes the mast-to-be to 16 sides.

Also occupying Suzy's space is the Whitehall "Huffin."  She was the unfortnate victim of an overly exuberant youthful docking effort following a recent afternoon of rowing.  The top half of the transom, which in Whitehalls arches well over the sheer, slammed the dock full force -- one can only wonder how this was accomplished -- and it snapped off.  The repair involves fully removing the top section of the transom, cutting a new one, and installing it.  While Huffin is in the shop, she is being cleaned, sanded, painted, and varnished.

Honest! I had nothing to do with it!

Removing the remaining part of the upper plank.

With the boat out of the water and in the shop, it is a good time to remove, repair, and repaint parts that have seen hard duty, as well as a winter on the dock.  The Wooden Boat Factory kids applied a couple of coats of new paint to the Whitehall sole sections.

Sole and thwarts painted and drying.

Our whaleboat launch is now four weeks away, and the last bits of whaling equipment are being fabricated and installed.  Nick put the finishing touches on the rudder for whaleboat number two, attaching pintels and cheeks with bedding compound and copper rivets. The rudder was lofted, a pattern cut, and the actual material machined, all by students in the shop.

The rudder clamped up for some final sanding.

Charles worked on the aft deck of whaleboat number two, carving the builder signature in the lion's tongue, and fastening the steering oar bracket and the remainder of the aft deck in place.  Then, the lion's tongue was bedded and screwed down to the deck.

The patterns for ISM - WoW are taped to the lion's tongue

The completed lion's tongue awaits fastening.

Spring

With a long awaited and much anticipated Spring finally here, it is almost time for the three boats that now occupy the WoW shop floor to splash.  The Francis Herreshoff Meadow Lark, Suzy is all put back together, and is sporting a fresh coat of paint, on both her bottom and hull, as well as new lettering on her transom.  She is a good looking old girl, and we'll be proud to send her on her way, better than when she arrived in so many ways.  Suzy is due to leave the shop next Tuesday, assuming that her reconditioned prop arrives by then.  

New lettering on a freshly painted transom

You can see your reflection in Suzy's hull

Freshly painted leeboards await reinstallation

And the prop is where?

The first Beetle replica whaleboat is complete, and ready to launch, and the second one is moving quickly toward completion.  All hands were working on various projects related to that goal.  Thwarts have been cut and installed, and now the thwart knees must be bent into position and fastened.  Brackets, which fill the space between the hull and the bent oak knees, must be precisely cut and fitted.  Also, the many trim pieces unique to whaleboats must be fabricated and installed. We have about four weeks left until the launch party, and there is still a lot of work to be done.

John and Jeff work on knee brackets. 

Jeff fits a knee.

Steve works on an oak rail spacer between the bowchocks and the clumsy cleat.

Here is the lion's tongue, cut out and ready fitting.

Nick wrestles the student-made rudder into position for a test fitting.

Our Whale Yacht

Whaleboat number one is right side up again, and is pretty much complete.  The key word is pretty, we think.  She has the beautiful lines of her ancestors, and the meticulous fit and finish done by WoW craftsmen as accustomed to building sailing yachts as rough and ready workboats.  With her white hull, ISM blue sheer strake, and dark grey gunwales, she looks simply fantastic.

From the bow . . .

Amidships . . .

Or the stern, she looks every bit as fine as we had hoped she would.

With a tight splash deadline looming for both boats, there is not a lot of time to admire our work.  There is still a lot to do on the second boat, although the team is moving along at warp speed.  Floors have been fitted in both the bow and the stern where soles will be installed, and work has begun on the ceiling, which runs nearly the length of the boat, from keel to thwart rails.  That is a LOT of spiling, cutting, planing, fitting, screwing, and perhaps just a bit of swearing along the way.

The aft sole sits on floors, ready to be fastened.  A similar structure is going up forward.

Bruce cuts out a section of ceiling.  It's double thick so it can be resawn for a port and starboard section.

After the saw the next step is always the hand plane.

The first of many ceiling sections is clamped in place.  Note scarph on aft end.

Lee finishes up sanding the five oarlock pads needed for the whaleboat.

Suzy, the L.F.Herreshoff Meadow Lark, continues her makeover at the far end of the shop.  Jeff has completed his structural repairs on her keel, and is putting her back together.  The chines have been fastened in place and the edges carefully beveled to accept the adjacent plank.  Prior to re-planking, all the old screw and nail holes in the keel, frames, and stem needed to be filled with wood dowels.  John S. was the man with the pen knife taking care of this task.

Jeff checks the fit of the chine on the port side.

Measuring the angle for the plank bevel.

John whittles dowels to fill old screw holes.

A bit of repair work needed to be done on the replica sailmaker's bench.  The pine surface of the bench, which has been on display in the museum as an interactive exhibit, suffered a bit too much interaction from a young would-be sailmaker.  Since it will be part of the upcoming Tides of Freedom exhibit, a re-surfacing job was in order.  Fortunately, the repairs can be made, and the bench will be ready for visitors to experience the craft again.

Fixing damage to the sailmaker's bench.  A coat of paint, and no one will ever know.

True blue

The first Beetle replica whaleboat is now sporting her color scheme.  She has a bright blue shiny sheer strake, and bright white topsides.  The color scheme matches the Independence Seaport Museum's logo colors, which is wholly appropriate.

No question where this boat was built!

One more coat of topside paint, and she will be ready to flip.  Launch day is coming quickly.

Her sister is coming along nicely as well.  As promised, frame installation is complete, and the team moved on to the multitude of interior construction tasks that will need to be completed by our committed launch date in June.  The centerboard trunk was constructed outside the boat, and Jeff fitted it and fastened it in place.

Jeff works from below fastening the centerboard trunk.

The trunk is in place among all those frames.

At the bow, Charles began fitting and shaping the bow chocks.  When whaling, the harpoon line, once it was "connected" to a whale, payed out through the space between these chocks, so they had to be both massive and well attached.

Oak timbers squared and ready to be shaped into bow chocks.

Port bow chock shaped and sanded.  Ready for installation

Starboard chock has been rough cut.  Shaping is a multi-step process.

With frames in place, attention is turning to the installation of thwarts.  Before thwarts can be fitted, the thwart risers must be installed, and Bruce, Steve, and Jeff worked on that task.  

Steve oils newly installed port thwart riser.

Starboard thwart riser is clamped in place, ready to be fastened.

Once the risers have been done, the boat builders can turn their attention to measuring and installing the thwarts.  Aside from providing the crew with places to sit, the thwarts are essential to the structural stability of the boat.  They provide stiffness, and to enhance that function, they are fitted with knees that connect the thwarts to the sides of the hull up to the gunwales.   The knees are steam bent on a jig designed for that purpose.  Bruce, Newt, and Carl experimented with the jig to refine the steam bending process for thwart knees.

Bruce and Newt bend a knee on the knee shaping jig.

Work continued on the hull of the L. F. Herreshoff Meadow Lark, Suzy.  Jeff has fitted his new keel sections, and fastened them in place.  He also fabricated a new chine section to replace a rotted one, and that too was fastened in place.

Jeff beds the keel chine with Sikaflex.

Suzy's hull is due for a new paint job, and to get ready for that, thorough hand sanding is necessary.  The two Johns worked on that tedious, dusty, but essential task.

John sands the hull.

Meanwhile, Bob was engaged in galley repairs.  The galley will get a new top to replace the existing one, which is failing.  The old one will be used as a pattern.

Bob cleans up the old galley top.