600 photos building Oughtred, Redmond, Bear mountain, Storer, CLC, White

Howdy,

Just finished helping to instruct at the DuckFlat Spring boatbuilding school in OZ. I took around 600 photos of different steps in the building of the different boats (link below for all pictures)



This time round there are 10 projects - all different - chosen by the builders. Some clinker/lapstrake, some plywood, some stitch and glue, strip planked.

The designers and boats represented are:
Storer (ie Me) - Goat Island Skiff, Eureka Canoe
Oughtred - MacGregor canoe, Acorn Skiff, Feather Pram
CLC - LT17
Bear Mountain - Rob Roy
Redmond - Whisp
Joel White - Nutshell

Almost everyone has not built a boat before. A couple from Tasmania have built glassfibre canoes before but have gone classy with the Bear Mountain Rob Roy built in the Chinese lightweight timber Paulownia instead of cedar strips. Cedar has become very expensive so a cheaper alternative is welcome.



Also some pics of Greenland Paddles and some quite pretty plywood bladed paddles with properly designed shafts.

I hope the pictures prove useful. The reservoir is here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmik
- look for the set on the right called, strangely enough,
Duck Flat Spring Boatbuilding School.

Best Wishes
Michael

 

Some great work. Must be quite exciting seeing all these boats develop. Clearly some works of art and endless patience.

Rick W.

 

Thankyou Rob!!!

Actually it is only 9 days of patience -that's how long the class lasted!

A couple hung on for an extra day. But almost all the work you see happened inside the class time.

I suspect the main ingredient was perspiration!

Best wishes
Michael

 

Is there a phone number that i can ring or a website i can go to to get more infomation about the boat building school

Cheers Trevor

 

Re the strip plank canoe pictures - whats that holding the planks on ?. It looks like a nail with a bit of red plastic tubing.
Do you have any more details about that please ?

 

Google Duckflat or follow the links in the photoset on flickr.

The nail method for strip planking has some advantages.

1/ staples leave a number of almost random holes in each plank. A single nail leaves a neat single hole.

2/ you only ever need one nail because the holding power is so great. We use 50mm (2") flathead nails.

3/ the plastic tube is sold as a length. In Australia it is called "electrician's spagetti" and sold in hardware stores.

Its purpose is to evenly put pressure on the timber without denting and hold the head of the nail above the surface for easy removal.

You have to cut it to length and thread it onto the nails. Generally with cedar we would not bother with the plywood pads but we were worried about whether the soft paulownia timber would get dented.

If we were doing the boat in cedar or anything harder we would use only the spagetti and forget about the plywood pad.

There are also plastic staples now which are great if you can afford the machine that bangs them in - it is a bit more expensive than a hammer.

And, at the least, you can also use a hammer as a screwdriver.

Best wishes

 

BEAUTIFULL