We caught up with the Boat Building Academy at the Southampton Boat Show, who were showing off some of their latest student led builds…

The Boat Building Academy offers world leading courses in to professionals, while also creating brilliant opportunities for beginners and enthusiasts. Since 1997, when Tim Gedge founded the Academy, this Lyme Regis (Dorset) based school has trained over 2500 people, helping them go on to work in the industry worldwide. 

The BBA offer a 40-week boat building course, a 12-week furniture making course, and 1-15 day short courses. The 40-week boat building course incorporates the City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma in boat building, System Engineering & Maintenance (Advanced) (2473-03), but it also reaches far beyond the basics, helping students to develop a wide range of skills and methods, both traditional and contemporary, to take them into their careers. The course runs twice through the year – one starting in mid-February 2025, and the next from the start of September – both with a 40-week duration and 2-week break in the middle. The BBA also offers bursary assisted places.

From the Founder – Tim Gedge

‘My concept was very much geared to people looking for a new way of life, in other words a sort of change of career, and it’s been hugely gratifying to me over the years to see the numbers of people we’ve had on the boat building courses, and more recently in the furniture making courses, who have actually been snapped up by the industry who are getting decent good jobs. I’ve bumped into three people just walking around the show [Southampton Boat Show] now, who’ve done the course, and thanked me for teaching them into their new career’ 

‘A lot of people… who have university degrees… come and get their job out of doing the boat building course that they’ve done – not using their degree… there’s a message there.’

Latest BBA News

The renowned ocean rowing boat builder Justin Adkin has rejoined the BBA team as Master boat builder.

After a time away running his own successful business, this winning skipper in the 2005/6 Atlantic Rowing Race will be teaching full time from January 2025 on the 40-week boat building course.

Will Reed, Director of the BBA said: “I am delighted Justin will be joining our brilliant team once again. His calm, unflappable character and wealth of knowledge and experience across traditional and modern boat building is perfectly suited to teaching students of all ages. He also has a great sense of humour and is a joy to be around.

“We are extremely proud of our brilliant team of tutors, who are selected not only for their exceptional boat building experience and ability, but also for their extraordinary teaching and communication skills.

“If anyone is looking for a career in boat building or would like to sign up for a hugely rewarding challenge for the sheer joy of it, they will not do better than with Justin and the excellent team of tutors at the BBA.”

Interested in taking a course?

Visit the Academy Website and Meet the team.

Show Me More:

• Shamrock V Relaunch: Sole Wooden J Restoration Complete
• Classic Boats for Sale: Two Wooden Motorboats on the Market
• Boat Design & No Need for Ugly Boats: Tom Cunliffe’s Column

The post Boat Building Academy: Comprehensive Courses for All appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

For convenience, moulding planes may be divided into two groups. In the first group are planes dedicated to shaping specific mouldings, each one profiled exactly opposite to the concavities, convexities, fillets and grooves of a complex surface. The second group is made up of the simple yet infinitely more versatile rounds and hollows, each iron profiled to the sixty degree arc of a circle and projecting by a sliver through its matching round or hollow sole. Rounds and hollows used in combination with straight-edged rebate planes can shape an enormous range of shapes and sizes of mouldings, from the subtle ovolo softening corners of deck beams to the massive crown mouldings looming from on high in a steam yacht’s saloon. 

A modicum of mouldings applied to a yacht interior adds visual and tactile interest to otherwise plain surroundings, framing flat areas and finishing harsh corners with a softer outline. The changing light of day reflected off water and falling upon a moulding creates shifting highlights and shadow, bringing yacht furniture to life. A spindle moulder ripping through smooth surfaces would get the job done in a trice, but working with a hand-powered moulding plane is like pulling a skiff across open water, adjusting your stroke to wind and tide. Instinctively the hands respond to a change in grain with changes in speed and pressure. 

Here we see an ovolo being worked in a length of oak. Unlike dedicated moulding planes the hollows and rounds are not guided by fences nor do they have depth stops to prevent cutting too far, so some preliminary work is required. The face and edge of the wood was scribed with a marking gauge (left foreground), then the flat-soled rebate plane (on its side, upper left) worked down to the required depth before planing a 45 degree chamfer along the arris; this last step provided two points of contact for the concave edge of the hollow moulding plane, helping stabilise and steer it. All the while the worker must keep the plane at the correct angle to the wood, gauging by eye when the moulding is done. 

Naturally this engenders minor variations (some might say imperfections) in mouldings but perhaps that’s not a bad thing as ever more making is delegated to the impersonal high-speed blades of automated machinery. 

Show Me More:

• How D-Day Actually Worked: Operation Details 80 Years Later
• Latest Sailing Books: New Nautical Book Reviews
• Bad Luck at Sea: Tom Cunliffe Warns of Sailors with Misfortune

The post Guide to Moulding Planes: Boatbuilder’s Notes for Traditional Tools appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Sir Francis Drake’s 1577 Voyage

Captained by Sir Francis Drake, the Golden Hinde was the first English ship to circumnavigate the globe on a voyage that set sail in 1577, lasted three years and covered 36,000 miles. It was to be one of the most significant voyages in English history. 

The Golden Hinde Today

Fast forward 445 years to St Mary Overie’s Dock, along the river Thames in London, and we have the Golden Hinde, a full-size replica of the original. Launched in 1973, the Golden Hinde has also circumnavigated the globe and sailed over 100,000 miles before being docked in London, where it has been on public display since 1996. Like any vessel, it requires maintenance. In the case of the Golden Hinde, the refit was driven by rotten timber and comes in the form of a project that started in March 2017 with just two people and is expected to be completed in autumn 2026. So far, the project has cost £1.7 million, with a projected cost of around £4 million. 

Today, six full-time shipwrights are working on the project, with support from four to five other specialists such as riggers, plumbers, and electricians. Leading the refit is head shipwright and project manager Toby Millinder, who has worked on various boatyards in Cornwall, the Caribbean and Europe, and helped to rebuild Kelpie of Falmouth, a 79ft gaff-rigged schooner once used by the US Coast Guard to hunt German U-Boats during World War Two, which won a Classic Boat restoration award in 2014. 

Traditional Techniques and Local Materials

Just a few hundred metres away, on the other side of the Thames, new skyscrapers are being built with the latest technology and building techniques, yet the Golden Hinde is being refurbished using traditional techniques, albeit with some modern techniques interlaced, to help complete the work. Modern tools are used to speed up processes, increase the longevity of the work and improve quality, but only as long as the finish is correct. All woodwork is conducted on site, consisting of no less than planking, decking, framing, joinery, mast and spar making, and block and deadeye making. The dock is also home to a gas-powered forge to aid fabrication work around the ship. 

Wherever possible, materials are sourced within the UK, such as the rivets, which are still made in Birmingham, but other hardware, such as handmade English rosehead nails, are sourced from India. Traditionally, English oak, elm, and ash were used throughout the ship, which is still the case with the exception of iroko, sourced from the Congo, instead of oak, for the hull planking. Another import is Douglas fir from Vancouver, used for durable deck planking, while homegrown Douglas is used for the new masts and spars. Although there is no intention to relaunch her on completion, the refit is being conducted so the ship will be structurally seaworthy. 

To safeguard the ship’s future, a maintenance programme will be developed with two full-time shipwrights, to include such elements as re-oiling the hull, treating the decks and maintaining and removing the rig, spars and blocks to ensure the ship doesn’t need a complete refit again for at least 50 years. 

Funding the Golden Hinde Project

To help fund the project, the Golden Hinde has become more than just a London tourist attraction. The ship is a sustainable enterprise as an asset to deliver education to schools, with overnight living-history tours and educational programmes. In 2022, the ship welcomed 25,000 walk-aboard visitors and 280 school tours, which equates to around 10,000 school children visiting. It also becomes a venue for live music, weddings, and meetings and even doubles up as an escape room for the special events held on board. Each element contributes a funding stream for the refit and other income, such as research and development grants from HMRC, which amounts to approximately £50k per year. The ship continues to expand its offerings with the intention of making the ship more accessible to neurodiverse audiences. 

Women in the Industry

Despite women being underrepresented in boat building, alongside Toby and the rest of the shipwrights is Ellie Hillier, a 25-year-old from Sherborne, Dorset, who has been working on the Golden Hinde since April 2023. Her interest in woodwork and strong desire to build a boat led Ellie to enrol in the 40-week intensive boatbuilding course at Lyme Regis Boat Building Academy in 2016, where she was the only female. Finishing the course, Ellie built Ina, a Kingston lobster boat named after her great-grandmother. Since Ina, the Golden Hinde is the largest project she has worked on. She said: “It’s really cool to be part of the project. It’s really interesting and exciting to be around people who are so knowledgeable about their craft, like Toby, who you can learn all sorts from.” 

Although Ellie has yet to learn what her boatbuilding future holds, she looks forward to continuing her work on the Golden Hinde and improving her skills as a boatbuilder. 

Visit the Golden Hinde

While the restoration project is ongoing, visitors can still visit the ship, where they might even glimpse the shipwrights at work in the drydock. Visit the Golden Hinde at St Mary Overie’s Dock, Cathedral St, London SE1 9DE. Entry is for £6, free for two and under, and is open daily from 1000. To learn more and contribute to the restoration, you can donate online.

Read More:

• Classic Yachts for Sale: Two Remarkable Boats on the Market
• ‘True’ Vs Technology: Adrian Morgan on Sailing Gadgets
• Dave Selby’s Confession: Secret Blackwater Sloop

The post Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hinde: Restoration and Reconstruction appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Deck hardware for your restoration or new build, or just for giving the old girl a gift, should be a mix of form and function. If you have a lot of brass and bronze then it makes sense to continue the theme… which is more or less what we have done here as we round up a current crop of deck fittings and hardware writes Dan Houston. The photo shows just some of the deck hardware on the 1936 Fife ketch Eilean’s foredeck.

Mushroom Vent

A proper brass mushroom vent is a thing of wonder for a small wooden boat – good for a GRP boat too. Untwisting the “mushroom” lets air circulate below decks, keeping rot and mould at bay throughout the year. Owners often use two at either end of the boat, where it won’t get in the way. Just remember to close it when you go to sea. Or whenever you wash the roof! You can open and close these from below decks. Importantly they have a low profile which won’t catch ropes or stub toes. This 4in (105mm) version in heavy solid brass is 3in high and costs £105. Classic Marine

Clyde Cleats

We love the look of a Clyde Cleat as much as using it. It’s easier to tie up using the wooden bar which sits in heavy brass uprights. A 10in (254mm) brass version which screws to the deck is sold at Classic Marine for £157.66 without the wood, but we found a sleeker chrome and iroko version online at cars245.co.uk which is from Osculati in Italy which bolts through the deck. It sells for £35.96 plus p&p for the 260mm version. A 210mm version is also available. You can remove the chrome for a plain brass look – as we did  with some old ones, see photo. Cars 245

Winches to last

Classic Winch Company in the Netherlands has built a solid reputation over the years, supplying high-quality, traditional-style winches to boats from a 22ft-long Morecombe Bay Prawner to a 196ft schooner. Winches can be custom-made to fit a yacht’s era, so a 1908 Fife winch will be modelled on a capstan, while a 1930s bermudan yawl would have a more industrial look. The innards are of high-grade stainless-steel. Winches can be simple or self-tailing. Importantly, they are easy to maintain and dismantle without tools; you simply spin off the top and lift away the nickel-aluminium-bronze drum. These winches age really well, or can be polished. Classic Winches

Anchor Winch

An anchor winch or ‘windlass’, as well as being very useful can really set off a foredeck and here’s a beauty from Wilmex in Gdansk. In polished bronze, chromed bronze or stainless steel, it’ll sparkle as well as pull. You can haul either manually or electrically with the two-gear system up to 1,600kg (3,520lb). The flywheel has folding handles to protect your shins. See it working on their website, £2,785. Wilmex

Deck Prisms

Deck prisms are great for older boats where there may not be a hatch over the saloon, and traditional round portholes let in limited overhead light. Fitted between overhead beams their thick glass has prismatic concentric rings on the underside which disperse light wonderfully. The readers in your crew will thank you. They need to be set in well, waterproof and as flush to the deck as possible. We found this 8in (203mm) “deep frame” example from Davey and Co at Captain OM Watts, priced at £196. The overall width is 10in (250mm) and 1 1/16th in (27mm) deep.  A thinner variety is just 3/4in (19mm) deep at £148 (inc VAT). Captain Watts

Eyebolts

Classic Marine sells a range of galvanised, stainless and bronze eyebolts to suit a classic restoration or newbuild. The eyebolt finds many uses on the deck, mostly as an anchor point for running rigging – fixing a sheet block to the deck say. A flush variation which uses “bonnets” to screw into a recessed bolthole when needed is very superior and avoids the main detracting feature of the permanent eyebolt which is that connection with the feet and toes is seldom a pleasant meeting. No matter, we need ‘em, and so choose from galvanised mild steel at £2.76 for 6mm, or stainless steel at £4.07 for 6mm, or manganese bronze at £56.71 for 8mm (5/16ths in). Thickness sizes go up to 12mm or 1/2in accordingly. These need a strong point underneath the deck so remember to measure for the size you need. Classic Marine

Deck Cowl

Davey and Co’s deck cowl is cast from heavy bronze and is either polished or plated in chrome depending on the look you want. The vent can be turned and locked in any direction. It sits on a deck plate and when removed it has a blanking cap and key to keep all waterproof below. A 3in model is 7in high while a 4in model is 10.5in (266mm) high. From £432 ex VAT with £26.68 for the blanking cap. These need to be ordered in advance. Davey 

Deck Fillers

These deck fillers for water or diesel in brass from AG are on the good value side of things. They are available for 38mm or 50mm (1.5 or 2in) hose with a generous flange set over a heavy neck and then with plenty of “tube” to affix your hose. These screw into the deck and even with a gasket should be sited with a suitable filler or mastic. You can find these on Ebay for around £29 including the postage. Search AG deck filler brass 38mm… Ebay 

Wooden Blocks

The Barton Heritage collection of classic wooden blocks brings a traditional flair to a modern design of block. With varnished ash cheeks these no-nonsense looking blocks use a stainless steel cage holding ball bearing sheaves. According to Barton these are 25% more efficient than a plain sheave; using more ball bearings creates less load across the sheave. Four sizes, 30mm, 45mm, 60mm and 80mm cater for ropes from 8mm to 14mm and loads from 245 to 1200kgs – or a dinghy up to a schooner, say. From £77 (30mm) to £370 (80mm) these will give you the look without compromising performance. Barton Marine

Bollard Cleat

These sturdy bollard cleats have been in Davey’s catalogue since the company’s origins in West India Dock days. And the design has remained the same with cast bronze in two sizes of 4 and 5in (100 and 127mm). The photo shows the smaller cleat unfinished, straight from the mould, then the larger after it has been machine-polished. These strong bollards are sited with screws over deck boards, preferably into a backing pad or deck beam if it is wide enough. We’d tend to think along the centreline on a yacht but you often see these on the quarters of harbour work boats. From £54.95 (plus £6 P&P) at Force Four chandlery. Force 4 

Read more:

• Vote in our 2024 Classic Boat Awards!
• Boatbuilders recreate the world’s first pedal bicycle
• Barry Pickthall: Memory Man

The post Our Top 10 Bronze Deck Hardware Picks appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

When sawing or planing to the line the first requirement is an accurate line and for this it helps to use a well-sharpened pencil. A traditional method for sharpening is to wedge a drawknife under one arm, cutting edge uppermost, and draw the pencil downwards across the blade with your free hand.

Besides being convenient, this produces a flat-sided knife-edge which is remarkably fine yet less likely to break than the conical point produced by a conventional pencil sharpener or the fragile lead of a mechanical pencil. Here, for example, the pencil is marking inside a knifed line that is around 0.2mm or less yet it doesn’t break because it is a fraction over 1mm wide – that is, from the side visible here to the opposite side.

The extra width arising from sharpening this way gives the lead strength in the plane where needed, parallel to the line, as it is dragged across the timber.

Doing this will also reveal if your drawknife is sharp – if it won’t sharpen a pencil it needs honing.

The post How to sharpen a pencil in proper seamanlike fashion appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Restrictions on movement during the Covid-19 pandemic need be no barrier to maintaining the basic hand skills of boat building, so long as we keep things at a modest scale.

If you’re a latter-day Henry Adams, master shipwright at Bucklers Hard during the 18th century, with mature forest on the doorstep, you may find the makings of an HMS Agamemnon within scope of your daily exercise walk.

But the rest of us can look to the windfall branchwood of hedgerow and copse to make parts for the boat every bit as authentic as the grown floors, frames and futtocks of England’s wooden walls: grown grab rails and handles.

Standard grab rails are machine-made fittings, invariably teak, and samey as coat hangers.

For use on deck I’d stick with this familiar pattern, but down below there’s good reason to turn to nature for the individual hand-made items that make a boat a home.

The single loop grab rail is an ideal starting point since branches grow abundantly with the gently parabolic form required, needing only basic hand tools to liberate the boat fitting from within.

And better still, the rail cut from the branch will have continuous end-to-end grain and little of the short grain that’s unavoidable in its commercial counterpart cut from straight and four-square material.

Attached horizontally to a side carling in the galley, vertically beside companionway steps, in the fo’c’sle, or at seated height in the heads, the steadying influence of a grab rail only grows more welcome with advancing years, and how much pleasanter it is to grasp an ergonomically waisted rail, made for the feel of the hand rather than the convenience of automated machinery.

Shaping this rail (1) from a bend of hawthorn (2) made small demands on skill and imagination. The branch brought down by a strong south-westerly had grab rail written all over it, albeit in a twisted hand. Hawthorn boughs are typically fluted and gnarly, the timber knotty from frequent branching, and unsuitable for large work, but for smaller items its fine grain and diffuse porous structure bode well for sharp hand tools.

Hewing away the grizzled bark (3) uncovered a graveyard of buried knots (4) but when they’re small and tight you can work through them. This tree had been standing dead for some time and its timber was hard and stable as an old mallet.

When the dry wood proved hard-going for the axe I turned to the bow saw for cutting away waste at the ends (5) and then the spokeshave for smoothing out the natural hollow (6).

A chisel is the best tool for paring end grain; translucent shavings rolled from the cutting edge to leave an almost glassy surface (7).

After further shaping of ends with the spokeshave (8) I burnished the piece with its own shavings and sealed the grain with oil and wax.

Suitable curved timber will be found among ash, maple, oak, cherry and other species growing close to home, not to mention cultivated garden trees, being easier to work when green, and often requiring little more than following the grown bend with the blade.

Grab rails can be fastened from above or beneath, so are usually supplied undrilled, but the strongest fixing is to through-fasten with a backing plate to spread the load, using wooden plugs to hide the heads of bolts.

For the small boat that isn’t out of a mould, or the one that is but wants to break it, grown grab rails, door handles and drawer pulls provide shapely and tactile alternatives to the run-of-the-mill products of fitting out.

05 Cutting waste from the ends with a bow saw

09 Shaping ‘thumb ends’ of a sycamore handle

The post How to make a wooden grab handle for your boat appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

An ancient gutter plane, devised for shaping rainwater channels, might make an acceptable stand-in, or the largest of the round moulding planes, a No 18 with 1½ inch (38mm) iron, but for the boatbuilder with much backing out in the offing there was only one way to go – build a plane from scratch. Or maybe two, or more, because the degree of hollowing required is dependent on the plank’s width and the frame that it will touch.

The larger of the two backing out planes shown here, working a piece of mahogany, shows several hallmarks of the user-made tool. Instead of the standard beech, it’s quarter-sawn oak, still bearing the layout lines that guided the maker’s saw and chisel. Notice how the tapering of the stock to fit the hands stops short of the sole, so as not to narrow the toe and heel where the plane begins and ends its pass; the ledges at the corners of the plane make useful landings for the finger tips applying down force.

The iron at the heart of the plane is a modified firmer chisel, with the tang sawn off, the sharp end ground to a 3in (75mm) radius, and pitched at 65⁰ which is 15–20⁰ more than a smoothing plane. This higher angle of attack deals more effectively with hardwoods. After unknown years in the doldrums its edge had grown chipped and dull, but the old steel is of excellent quality and was quickly restored to a surgical sharpness.

To avoid weakening the hull, it’s important to anticipate how much timber will be removed through backing out and to allow sufficient thickness.

The post Boatbuilder’s notes: backing out plane appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

A modicum of aesthetic detail, going beyond the purely functional demands of construction, endows a boat with a charm all her own, but it’s best applied slowly, feelingly and with forethought. Hand tools are ideally suited to these finishing touches. They work at a human pace, giving adequate time for reflection, also moulding into their creations something of the infinitely variable human nature which power tools are designed to eliminate. The hand beader is a good example, adding subtle design elements to relieve the monotony of flat, rectangular surfaces. It could be a simple bead that creates a shadow around a drawer front or parallel lines of fluting which echo the supporting role of a table leg – a detail just sufficient to enhance the necessary structure without commanding attention for itself.

The Stanley Rule and Level Company introduced its No 66 Universal Hand Beader in the 1880s and, with only minor alterations to the width and finish, the tool remained in production until WW2. This nickel-plated example dates from around 1930 and has been handed down through three generations, remarkably with both fences and all but two of its original eight cutters extant.

The cutters are for single beads, fluting, reeding, and routing, each having two different profiles – one at each end. One fence has straight bearing surfaces, for working along straight edges, while the other has an oval outline for navigating curved work. The fence is located in a transverse slot so it can be moved to either side of the cutter, as best suits the grain direction, and is locked by a thumb screw to set the cutter’s distance precisely from the edge. The fence itself is slotted so that it clears the cutter when being moved from side to side, or to partially cover the cutter if only a portion of the profile is required.

Although it looks similar to a spokeshave the beader works like a cabinet scraper, with the cutter being pitched a few degrees off the vertical, leaning towards the direction of travel and scraping shavings from the surface. It’s easier to keep an eye on progress if you pull the tool towards yourself rather than push, using light pressure until the cutter is established in its ways, also clearing away the shavings which might otherwise lodge between fence and cutter, throwing the tool off course.

RELATED ARTICLES

Why working with hand tools is better

Three gorgeous classics to give you tool envy

Traditional oil can – an in-depth look

ends

The post Traditional Tools – Stanley No66 hand beader appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Power tools and machinery are essential in today’s yard, building new wooden boats to order. Poetic reflection on days spent ripping boards by hand is unlikely to soothe the customer whose boat stands weeks behind schedule. But for the amateur working for insight into the process as much as completion of the project, hand tools provide a direct link with the humble origins of the craft.

The hand tool’s interaction with wood actually enhances communication with it – you not only see a change in grain but hear and feel it too. Proceeding push to push with a hack plane is labour intensive but you remain alive to every nuance of the parting shaving.

Contrast this with a worker wrapped in a respirator, ear defenders and goggles, clinging anxiously to a power planer – it doesn’t exactly nurture feeling for the medium when the only sensations felt are those generated by the vibration, dust and noise of the machine itself. In some yards joinery is barely touched by hand, being entirely shaped by computer numerical controlled (CNC) machinery.

This difference in method is reflected in the quality of the work and the way it is perceived. Machined work is consistent to the point of dullness with every deviation considered a flaw. Work from hand tools bears the distinctive marks of the tools and subtle irregularities unique to an individual’s handiwork, all of which build character. This carries extra significance with old boats.

A restoration is scrutinised for how closely form and fabric match the original but it is the methods used to build the boat that tell the more touching human story. By using tools the designer had in mind when the boat was conceived the boatbuilding process itself rings true.

Old wooden tools are ingrained with history. Working with them illuminates the past and earns a kind of kinship with their previous owners. When I heft a brace and bit with its simple crank of hand-worn beech I am aware of someone looking over my shoulder with a kindly yet critical eye. Their name is stamped into it and, I feel their personality too. Having evolved to fit the hands through centuries of use, the brace handles beautifully and as the bit begins to bite, I sense in my muscles, ears and nose the characteristics of the wood as they must have been sensed for generations. Wooden tools which are themselves marked out in flecks of ray and annual rings seem to magnify the pleasures of working with wood. With a power drill the job is done is a squirt of revs but as a trade for empathy with the old-time shipwright this unwieldy plastic-bodied electric motor seems a dubious bargain.

In deciding against a one-kilowatt machine to bore an inch of timber you will not be cooking the planet while building your boat, although it may also mean you will not be launching any time soon.

The old qualification ‘time-served’ implied skills acquired diligently from similarly time-served instructors. When wooden planes, augers and adzes were in common sight it took seven years to qualify as a journeyman shipwright. Today it may take longer to reach an equivalent standard as old techniques have grown obsolete and mentors are few.

Still, while I wrestle unskilfully with squaring a board one shaving at a time I also glory in the difficulty and exertion of it. The repetitive physical effort demanded by hand-powered tools is better suited to our biomechanics than the frozen postures dictated by power tools. Hand tools have an ergonomic perfection all their own; at their human pace they provide the ultimate in constructive links with our past, honing skills and toning muscles that otherwise lie dormant in the modern workplace while also educating our senses to the intrinsic qualities of wood.

Even when it all goes wrong there is something to be gained from the waste. Each type of edge creates a distinctive chip or shaving revealing some previously hidden feature of the wood – in stark contrast to the anonymous dust blasted out by machinery.

Each month, Robin Gates takes one traditional boatbuilding tool and explains its history and its uses. In our September issue, on sale now in the UK, Robin talks about the mitre square and how to set up a bench plane.

Buy single issues of Classic Boat here

The post Why working with hand tools is better appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The plough plane is your hand tool passport to the cross-tongue joint, a key technique in the shipwright’s repertoire. The cross-tongue joins boards edge-to-edge, especially where the wood is thick and the tongue must be strong – in a transom, for example.

The tongue of an ordinary tongue-and-groove joint worked on the board itself has grain running the length of the board, but a cross-tongue has grain perpendicular to the boards and is stronger.

You could cut the grooves with a router or table saw, but the plough is easier, quicker and more enjoyable. Although an undamaged wooden plough is a rarity, there are many good alternatives in cast iron. Easiest to find is the delightfully ergonomic Record 043, which was made from the 1930s until the 1970s. This nickel-plated gem can be had for less than the cost of a biscuit jointer’s blade.

Begin by planing the boards flat and square, so edges meet along their lengths, and mark the face sides. A centreline scored on each edge will help centre the plough’s iron, which is chosen to cut a groove about one third the width of the edge. The gauge is set to cut just deeper than the groove is wide. The fence is held tight against the face side and locked to its arms.

A plough is used differently to other planes – you begin at the far end of the piece, working back to the near end, lengthening and deepening the groove with each pass, always keeping firm lateral pressure on the fence. Soon the plane is being guided by the tidy groove it has made, ejecting springy coils of shavings like so many nests of tagliatelle.

If grooves are slightly off-centre it doesn’t matter – the surfaces will match up as long as the face side remains your datum for the fence. Sometimes, boatbuilders would cut grooves deliberately off-centre so that maximum wear could be had from a surface before the tongue showed through.

Using a tenon saw, rip another board lengthways for the tongue, following lines spaced equal to the width of the groove. Then cross-cut to make pieces of the required depth, which should be just shy of the combined depths of the two grooves. The tongue is made up of several pieces arranged end-to-end.
An advantage of this joint is that you can use a different material for the tongue – a stronger timber, for example, plywood, or even Tufnol. Some 19th-century shipbuilders were using wrought iron!

Glue, assemble, and clamp the parts, and the joint is done. With this technique at your disposal, small stock need never be an obstacle to a big idea. A hatch, table or cockpit seat: no problem.

The post How to make a cross-tongue joint appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.