For Our Boat/ Ship Builders

Thanks Jeff. Looks like a fine bit of preserved history. I’ve had the opportunity to see a few preserved wrecks (one was the Mary Rose in Portsmouth, England) and there is always an eerie feeling about them. The history sort of surrounds you for the moment.

Thanks again.

Very interesting , amazing what they did with the tools of that era

That’s really interesting seeing this close up and being able to see all the technical ingenuity that went into building these ship back then. Thank you very much for sharing, very different but, really educational.

good pictures jeff

Wow that is cool, thanks so much for sharing that bit of history and great photos Jeff

Very interesting. It’s amazing to see how much metal was in the double wall design. Thanks Jeff.

Great pics Jeff and your shirt is awesome?

Nice and thanks Jeff. Yes we have come a long ways, but not as far as we should have. Just look at the killings just the other day.

Madts.

Your all welcome. It is great to look back on this historic craftsmanship. It really makes you think about how hard it had to been without power tools and end up With a great result. Just amazing.

Thank you Jeff, hard to picture how they did that with “primitive” tools. As it has been said, we stand on the shoulders of the previous generation as far as their discoveries, techniques, inventions and improve on them.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Have you seen this about the Bucklers Hard school for ship building?

https://www.facebook.com/BBCSouthToday/videos/615189995238261/

Very interesting history Jeff, thank you. I have read a few stories in Wooden Boat magazine about these great lake ships. I have to admit that it pains me a bit to think about the enormous amount of quality timber that went into building sailing ships across the world, but they were certainly the most beautiful ships ever, and I have great respect for the men who designed and built them. It was interesting to see that the ship’s captain was a Norwegian.

There was a lot of Norwegian settlement here. Matter of fact there are actual towns here that are just occupied by the different heritage’s. I love getting on the bike and just going to those towns and getting authentic food.

Oh my question to the respondents here. So you have all this planking for the sides all then rods bolts and spikes holding. But how did they water proof the seems youd think they would have done some kind of toung and grove. So did they put something between the planks?

That’s an easy one Jeff. The seams were caulked (pronounced “corked” around here) with cotton and oakum or possible back then on a big ship just oakum. It is tucked into the seams in tight loops with a tucking iron an then driven home with a driving iron. Both are used in conjunction with a caulking mallet. On a large application like this the driving iron would be on a long handle held by one caulker while the “mallet”, would be swung with two hands by another.
Caulking serves not only to seal out the water. It is also an essential aspect of tightening up the whole boat to resist movement.

Thank you for the explanation. That is very cool. I wonder if theres any videos on that. That would be so cool to see that first hand.

Here’s one I found in a quick look.
http://youtu.be/ZeAKD_yy7Uo
This guy is no caulker but it serves to show the basic principles. There are lots of others. A good caulker when tucking sounds like tap, tap, tap, tap in quite rapid succession.
I’d make you one myself but you really need a boat to work on and I don’t have one handy. (nor do I wish to …… I’m retired :-)…)

Lol that’s cool. Thanks

Some big flukin’ nails in there…