My first boat[PIC heavy].

I currently study to become a boat builder, specializing in wooden boats made by traditional techniques. The first practice work at school is getting there nicely, so I thought to share with you few of the pictures I have taken along the way.

The boat is actually being built from plywood as it is my first and high quality boat wood costs a small fortune. The school wouldn't want us to screw up hundreds of euros worth of good materials. We study by doing which is one thing I really love about the school. Of course, plywood is no where near as nice to work with as good boat wood is, but it is cheap and will do the job of teaching us the basics of small boat construction.

I will be updating this thread as we make more progress so that you will see the different stages of the construction. At the moment we are on Christmas holiday and will return to work at 3rd of January.

The boat we build is a 6.5m, six oar, three rower competition boat. It ought to be finished well before midsummer 2011.

Here on the first picture we have the first pair(of planks) attached to the keel. The frames are there to guide the angles of the planks to go as desired. After the boards are done the frames will be removed and the ash(Fraxinus Excelsior) ribs will be installed.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...0/IMAG0260.jpg

Riveting on the 2nd pair.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...2/IMAG0280.jpg

Here we have both 1st and 2nd pair on and the 3rd pair in progress. The first two pairs were made from 9mm plywood and the rest will be made from 6.5mm plywood to cut down excess weight. This is a competition boat after all. All the planking is riveted by hand with copper rivets. We use Sikaflex-291 in between the seams.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...2/IMAG0288.jpg

Here's where we are now. Fourth pair on, last pair to go. We'll be building this one with five pairs of planks.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...0/IMAG0311.jpg

The stern from inside.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...0/IMAG0312.jpg

Towards the bow.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...0/IMAG0314.jpg
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ZLDsoqZPBAg/TQ...0/IMAG0315.jpg

Looking Good there Noah ! :)

When you can fit a pair of elephants on that, give me a call, I'll hire you once I have my own boat building business... lol.

That is really amazing, NCO! (what are the dimensions...21' long?)
I look forward to watching your progress. Can't wait to see it on water.

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Originally Posted by NCO

When you can fit a pair of elephants on that, give me a call, I'll hire you once I have my own boat building business... lol.

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lol,, ok :)

a lot of people substitute decent grade exterior plywood for marine plywood, and to acceptable result. i don't know how you grade plywood, or if the grading system we use here is international, but AAX or ABX are free from defects on one side, and either free from defects, or free from any but minor defects on the other, with an acceptable core.

i can't testify to that personally as i haven't done this yet, but i've seen a lot of boats using it.

will you be caulking the planks or glassing the hull?

That is looking like a fine boat; Thank you for sharing. Best of luck to you.

Going metric again, sorry. 6.5m long, 1.5m wide... cant remember the height by heart.

The 9mm plywood is marine grade spruce plywood and the 6.5mm is outdoor grade birch plywood. ABX I think. I get lost in translation with technical terminology...

For making it watertight we use the sikaflex. First spread a layer of it on the lower plank to the seam area. Then attach the next plank on it. I hope thats what you asked, canid. No glassing of this boat.

That is just what i was wondering, thank you. It sounds like just the ticket as long as you've got a little bit of headspace between planks. I don't think plywood moves nearly as much as board planking with moisture though, so I bet it's a minor concern.

It's my understanding that marine plywood uses the same glue as outdoor. As I understand it, ABX means that the good face is grade 'A' (supposed to be free from imperfections), which the opposite face is grade 'B', allowed to have only minor imperfections and the core inside is 'X', meaning that they used whatever was handy, since it's a lot less important to integrity and doesn't have to be pretty.

My knowledge of boat-building is mostly academic, so anybody with real experience could straighten me out if I'm off about anything.

I hope you keep us updated as it comes along. It's a beautiful boat so far.

All my dreams lately have been filled with images like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvkWjQYzuCM

Cool project NCO. Looking forward to your prgress. How many students are working on it - or does each student build their own?

Canid, on the video, i know the feeling. one day on a boat i build with my own hands...

Crash: two, me and one other. There is 10 students studying boat building. Rest 30 of our unit study carpentry. There is three boats and a canoe being made, and two students are at a local boat factory for fibreglass training.

Very cool.
I like the old ways of doing things, kinda like following in your ancestors foot steps.

or oar-strokes.

i'm watching the documentary on this right now: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/vikingvoyage/

it's inspirational.

Thats a great project! Nice work, I cant wait to see it finished as well.

From what I've read that's a great boat.

I've built a couple of small stitch and glue boats. Its the sanding that will drive a man mad.
The difference between marine grade and outdoor grade plywood is marine grade plywood will be free of voids in the inner layers, a void can cause a structural weakness.
Nice work NCO.

i think it was a youtube video i watched where the builder said he spent about 500 hours on a boat, of which 450 was spent sanding and 30 spent looking for his pencil :D

Wow! I am genuinely impressed. You should be rightfully proud of that! I'm having some trouble visualizing what you are riveting to. Is there an overlap in the plank that ties row 1 and 2 together (for example)?

very inspiring.

My cousin had a boat he dubbed the Leakin' Leana. When he took it out he carried a coffee can of gasoline and some roofing tar. He'd mix some tar with the gas and fashion a plug to jab in the holes to keep it from sinking. He did about as much pluggin' as he did fishin'.

i see it now; they're lapped.

Thank you all. To be honest, there is so much to learn that I mostly see the mistakes made in building that...
Rick: Yeah, there is 20mm overlap with each row. Just like viking boats... the first row is riveted to the keel, which is T shaped, the second row is riveted to the first and so on.

Thanks. I was looking at the second boat in the pictures, which has a smooth surface, and trying to figure out how you accomplished that with rivets. I decided there had to be overlap.

When you do any kind of wood working you will always see your mistakes. No one else will notice them but they will stand out like a big flashing sign every time you look at them. You just have to get past that. Everyone makes mistakes. Once you get some experience you'll learn to minimize them and blend them in with their surroundings. Once you've made enough mistakes you learn to call it "character".

Actually we call it 'hand made'...

It looks like ship wrights are on the rise here lol. I have been building and designing touring kayaks from both ply and strips since 2001. Building another stitch and glue right now for my future son in law to take on a week long trip. I spend approx 400+ hours on the strip boats and mill every piece my self from rough sawn cypress and cedar. Oakumme for the ply wood yaks but I have started using ultraPly XL, much cheaper and is doing great. It the glue that is used to hold the plus that determines marine grade or not. Ultraply has passed the boil test so it's good to go.

NCO I would love to be doing what you are but not any ship wright schools near by. Awesome boat as well and yes it is akin to your child being born to paddle or sail a craft you built and designed. Work hard brother and let the craft be he reward.

i haven't heard of anybody using oakum to caulk ply panels; how's it do? does the plywood even move much?

Oakum would be an easy make from natural ingredients. Pine tar and any plant used for cordage.

BS 1088 oakumme ply is all that is used in high-end stitch and glue kayaks. Nothing better and is what is also in most all kits you can purchase,however it's not cheap and the shipping cost run it up even more. That is why ultraply XL is such a good find for the avg builder. 20 bucks a sheet from lowes vs 40 plus 100 for shipping.

My Grandfather worked at Harvey Gamage Shipyard his entire life. It was wonderful to walk in to the assembly building that had the way's built into it for launching and see the craftsmanship that went into their finished products. If they were to ever open that small yard again, I would quit the shipyard I work at today to go there even for one day. Very nice job NCO

It is funny, from my point of view how the canoe is such a huge hit there.. I have tried some earlier in my life and i can see their advantages, but still when i think of a boat i think of a millenia old eastern-finnish design for one or two rowers, overlaping pine planks and the smell of pine tar...

lol you need to get out mor-ra :idea: lol its all good, the kayak is even a bigger hit than the canoe as of late. Damn yuppies!

hey now; there ain't nothing wrong with a kayak.

AWSOME craftsmenship, very nice.

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Originally Posted by canid

hey now; there ain't nothing wrong with a kayak.

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I hope there's not as those the only ones I build !

NCO do you have more pics?

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Originally Posted by Erratus Animus

NCO do you have more pics?

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You've gotta ask the right way. It's ------ NCO do you have any mora pics?

Awesome! This is something I've always wanted to do, but never had the time or space to do it.

Finally, more, (and even one mora) pics!!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_Z...=androidclient

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_Z...=androidclient

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_Z...=androidclient

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_Z...=androidclient

Is that you laying in the boat with a Mora? I never thought I'd see this day!!

Boat looks good too!

Nice project, look forward to seeing more

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Originally Posted by Pocomoonskyeyes3

Is that you laying in the boat with a Mora? I never thought I'd see this day!!

Boat looks good too!

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Yes it is. And it has proven to be every bit as crappy as i remembered...