I’m dedicating this post to https://ashesstillwaterboats.com. Anyone who gives out free plans for making cool stuff deserves a mention. Especially as once I made the paddle and posted a photo, they sent me free plans for a canoe to build!

Of course credit also needs to go to Number 1 son who requested a handmade paddle for his birthday. Unable to decide between the Beaver tail model and the Otter tail, I got both. Having cut them out, Toby’s had to take precedence as his birthday was looming as was his canoe trip down the River Tay. The timber is Ash from a local timber yard www.treespanner.co.uk, really helpful people, good stock and great attitude. Anyone who helps load the vehicle, and says just transfer the money when you get home deserves a mention.

Method

I borrowed fathers bandsaw to cut the outline then it was back to my workshop for shaping. The shaft I kept square for as long as possible so as to hold it firmly in the vice. The blade faces have only a gentle curve so Topsy Margarets smoothing plane was the best tool for keeping a nice uniform shape. The handle was shaped with a curved bottomed spoke shave, a variety of carving chisels and a curved carving knife (see below). The curved bottom spoke shave was used again for the transition from shaft to blade, then the shaft was done using the smoothing plane for the majority of the length employing the classic technique of taking material off the corners to make the square section octagonal, then take of the corners again to make a Hexadecagon (yes yes, I had to look it up…😀) and then smoothing all the corners of ’til it felt good in the hand. In section it isn’t a true circle it’s an ellipse, so as to keep more strength in the direction of the stroke.

Some in Progress shots

Beavertail.

There is something very therapeutic about shaping a good piece of wood, working methodically with a sharp blade, surrounded by fragrant shavings, revealing the shape hidden within (yeah yeah alright Michelangelo 🙄)

The pattern calls for an alarmingly thin section at the edge and I have to confess I baulked at going quite as skinny as the specification so they are probably slightly heavier than the optimum, but I’ll trade a bit of extra heft for a sturdier paddle that can take the knocks.

Sidetracked

I did get slightly sidetracked with a another little job, making a curved carving knife out of an old file. I justified it by using it to create the concave areas of the paddle hand grips but really it was just an excuse to fire up the little devil forge and hit metal hard with a hammer!

Pudding

The proof of the paddle is in the paddling they say…

So in a classic competition that would go down in the annals of history as Beaver v Otter, Up the Ouse! Number 1 and I lit out for the horizon… well the weir in this case then back to the pub for a pint and a spot of lunch! Slightly irritating that you can’t tie up to the pubs pontoon (apparently this is a health and safety issue 🙄) and have to ‘trespass’ on the farmers field opposite then cross over via a footbridge but we didn’t let that spoil our pint!

The match ended in a draw with neither Beaver nor Otter out paddling the other, I guess the obvious flaw here was both being in the same canoe… though I swear I was catching him up at one point….😄 Seriously though, I was really pleased with both paddles, possibly after a solid day paddling I might regret the slight increase in weight but I certainly didn’t notice it over a few hours.

I found this post squirreled away in my drafts from last year (!) and so before smashing out another brilliant episode 🙂 I thought I’d publish it….

Feathered friends

Finally this little brood have flown the nest and the shed is available for use again, not that I really minded my scruffy little squatters, in fact I’m flattered they felt it was safe enough to raise a family here despite the mowing and banging.  Of course this means I have no excuse for avoiding tidying up in there…. Come on Mrs B, surely you can squeeze out another clutch before the summer ends!

On the level

The fecundity of blackbirds aside, I decided, what with the frames going in, that I should check the boat for level. She is only resting on baulks of timber set on paving slabs which in turn rest on the bare earth, and I thought there may have been some settling over the years. A water level seemed the easiest and most cost effective method so we made one and set about measuring. Now, science and I have never been happy bedfellows, my old Chemistry teacher never referred to me by name just ‘the laziest boy in the school’ and Physics remained a dark mysterious world to me for my entire school life. That said, I thought a water level was going to be fairly simple and the hard bit would be the actual levelling. How wrong I was! The idea of a water level is that water…. finds its own level…. hence the name… anyway, the water should always be level meaning that with one end of the hose at the stem and one at the stern I could check the scribed waterline was running true. “Nope” called Tilly from the bow, “it’s way too low.” I poured a bit more in my end, “Nope, still too low.” “Has it moved at all” I asked. “It’s lower” she called back. Was there a hint of merriment in her voice? Surely she couldn’t be mocking her dear old dad, who she loves and respects…? Much toing and froing ensued with water adding and pouring away and more and more mocking. Eventually we brought the two ends together and, it turns out sometimes finding its own level is a bit too much like hard work for water so it just hangs about wherever…

 

As soon as I wrote, toing and froing I thought that can’t be right, so I googled and found this on the Macmillan dictionary website.

This rambling explanation is not a feeble attempt to justify why I went and bought a laser level…. honestly!

Tools for life?

My wife often mocks (hang on I’m sensing a theme here) my belief that things really should last longer than they do. There’s a lot of interest in the idea of a circular economy, where goods are designed not with built in obsolescence but  with repair, reuse, recycle in mind however, most industries have a long way to go.  When it comes to tools though, I thought that if you choose a good brand and buy the best you can afford you should be ok and with hand tools that have no moving parts, well really, what can go wrong?

This can. All the brass hoops on my chisels have split! Now the nice man at Robert Sorby sales tells me they are just there for decoration really, serve no practical function and aren’t under any pressure or stress….. which begs the question why they split. I wonder if he has ever used a chisel? Anyway he sent through some replacements free of charge, but the point is the chisels are sold as high quality, traditionally made tools and should use good quality materials then, with care, they should last a lifetime, several lifetimes. But if you import cheap brass hoops with no knowledge of how they’re made, this is the result. Can you tell I’m a bit grumpy about this?

Floors

Four oak floors in position ready to be fitted

Last but not least, I spotted these handsome fellows… a new figurehead perhaps?

So that was an old post from last year. There was little progress on Flamingo until a few weeks ago but hopefully your appetites are whetted for the next exciting installment….

P.S. if you were wondering why a pavlova at the top… there’s no reason other than Tilly has become a past master at creating them so I thought I’d bask in some reflected glory.

After the disappointment of the badly welded steel floors I’ve decided to make new wooden floors. The mixture of steel, oak and saltwater was a recipe for corrosion anyway and I have never been keen on the through-the-hull bolts that held the whole lot together. That’s my excuse anyway, and it has nothing to do with the fact that constructing wooden floors means more time spent in father’s cosy work shop with its steady supply of tea, biscuits and soup and less time out in a chilly, damp orchard… nothing whatsoever…

‘Impoverished’ boat restorers get their supplies from wherever they can find them. This oak, some of which will be used for floors, some of which is probably only good for the fire, came from raised bed off cuts, an old friend (thanks Rupert) and Wealden Oak.

Where the keel bolts have compressed the Elm keelson over years of tightening, the timber has become compressed and more and more steel washers have been used to pack them out. Together, #1 Son and I squatted in the bowels of the boat and chiselled out the old timber to let in some new Oak blocks. Good to sit and chat whilst working together, despite the pins and needles.

 

Meanwhile disaster struck in the workshop. The trusty bandsaw guide mechanism snapped. Calls to the supplier proved fruitless, the part is no longer stocked and no, we can’t suggest an alternative. Faced with buying a new bandsaw, inspiration struck and cousin Kerry (modelmaker extraordinaire) was called into action,

and that which was broken became whole…

Nesting birds

Away from boat building spring is in full swing, the never ending mowing marathon has started again, hampered slightly by the presence of a blackbird’s nest in the mower shed. I was so excited to see the eggs a few weeks ago but worried my regular intrusions might put Mrs B off her incubating duties. Luckily she just hunkered down and carried on and subsequent visits showed 4 healthy looking chicks!

 

Frog spawn

Tilly spotted this in the woods by the pond. Confused frog who thought the damp moss was water, or do some frogs or toads spawn on the ground? If so how do the tadpoles survive? Who knows… anyway we put some in the pond and left some where it was. We’ll see what happens.

and of course there is always homework… today’s project is brought to you by the word ‘tessellation’ Tilly decided this was a homework for the two of us (plus cousin Crissy) so many thin slices of hazel were cut and stuck in an semi-regular tessellation (with a bit of artistic license for the limitations of a natural material that gets smaller along it’s length).

Inspiration

Inspiration comes from many sources, whether it’s someone’s comment on this blog, a beautiful old photograph of a classic, or a YouTube video of someone’s project. Here’s a selection of a few things that have inspired me recently.

Watch any of Leo Sampson Goolden’s posts about his restoration of Tally Ho and you can’t fail to be inspired by his enthusiasm in the face of the massive project he’s taken on.

http://sampsonboat.co.uk/

Joshua Slocum’s round the world voyage in his homemade boat ‘Spray’ is the stuff off legend and it’s easy to forget what an achievement it was until you see how small and basic Spray was.

There is a wealth of information and talent out there and so much of it is free. Susan P Fino restores old nautical themed photographs and generously posts them on Facebook for us all to enjoy.

 

Well , I started writing this about 3 months ago so I suppose I should publish it. Hopefully there won’t be so long before the next riveting update. 🙂

So suddenly it’s spring and whole garden is a riot of blossom, and birds feverishly nest building.

The bank, vestigial remains of the millpond’s retaining dam is covered in milkmaids this year, as is the orchard and I’ve decided not to mow under the fruit trees until autumn thus releasing about two hours a week from mowing servitude to spend on boat building! In truth, I’m going to need every hour I can get as I have provisionally signed up for a sailing event next August! It’s the Old Gaffers Association 55th Anniversary and there is a regatta in Cowes on the Isle Of Wight. It is an improbable time frame but not impossible…..maybe. 🙂

The apple blossom in the top orchard is beautiful, notice the crab apple beyond the Shepherd’s Hut…. a Shepherd’s Hut!? I hear you exclaim, yes, mother has splashed out on a little wheeled retreat to retreat to or to simply sit and contemplate whatever it is mothers sit and contemplate when they’re not pruning, planting, watering and weeding. It took several hours of sweaty labour to get it from the road to its resting place as it weighs about 1.5 tons!

Another few hours of fossicking about underneath the chassis with an old bottle jack that, remembering the cobwebby, cedarwood garage of my childhood, I realised is older than me and still going strong, and the hut is level (ish)

For some reason despite the plentiful supply of grazing, the local deer seem rather partial to young fruit tree bark. Something to do with the high sugar content I think. A bit of work with some old sheep wire and they are hopefully safe from the depredations of the rascally ruminants.

 

Crikey! I hear you mutter, I though this blog was about boatbuilding not a bucolic ramble through an East Sussex Orchard! Ok, so the warm spring weather and some time off over Easter meant some actual honest to goodness boat restoration got done! Here is (hopefully) the last laminated frame under construction.

Having lovingly honed all my edged tools it was almost painful to plane the glue soaked wood, ‘poxy resin takes the edge off a blade very quickly!

I’ve long been a convert to the church of hardpoint saws, they last so long if you take care to avoid nails and screws and they are so sharp and so (relatively) cheap it seemed nonsensical to spend time hand sharpening a traditional saw. That was until I bought an old carpenters tool box at a car boot sale. £12 bought me a nice old box with quite a few old tools still in it. I felt almost embarrassed to be walking away with such riches for so little, but the seller seemed more than happy. Anyway, remembering that one of the saws was a fairly coarse one, and that in a recent spell of displacement activity I had sharpened it, I got it out and ripped (quite literally) through this sawn frame to trim it down to the correct thickness. I’m now an evangelical convert to the church of the traditional sawyer and next time I’m faced with a tricky task on the boat I shall procrastinate and spend some time sharpening the other two saws (one fine, one medium)

It’s a real pleasure owning a traditional tool chest, I probably spend too much time working out the best order to store the tools and it’s almost impossible to pick up once it’s full, (in fact I’ve adapted an old wheelbarrow to transport it from the house to the boat to save my back) but there’s something about it, I feel some sort of connection to all the carpenters who’ve used similar chests, or even this very one. It has also made me more fussy about what tools I put in it. I’m using the William Morris test, it either has to be beautiful, or useful, otherwise it is consigned to the ‘junk’ tool bag. I’ve become so fond of it I’ve even sanded off the more obvious paint splatters (whilst carefully preserving it’s patina of age and authenticity of course) and given it a coat of wax!

The sunshine and warm weather has meant more time up at the boat and this little job patching in a hole in the keelson was satisfactorily knocked off the to do list.

Next on the list is getting hold of some Polysulphide Bedding Compound to bed the frames in without breaking the bank, and working out how to repair some of the oversize bolt holes. I’m thinking some sort of router jig…..roll on Summer!

Very little work on Flamingo has been done since my last post 😦 it’s a common thread running through this blog…  Looking back, instead of woodworking, boatbuilding and tool making there has been lots of displacement activity like parties, picnics, sailing and such. …. surprisingly few rhino though…. I’ve always maintained, no blog is really complete with a couple of these leathery skinned, quadrupeds so here are some rhino to redress the balance.

These two handsome beasts are being cared for as part of an endangered species breeding progamme at Manor Wildlife Park in Wales where we went for a half term holiday. Tilly even got to put Sudocrem on their sore bits!

Along with trips to Wales there have been lovely autumn walks

Gathering wood for the winter.

Making baseball bats for ‘The Purge’ Halloween costume.

Harvesting apples

In amongst this veritable cornucopia of displacement activity there have been a few, a very few boat relevant jobs. I finally managed to gather together all my bladed tools to take to father’s workshop to use his water cooled grindstone. All chisels, planes, spoke shaves etc need their bevel regrinding at some point and mine had been crying out for some attention for far too long.

Once I started sharpening I realised just how the damp atmosphere down in our misty little frost pocket has rusted my tools, so both planes were stripped down cleaned up and put back together. I spent hours sharpening and fettling and there’s still all the carving chisels to do!

It was lovely to be in a proper workshop with all the right tools in all the right places like a One Republic lyric.

Knocking out the bronze bolts that hold the steel floors in was harder than I thought as they seem to have been bonded in with some super sticky gloop. Consequently I got a bit impatient and over enthusiastic with a hammer rather than a more forgiving mallet…. the result was a whole set of bolts with crushed threads. Very poor!

 

Luckily my father’s godfather Kenneth was thoughtful enough in 1959 to give him a set of BSW taps and dies… perhaps not with this exact job in mind but nevertheless, a wise, thoughtful and exemplary godfather.

So with a bit of cutting fluid and a lot of care the threads were re-cut and the day saved. Helped along by this little gift that, in my absence, like a little workshop pixie, father made to assist better gripping.

I said it before and I’ll doubtless bang on about it until I get my own workshop…. it’s so good having all the tools and a proper space to work in.

No Autumn would be complete without a trip to ‘the Ladybird tree’. These tiny little bugs hunker down for the winter in the cracks and crevices of an old tree in the woods near us and always signify the start of winter for me.

A trip to Bristol and a walk around the harbour was inspirational.

As was a visit to Iron Wharf in Faversham

So that was Autumn and now we’re through the festive season, out the other side and looking forward to spring, but with a house move in the pipeline I doubt the pace of work on Flamingo will be any faster, but she’s safe enough under her tarp until the days are longer and outside work more inviting…

The summer seems to have slipped away in a haze of holidays and lawn mowing, but without much progress on Flamingo, and now, as we sink slowly into what Keats may have called the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but in our dark little valley is a time of mould and mildewed futility, I am slightly regretting the lost time. Still, the weekend saw me tackle a job that has been on my mind for a while, namely the engine. It is an almost new Beta Marine 14 that has spent the last two years languishing in the shed and before that a year or so in Peter Gregson’s (www.woodenships.co.uk) cellar. I was concerned that the damp and cold of yet another winter without starting would be having a detrimental effect. A quick query to ybw Forum and an email to Beta Marine reinforced this fear and I quickly knocked up a frame for it to stand on. Apparently turning it over by hand once or twice a month will be enough to keep it lubricated and moving freely.

Then, realising that no matter how much gym time I put in, lifting 90kg of engine on my own was not going to happen I made a sturdy goal post out of the timber salvaged from the doomed boat shelter and using an ebay purchased chain hoist, hauled the beast into the air.

Obviously I carefully measured the distance, calculated the stretch in the rope, the height of the cross beam, the access for the frame and got it dead right. OK I guessed it all and luckily it worked… just.

With the engine safely stored the right way up I tried turning it over by pulling the fan belt, no joy, using a spanner, still no joy. Back to email and ybw Forum for more advice (I really am a novice when it comes to engines) and the consensus is good compression is stopping me. “Simply” remove or loosen the injectors…. so next weekend if I get a chance I’ll see if I can discover the whereabouts of the injectors…

After a week resting the right way up the issue has solved itself! I can now, with only a modicum of difficulty, turn the engine over. Back to working with something I understand, wood.

Having bought some more timber from Wealden Oak  a great timber yard where there are mountains of off cuts that languish, valueless until someone like me turns up, whereupon, after a quick look up and down to assess the cut of my jib/size of my wallet and the barest hint of measuring, the proprietor declared; “£40”. I ‘d like to say I haggled him down mercilessly like a Berber in a Moroccan Carpet shop, but I probably just looked confused and a little resigned.  He looked me up and down again and, perhaps noticing my frayed collar and dire need of a hair cut, randomly tapped his calculator again and said, “my mistake, £30”.

Back at the workshop I cut out the remaining sections of frames, then it was back to the boat to remove more screws from the old frames. They look in reasonable condition and though I might feel happier replacing them with new ones, the cost of bronze screws might be prohibitive!

Meanwhile the Oxalic Acid I bought to remove some stains from the cabin trunk has been put to a different use; lighting this kitchen table. It will always be a knotty pine table but after scraping off the accumulated stains of colouring pens, curry, red wine and oil, and a couple of treatments of acid it lost its ‘orange’ hue.

So not a very boat busy summer really, time seems to have compressed it into the blink of an eye, the mornings are dark now on my way to work and the evenings dark on my way back. Looking on the bright side the sky was alight with a sliver of moon and millions of stars this morning, lack of light pollution yet another advantage of living out here in the sticks. Hopefully now the garden is making less demands on my time I’ll get more done. Of course, though there is always something higher up the list of priorities, not all of it is unwelcome…like some actual sailing!

Distractions come thick and fast, half term has been and gone but not without some progress being made.

Distractions

Regular readers (oh alright who am I kidding, reader), may remember this picture from a previous post.

I broke my old mallet a while ago and to split a piece of Oak to make a the head of a replacement it I needed a…. well a mallet…..with what shall I hit it dear Liza dear Liza? Luckily as a man who firmly believes you can’t have too many tools, I have another rather cumbersome mallet that is great for hitting things really hard but a bit weighty and awkward for lighter tasks.

Next step make the lump square, then octagonal. At this stage it reminded me of a croquet mallet and I decided to leave it that shape.

There is a limit to how much time I want to spend planing a knotty bit of oak so a quick trip to father’s workshop saw it sawn to a more even shape and sanded on the disc sander. Next a handle; an old broken spade handle provided the raw material and after a lot of work with the spokeshave I had a lovely ash handle. It’s actually very therapeutic with a sharp blade and clear idea of the shape you want, repetitive but really satisfying.

A small saw cut in the end of the handle and an oak wedge to fix it in place, more spoke shaving and hefting it to feel how it handled, (pun!) and job done.

The spokeshave on the right has a rounded sole, it’s fiddly to get the blade just right with only very crude adjustment but once it is set up it’s a great little tool.

A lick of tung oil, (another one!) and here’s the finished article.

My children will bear testament as to how strangely excited and proud I am of this simple tool, some people might think 4 or 5 hours making something you can buy at your local DIY merchant for £6 is a foolish way to spend your time, but I’m not so sure. I spend my days designing studio sets for television, these transient structures only function is to look good, it really doesn’t matter how it is made, or what it’s made of, as long as it looks ok on camera and lasts a season. Getting from drawing board (Mac) to workshop, to studio, is a long, drawn out, torturous process of budget constraints, high level sign off, massaging senior egos and compromising the concept. By contrast the only design that went into this was subliminal, the materials are reused, there is no budget and its form is almost entirely dictated by its function. So I think this probably is a worthwhile use of my time and hopefully this one will last as long as its predecessor (33 years)

 

I sent a whole day sawing Oak last Friday, the noise grinds you down a bit but the smell is fantastic! Sawing great lumps of Oak into 5mm thick slats creates a startling amount of sawdust, very expensive sawdust, still I can’t see another way round it. The beast of a saw at my father’s workshop has a very sharp new blade with a 3mm kerf which means to get 70mm of laminated beam I need around 125mm to start with.

The startling amount of sawdust settled on an equally startling amount of wine storage, (father has his priorities well sorted) which meant about an hour of sweeping and vacuuming at the end of the day.

The Oak started the day like this….

Once it was all sawn, this is what I was left with…

I hadn’t really thought through the amount of wastage so it will be back to the sawmill at some point to get some more. Meanwhile I’ve ordered some mild steel angle cut into 50mm lengths, from the The Metal Store, some bolts washers and wing nuts it’s time to make the jig!

time passes…..

Snow falls and 9 year old daughters must be appeased with snow man making.

He came out a little more martial then we were expecting with his teasel trident and ice shield. He lasted almost a week, looking more like a small white duck towards the end but still clinging on to ‘life’.

Eldest son, (usefully training to be an engineer) was cajoled into getting his hands dirty filing off burrs, and then the slightly warmer, inside by the fire, but rather tedious marking out. Now if I can just persuade son #2 and #3 to study Navigation and Sail Making we could have the makings of a pretty good team!

Back to the leaky workshop and before drilling 84 holes in 28 bits of steel angle, first get the trusty old drill working. After several years of neglect sitting under a leak in the roof, its more rusty than trusty and the belt shredded within moments. New belt from Lenco Motors, a squirt of oil, and the removal of some spacers to get the belt to fit, soon had it up and running.

Next job, make a jig…. yes I’m making a jig to make clamps for a jig… to make frames for the boat. It does seem a bit of a long winded process as my wife sweetly pointed out.

The conversation went something like this;

“What are these bits you’re making, dearest heart?”

“They’re clamps, my own sweet darling”

“Why, wherever do they go on the boat, you clever man?”

“Well my love, they don’t actually go on the boat…. they are more like tools… to make bits… that do go on the boat…”

“What?! You mean you’re spending all this time and money making things that aren’t even part of the boat?!” (thinks; “Dear lord what have I done to deserve this nincompoop?”)

Meanwhile, back in the cold and damp, a happy day is spent drilling, next stage, wooden pads.

Some leftover Walnut worktop seems a bit extravagant for clamps but its too small for any other use so…

The advantage of a bench disc sander is getting everything nice and square.

Next up, make the bed which might look something like this…

I’m sure this project is making very slow progress for anyone reading it, (don’t kid yourself man, there’s no one out there) but I’m starting to feel like things are moving forward. 🙂