Boat Builders 2009

On Tuesday April 7th we split into 3 groups.  Mr. Trabona and I were originally planing the boats’ transoms, but gave Noahthe honor instead.  While he did that, Mr. Trabona and I screwed the side board to the frames on one side.  Mr. Kovacs and his partner were on the other side with the other group.  They started the riveting and that took the whole afternoon.

Instead of having boat building on Thursday (April 9th) we had it on Friday (April 10th) due to parent teacher conferences.  On Friday we go to start work early and ended at 4:00 as usual.  We finihsed riveting and painted the boats.  That may seem like only a little work, but that pretty much took the whol time.  Excluding our little outside break, so the paint could dry.

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Last Tuesday we finsished riveting both sides of the second boat even though we aren’t perfect so we made some mistakes.  The second boat I think looks better that the first even though it isn’t complete.  The first boat’s linseed oil that we put on a week ago gives it a beautiful dark color on the inside.

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Kevin Thibodeau
Blog Entry
3/31/09

Today at boat building, we finished the bottom of the second boat.  We had to caulk it with a kind of clay that is waterproof and will keep the boat from sinking.  We are almost done with the first boat.  We would have been done sooner with the first boat, but we had a small problem with a board from the boat.  We have been working on two boats at the same time, which has made it a little difficult at times.  Where we are working is so small, and with two 12’6’’ boats, they take up most of the room.  For the past six weeks, we have learned to use many tools that not many people know about.  This is a great privilege for Georgetown students to learn about boat building with one of the best boat builders in Maine, Mr. Ansel.  Mr. Trabona has also been a big help with building the two boats.  I was glad to be picked again to work with them.

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Working with Mr. Ansel is a lot of fun!  Yesterday we flipped the boat over and put the keel on.  Some boards were uneven so we had to hammer them down, but the putty was coming out so we had to put it in again.

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Today we put on the garboard strake [bottom side plank], except for all of the riveting.  We also coated the inside of our first boat with boiled linseed oil.

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Ok, since I’ll most likely forget date and times, I’ll give you this quick update.  And since we are done, yes done with the first boat, I’ll give you a quick review/update on what we got done, and next time give you a full description of what we have, and will still be doing.

So, we finished the first boat by planing and sanding and sawing and riveting.  We also put the planks on the next boat.  Next time we will be putting on another board because last time we puttied the boat.  Until next time,

Izzy

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We have a lot of fun when we are working on the boat. We tell stories and tell jokes as long as nobody is using a dangerous tool or could mess up the work on the boat like turning a drill the wrong way and messing up the screw hole. Usually somebody brings cookies or bars: mostly my mom. Everybody’s favorite is the oatmeal raisin cookies made by my mom. A few other cookies we’ve had are ginger snaps, oatmeal raisin bars, and peanut butter cookies. I should probably stop talking about cookies because your mouth is most likely watering from all the names!
When we go to boatbuilding at 2:00 (we get to miss an hour of school!), we walk along the road. We usually chat about the day and how it went. When we get there, Mr. Ansel tells us the plan of the two hours we have for boatbuilding and we get started. Usually we finish what he had planned, but sometimes his plan is too big to finish and we have to finish it the next time we get together (we work on Tuesdays and Thursdays). We still have a long ways to go on the second boat and I think this project is going to take longer than expected.

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The last day of boat building we learned how to work with a tool called a planer.  How you use a planer is you put one hand on the front handle and the other hand on the back angle.  You have to hold it at an angle to plane the wood well. Then you push the planer to make the wood smooth.  There are many kinds of planers that woodworkers use, like a block plane, a spoke shave, rabbit plane, and jack plane.

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We finished planking the second boat except for the caulking with cotton.  And this time the garboard strake didng break!  So hopefully there won’t be anymore setbacks and we’ll be able to continue because I can’t wait to see the finished products.

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Boat buliding is a very hard job.  The hardest is putting on the bottom planks.  Because you have to put 5200 on, then string, then you need to drill the boards on to the boat, last you need to cut the sides of the boards off.  Working with Mr. Ansel is a great opportunity.

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