Preview: Shortcuts Shaping Complex Wooden Boat Pieces – Part 2, Cutting the Tapers

17 Responses So Far to “Shortcuts Shaping Complex Wooden Boat Pieces – Part 2, Cutting the Tapers”

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  Fernando Fert says:

  Hard to find the Part 3.

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    Bruce Bolster says:

    yes, still looking for that one myself. Couldn’t they be organized or indexed alphabetically – serial search for any topic is very frustrating!

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    Ben Mendlowitz says:

    Just put “shortcuts” in the search box upper right of your screen and all parts come up. Here’s a direct link to part 3: https://www.offcenterharbor.com/videos/shortcuts-shaping-complex-wooden-boat-pieces-part-3-routing-sanding-curves-tapers/

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  Daniel Green says:

  Not sure I would have thought to leave the bulb end parallel for now. Clever.

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  Clay Young says:

  How do I get to part 3?

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  Paul Hitchman says:

  Could’t you place a lamp above the tiller and use the shadow it creates to get a true line? Light travels in straight lines so the shadow should be quite accurate.

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  Larry Cheek says:

  I appreciate Steve’s and Eric’s perspectives on eyeballing and quick, efficient work. I probably would have eyeballed the tiller curve much as Eric did, but for a slightly different reason.

  I realized somewhere in the middle of building my second boat that I would never have the time or skills to render every detail to perfection. So I began to think of my projects in terms of a hierarchy of quality. Some things had to be done to the absolute best of my ability—those affecting structural integrity and seaworthiness. As for the cosmetic issues, I would choose certain important details on which to lavish great care, but others less. I believed—and still do—that this was the only realistic way I would ever get my boat in the water. An uncompromising perfectionist may rightly feel proud of himself, but he also may never get to go sailing.

  I also came to believe that it’s quite all right for a handmade boat to look handmade. Not careless or sloppy, but exhibiting the small imprecisions and quirks that speak to its origins—a human’s hands, eyes, and mind. I think we’ve become conditioned to expect perfect precision in everything because nearly all the things in our environment are produced mainly by machine: cars, clothes, appliances, furnishings, even the tools we use to build our wooden boats. And we’ve transferred that ideal to our craftsmanship. For an amateur builder like me, at least, that’s a formula for frustration.

  Now, I certainly don’t want to fly on a Boeing 787 with handmade engine parts. But I believe our environment is richer if some things in it are made by hand, with skill and care but not with the intent to emulate machine precision.

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    Peter Harrower says:

    Larry, I like your perspective on hand-craftsmanship which allowed me to better understand Eric’s eyeballing of the work. The idea of an hierarchy of quality, where rendering of detail is related by timeliness to function and appearance also makes sense to me.

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  Jay Knight says:

  Thanks for the explanation on the use of the ball point pen, somehow it was bothering me. OCH is a learning experience through and through! Excellent video!

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  Chris Coakley says:

  Steve, thank you for that insight on Eric. Watching him work is like seeing a boatbuilding version of Bob Ross-meets-Bob Villa. I had to rewind several times just to watch the band saw work — holy mackerel!.

  Now that we’re hooked on this project, can we go back to the beginning and see how all the veneer gets glued up?

  Many thanks and Happy New Year OCH.

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    Dave Dickmeyer says:

    Norm Abram maybe…Bob Villa, never!

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  William McCaffrey says:

  Eric,

  At this point, I would finish a part like this with a spoke shave. Have you ever tried this method?

  Bill

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    Eric Blake says:

    Hey Bill,
    A spokeshave is certainly an option, and one of my favorite hand tools.
    Stay tuned….

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  Michael Mittleman says:

  Eric,

  Congratulations! This is a wonderful video series jam-packed with tool and technique information. One question: why do you rely on “eye-balling” the various measurements, particularly the curves? Why not use a caliper during the layout phase to get greater precision?

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    Steve Stone says:

    Good question Michael. Eric will answer with his own perspective, but I’ll give you my own take. It might be a personality thing as much as anything, or the style he developed in his formative years on the farm. I’ve seen Eric do more work in a day than three other very accomplished builders, combined. I’ve seen him finish a project in an hour that would take me a month. He doesn’t like to dawdle or fuss over the minute details. He thinks things through, and when his work allows, he’s a free-form chef by nature, rather than a baker who likes to measure the ingredients to nth degree. He’s a sculptor first, and an engineer second. Not that he can’t be a baker or engineer, it’s just that the person who grew up on a dairy farm and had to milk and feed all the cows before school every day is the guy, and he finds ways to build things that match his nature.

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    Eric Blake says:

    Hey Bill,
    A spokeshave is certainly an option, and one of my favorite hand tools.
    Stay tuned….

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    Eric Blake says:

    Hello Michael,
    Thanks for your comments.
    Eye balling is a large part of building any three dimensional object.
    Curves, in particular are a real challenge to measure, and draw. It requieres lofting or cutting an object in three views, plan, profile, and section. Once this lofting is created accurate measurements are taken from it to create a table of offsets which you can then use to accurately place measured points on the object, in this case the tiller. These points of reference are then connected with a batten and lines drawn. It is in this process of drawing lines using a batten that one starts to eyeball his or her work. A set of calipers is a very accurate way of measuring this object in section only. That gives you only one very accurate component of a three dimensional object.

    When I teach people either adults or kids the fundamentals of boatbuilding, the thing that I try and stress the most is this. Know what measurements are critical, and trust your eye. Boats are very complex three dimensional objects, that are very time consuming to describe. Don’t let a sheet full of numbers, get in the way of trusting your eye. Never draw a lofted line with a batten without first looking to see that it is eye sweet. At some point with any three dimensional object that is all that matters.

    While this series is broken into several parts, the shaping of this tiller took 2 hours from removing it from the mold to a sealer coat of varnish. I knew this would be the case because that was all the time I had. I called Steve and pitched the idea of….. I am going to shape a laminated tapered tiller after work and what do you think about a piece that shows the use of a variety of different stationary tools, and shaping something by eye? This series is meant to show that there are many ways to skin a cat.
    Best, Eric