Epoxy?

[pcford]

Were wooden boats ever built without that epoxy goo?

[Geftb]

Has the human species ever been capable of live and let live?

[pcford]

Has the human species ever been capable of live and let live?

The answer, of course. is no.

But the more interesting notion is the dichotomy between those that think wooden should be built with minimal chemical assistance and those that champion that process.

[wizbang 13]

Dichotomy ?
zat what cha call our lil ting Pat ?
Alla dis freekshun causin you heat mon, here have a brownie.

[Toxophilite]

Hey what about titebond 3! A trichotomy!

[wizbang 13]

Dreadlock Conditioner for World Peace !

[Peerie Maa]

'Poxy is for less than competent wood butchers.
Resorcinol Formaldehyde is a better glue, WBP that withstands long-term water immersion and has high resistance to ultraviolet light and all that.

[Dave Lesser]

Were wooden boats ever built without that epoxy goo?

Here is ChatGPT's answer to your question. It doesn't know everything.

[Todd Bradshaw]

That's a tremendously inaccurate answer, obviously written by someone who doesn't know squat about wooden boats - with or without epoxy.

[Skegemog]

That's a tremendously inaccurate answer, obviously written by someone who doesn't know squat about wooden boats - with or without epoxy.

Don't think ChatGPT is a someone, at least not yet.

I had to look it up to make sure, cutting edge AI.

How long before it figures out how to caulk carvel planking with us?

[Ian McColgin]

This thread reminds me of the early days of our magazine when the epoxy wars and the restoration wars vied for column inches. The genius of our magazine is that it airs such diversity. Pretty good for managing so many highly opinionated grumps.

[jpatrick]

ChatGPT's answer is, of course, nonsense. But so is the OP.

Jeff

[Autonomous]

A little banter is good clean fun.

[Mike1902]

Epoxy? No epoxy?

"Whatever floats your boat".

[Peerie Maa]

Would this have been possible if Boadicea had been originally built with epoxy?

Smack: Boadicea Based at West Mersea and one of the oldest boats afloat.
1808 Launched;
1825 Bought by John Pewter;
1839 First rebuild;
1872 John Pewter dies, Boadicea sold to Binks family;
1901 Boadicea rebuilt in carvel;
1917 Iziah Binks sells Boadicea to Ernest French;
1938 Ernest’s son, Manny French, sells Boadicea to Michael Frost;
1945 Boadicea recommissioning begins on VE Day;
8th May 1963 Michael Frost starts total rebuild;
1972 Boadicea relaunched;
1989 Boadicea inherited by Martha Frost;
2006 Third-generation Rueben Frost takes ownership.

[Pertsa]

My 50's sailboat had glued seams from beginning, so I have to mess with stuff to make it perform as intended.

[John Meachen]

Nathaniel Bishop's first vessel in his book was built from brown paper and shellac.No reason why we couldn't still use both.

[Rumars]

Were wooden boats ever built without that epoxy goo?

Yes, but not always the same boats. Glue fastening allows the widest design freedom, if the designer actually took advantage of that you are stuck. It's the same with metal vs. wooden or fiber fastening, the build methods are not always backward compatible.

Would this have been possible if Boadicea had been originally built with epoxy?

Sure why not. The original build lasted 31 years, the first rebuild 62 years, the second again 62, and the third and current rebuild is 51 years old. Adagio, the Gougeon's 35' trimaran is 53, and reportedly in good condition.

[Larks]

Has anything ever done by man not evolved as knowledge is acquired and skills improved?

[Paul Schweiss]

I love epoxy. I love pine tar. I learned traditional West Norway construction techniques unchanged since Viking Times-well Floki would have been impressed with the bandsaw, and the light bulbs. I love my hewing axe. I love vacuum infusion for composite work.
if I could have paid the bills and raised my family building færing I would have been very satisfied.
I learned lofting on my knees...I learned a little about using Rhino on computer to develop boats.
What I love may not be what today’s customer desires or understands, and not being independently wealthy I listen to what they want. If that is a glued plywood lapstrake, so be it. If it is a gold plater with incredible finishes and joinery, and systems, so be it.
I am willing to follow the customers wishes, they don’t diminish my craft.

[Todd Bradshaw]

My 1960 Starboat was glued from cedar planks maybe 3/4" by 4" with mating rabbets cut into the edges and some sort of Weldwood or resorcinol glue. The glue joints were dynamite so instead, all the cracks happened in the middle of the planks. You could patch and paint over them weekly and still never win the battle. I finally veneered the topsides using 107/207 epoxy and 3/32" mahogany. That did the trick....until the big lightning strike....and I'm not talking about Lightning sailboats.

[kbowen]

Today I was helping a wonderful old dude in Port Townsend bucking rivets on what would be considered a completely traditional boat-build. The ribs are bedded in the keel with red lead: totally traditional, but intentionally toxic as hell. He will be using hundreds of dollars worth of copper rivets; the copper was mined somewhere, drawn and headed somewhere unknown. Some of the ribs are kerfed and are sauced with a mix of pine tar, petroleum tar, and roof felt, also totally "traditional." My own boat is strip-composite with red cedar, epoxy and 'glass. We each pick our poison...

Ken

[ShorelineJohn]

Without epoxy and plywood the small wooden boat would be a thing of the past. What does it cost for a small boat to sit in water 24/7 in Seattle?

[Toxophilite]

^ this
Modern small boat construction makes it possible for the average person to have , or build even, a durable, functional and beautiful traditional looking craft.
Otherwise small wooden boats would only be for the wealthy

Only because I was very persistent and got a very very good deal was I able to afford a traditional wooden boat that wasn't a complete basket case.
Most traditionally built boats in any sort of good shape are very expensive and this of course reflects the work and materials put into them.
I had resigned myself to never owning one.

I really like my Gartside 130, it's beautiful! but being made of red cedar it is nowhere near as rough and tumble as my shellback dinghy was.
Also the perceived value makes me takes more care with it. It becomes 'precious' I'm more wary of running it up on beaches, It lives in a special shed I made.
My shellback dinghy lived under a tarp with a ridgepole

Kind of like when I had a guitar handmade by Artur Lang, arguably the best luthier in Germany in the 50s. I paid what was for me ,a bundle, and it was well worth it build quality wise, However I eventually sold it because I didn't want to cart something that expensive and precious around to gigs, or take it to the beach, or on a walk etc. etc.

[Edward Pearson]

Strip, glue-lap, cold molded & carvel all have an oil based chemical goop between the planks to keep the water out.

Only the 'traditional' form of traditional clinker doesn't.


I only know of one (now dead old Cornish) builder of carvel boats capable of building without any seam compound. The boats were launched, left to sink and swell while they went to the pub between tides. French carvel is actually a product of harbour taxation and over fishing.

Centuries ago, a builder would now scoff at sawn planking not riven planking. And so it goes.


Its interesting to consider what's amateur and professional now. There is now almost no professional hand tool woodworking. People learning from past masters like Paul Sellers are now 'Woodworking'. People at home, in their spare time for the love of it, are the industry, the consumers of tools and holders of understanding. Very few wooden boats are built professionally. Small boat construction in the home garage, the typical trailer sailers, is Wooden Boatbuilding, almost in its entirety. We are not 'the amateurs', we are it. 20 years down the line of study and interest, that old carvel boat in the corner's only hope.

[wizbang 13]

Would this have been possible if Boadicea had been originally built with epoxy?

Why was it restored so many times? Is she a wealthy families heirloom? Any grant money involved? Any of the original boat left?
In the future there will be 200 year old wood boats that have never been restored . Thank You epoxy.

[Pertsa]

I only know of one (now dead old Cornish) builder of carvel boats capable of building without any seam compound. The boats were launched, left to sink and swell while they went to the pub between tides.

Most, if not all Finnish carvel fishing boats were built without anything between seams, they were just tightened by swelling. When you launched them first time little bit water came in, but rarely they sunk.
This boat was originally so, but from repeated cycles of swelling and drying over 50 years, pine had lost its performance so it had to be splined.

ghuhuhuk.jpg

[wizbang 13]

50 years pffft… spring chicken for an epoxy boat.
”splined”…. With WHAT ????

[Edward Pearson]

Why was it restored so many times? Is she a wealthy families heirloom? Any grant money involved? Any of the original boat left?
In the future there will be 200 year old wood boats that have never been restored . Thank You epoxy.

She was a working boat and is in the same 'normal' families ownership - normal working people so to speak. She was actually considered unworthy from the off. If I remember from his book, the builders tried something, I think it was more beam, and it wasn't deemed a success and she was pretty much left 'outcast' for a time from the Smack fleet. Then she ended up in the family when they needed a boat. He reckons she's a good mix for not too big not too small, and relatively manouverable. She was better after he took the engine out as she was originally designed to be if I recall. She went up the beach once...recently rebuilt with mostly Greenheart. Did it themselves I think. 200 + years but yeah she's triggers broom. The family wrote a tail of her history and how to sail her, I can dig it out if anyone's interested. I don't think there's any grant money involved, just a sailing/ working family from a history of oystering. Oysters supplied London 'poor' with protein during the industrial revolution, weren't the luxury food they are today back then.

[wizbang 13]

She was a working boat and is in the same 'normal' families ownership - normal working people so to speak. She was actually considered unworthy from the off. If I remember from his book, the builders tried something, I think it was more beam, and it wasn't deemed a success and she was pretty much left 'outcast' for a time from the Smack fleet. Then she ended up in the family when they needed a boat. He reckons she's a good mix for not too big not too small, and relatively manouverable. She was better after he took the engine out as she was originally designed to be if I recall. She went up the beach once...recently rebuilt with mostly Greenheart. Did it themselves I think. 200 + years but yeah she's triggers broom. The family wrote a tail of her history and how to sail her, I can dig it out if anyone's interested. I don't think there's any grant money involved, just a sailing/ working family from a history of oystering. Oysters supplied London 'poor' with protein during the industrial revolution, weren't the luxury food they are today back then.

yea I was being a bit tongue in cheek.
Is Nick suggesting an epoxy boat cannot be repaired? Or that epoxy boats disintegrate inside the epoxy( many do believe that)
Bruce

[Garret]

The important question is "Does your epoxy lose its flavor on the sternpost overnight"?

As said above - whatever floats your boat. There are beautiful boats built many ways & boats repaired many ways.

[Peerie Maa]

Why was it restored so many times? Is she a wealthy families heirloom? Any grant money involved? Any of the original boat left?
In the future there will be 200 year old wood boats that have never been restored . Thank You epoxy.

She was a working boat and is in the same 'normal' families ownership - normal working people so to speak. She was actually considered unworthy from the off. If I remember from his book, the builders tried something, I think it was more beam, and it wasn't deemed a success and she was pretty much left 'outcast' for a time from the Smack fleet. Then she ended up in the family when they needed a boat. He reckons she's a good mix for not too big not too small, and relatively manouverable. She was better after he took the engine out as she was originally designed to be if I recall. She went up the beach once...recently rebuilt with mostly Greenheart. Did it themselves I think. 200 + years but yeah she's triggers broom. The family wrote a tail of her history and how to sail her, I can dig it out if anyone's interested. I don't think there's any grant money involved, just a sailing/ working family from a history of oystering. Oysters supplied London 'poor' with protein during the industrial revolution, weren't the luxury food they are today back then.

I dunno about being built beamy, unless she was built on spec. When an owner commissions a boat he wants to get what he wants, after all it is his hard-earned cash.

Her history is that she was a conventional smack of her era, clinker built.
Then, as often happened, as the clinker planking aged, she was firred out to create a smooth surface on which a new skin of carvel plank could be hung. This was probably done by the usual practice of set work, where everything is set in hot tar and cow hair from the tanneries.
Then her owners decided to invest in a rebuild. All the planking and most of the frames were replaced, carvel plank, leaving some of the original joggled frames in place. It was probably at this rebuild that she lost her symmetry, so that she sailed noticeably better on one tack.
Then she was bought by Michael Frost IIRC was a dentist or doctor, who after 20 years of use decided on a total rebuild. As Edward states, using greenheart, fastened with copper nickel boat nails and bolts. There is only one piece of the deadwood, aft, that is original timber.

[Peerie Maa]

yea I was being a bit tongue in cheek.
Is Nick suggesting an epoxy boat cannot be repaired? Or that epoxy boats disintegrate inside the epoxy( many do believe that)
Bruce

You can repair anything. But sometimes the work is not worth the candle. A major replank of a damaged epoxy cold molded hull, for one thing.

[Edward Pearson]

Flicking through the book (there was also a Classic Boat article I think with more detail of when she was built published well after the book by Frost Jnr I think) seems the builders at the time built a 6-7 ton 30fter or a 12 ton 36fter class. With Boadicea they tried an 11 ton 30fter...with the 30ft'er rig. So she's better in heavy sea than the lighter ones but more nimble than the big ones. Conversely she wouldn't have the legs of the longer ones or moanuverability of the lighter ones, depends how the weather is.

Anyhow, several owners seem to think she's a good boat, but Frost struggles with lee helm in very high winds when he gets her. She's not so balanced and won't stay head to wind as easily, as a normal Smack. I think that's why the original builder Williamson 1808 had not seen her as a success and she'd ligged about. Frost says her bow (less straight) and stern (more vertical transom no counter) shape are a bit different. Whether thats original or occurred at a rebuild whose to say.

I'm pretty sure this was written before Frost jr took the engine out and that cleared up some of the balance issues.

Seems Frost Snr got to talk to a Mr Binks whose dad bought her from a Mr Pewter. Pewter had seen her after being on her, snooping for Smacksmen dredging up contraband (which they were). Pewter had a first refit done in 1839 after returning from St Helena and guarding Napolean, and buying her in 1825. So Frost has line of sight quite some way back.

Seems she was worse performing carvel than clinker. Pitching more and slower, if stronger. I've read The Itchen Ferry guys said the same thing when they were rebuilt carvel.

[wizbang 13]

You can repair anything. But sometimes the work is not worth the candle. A major replank of a damaged epoxy cold molded hull, for one thing.

Yes I agree with you there, cold molded. Not a fan.