The perception of perfection?

[MushCreek]

In other words, How do you know when you're done? I'm at that stage in my current build where I'm 90% done, and have 90% to go. Filling, sanding, filling, sanding, on and on. Although according to Peerie Maa, it is difficult to build an ugly wooden boat, it's very easy to build a poorly executed one. This is my first go at glued lapstrake construction. I usually just knock out sheet plywood skiffs that no one expects to be show queens. I'm really not sure how good my hull is going to look. Are there lumps and hollows? Is she lined off nicely? She'll be painted, with a few bits of brightwork, so I can fix most of it. I'm going to put on a couple coats of sealer; enough to see how fair the planking looks. From there, I'll make the decision whether to use high gloss paint (if she's really nice) or satin (if she's just so-so). I'm feeling a lot of pressure, because she is intended to be a beautiful boat, and spectators will hold her to a higher level of perfection.

I'm a retired tool maker, so perfection is in my blood. It took me three years to build our modest house, largely because I couldn't leave a 1/32" error without trying to improve it. At some point, I need to move on, paint the boat, and go rowing. Boat building is on the opposite end of the spectrum from precision tool making. I'm used to making parts to a tolerance of .0001", and everything fits by way of accuracy. I get weak in the knees when folks talk of 'eyeballing' and 'shaving off a little here and there'. I know she'll move nicely through the water, and everything stayed straight, so she'll track well. Time will tell whether she will withstand the scrutiny of other builders.

[WI-Tom]

Perfectionism is a cruel master (one I don't serve, at least as far as building boats and furniture goes). Your boat doesn't have to withstand anyone's scrutiny.

Despite many obvious flaws or not-nearly-perfect finishing, my boat is beautiful. To me. Partly that's because of how it looks. But it's much more because of the experiences it enables me to have, like this:



What experiences do you want to have? Achieving a show-queen level of perfection? That's valid. You'll have a beauty of a boat.

Going sailing and rowing in your boat? Paint it, launch it, use it. That's also valid.

Tom

[WHYankee]

I have built boats, both wood and 'glass. I have also machined hobby steam engines. You need to compartmentalize your thinking for the task at hand as both skills and requirements are mutually exclusive. Depending on the task at hand, perfection will either be a requirement or an enemy.

[Michael_Owen]

In my opinion, your worries are for naught. Other folks are going to be nothing other than amazed (non-builders) or kind and supportive, (builders, having been through what you are experiencing.) Even you will begin not noticing the "flaws" in your boat pretty quickly as you start using it.

I'd go for gloss paint if it's what you are leaning towards. If the boat is out in the elements, it will lose its sheen after a season.

My glued-lap Ilur has loads of flaws. One of the outwales was about 1/8" short and did not touch the transom. Instead of making a new out wale, I epoxied a small bit of oak in there. This area is finished bright. I never notice it. Or when I do, it makes me smile.

Good luck. And have fun with your boat!

MIke

[Dave Hadfield]

Most of us suffer dearly from perfectionism.

I know that I have to remind myself that a boat is not a piece of living-room furniture. Get it done and launched. And, BTW, there's NO POINT in making decks slippery-smooth and then adding anti-skid into the paint. 80-grit is plenty fine there.

When the boat can be used the way it's designed, and doesn't degrade in the elements, it's finished.

[Rich Jones]

I've built many wooden boats in the past 50 years. No matter the length, I refer to them as
20-footers: best looked at from 20' away.
They all have what I perceive as imperfections but that the average person would never notice.
My problem was seeing the project end since I enjoy building the vessel as much as using it.
Enjoy the boat and if anyone points out an 'imperfection', toss them overboard!!

[WI-Tom]

My glued-lap Ilur has loads of flaws. One of the outwales was about 1/8" short and did not touch the transom. Instead of making a new out wale, I epoxied a small bit of oak in there. This area is finished bright. I never notice it. Or when I do, it makes me smile.

Mike,

I have precisely the same "problem" with one of the inwales on my Alaska, and solved it the same way--with precisely the same reaction when I happen to remember or notice it.

Tom

[MushCreek]

The intent is to take the boat all over on a trailer, and go rowing and exploring interesting back waters. I might take her to a small wooden boat show or two if I feel she came out good enough. Although she'll be kept indoors, she'll be exposed to the typical boat ramp, dock, and oyster bar scars, so after a season or two, she won't be perfect anyways. I was lured into glued lapstrake, as there are those who say it is easy (and it is, up to a point) but the finishing is the slow part. It's easier to smooth up a strip-planked hull because you can cover large areas with flexible sanding boards instead of trying to smooth up 16 separate planks. I really do want to splash down this spring, after a year of on-and-off work.

[adktripper]

What is she? Any pics?

[cstevens]

I have spent decades battling the compulsion for perfection myself. Led down that path by the immaculate wooden boats and classic cars featured in the magazines I was reading in my youth, I thought that happiness could only be found in the reflections of a concours d'elegance paint finish or the perfectly clocked screw heads on a polished portlight. But what I found is that the pursuit of perfection was both an illusion and, for me at least, a recipe for permanent dissatisfaction. More, it led me to attempt a couple of badly-conceived "restorations" of things that were perfectly fine as they were, and did not need to be polished to a higher degree. At a certain point I realized that chasing perfection wasn't making me happy, and was actually preventing me from doing other things that did - like driving a nice (but not perfect) car or rowing an elegant boat on a sunny weekend instead of spending that time sanding or wrenching. I am still prodded by the demons of perfectionism - always! but I now have ways to fight them off. I have learned to enjoy a thing for its history and its utility. Like Tom's Alaska, which may have a filler piece in the inwale, but which has taken him on journeys which transcend any possible static experience of the boat as a perfect thing at some point in time.

Ultimately I think the answer to "when are you done" is a personal one, and comes down to "what makes you happy?" Some people find happiness in doing the work and seeing the end result of skill and attention to detail, and when it's done they want to move on and build or restore the next thing. I use to think I was one of those people, and I still envy and admire them. Others want to do a competent job and turn out a beautiful thing, but will be fine with a few imperfections because the thing is going to be used, and will accumulate more imperfections along the way - all of which contribute to the entirety of the experience of the thing. And some don't care for physical perfection or beauty at all. They want to spend as little as possible time working on something so that they can get to the experience that the thing will give them. (That last group are all building Bolger boats...)

[dt123]

Someone told me once, "Good enough is perfect." I've lived by that ever since. A lot of things that are good enough get f-ed up by trying to make them perfect.

[Larrycheek]

Halfway through my first build, I named the boat Far From Perfect. At the very least, it relieved some of the pressure.

Through four subsequent builds, I developed what could be called a philosophy of imperfectionism. Given the reality that as an amateur boatbuilder I have neither the wide range of skills nor the near-infinite amount of time it would take to make every detail of any boat perfect, I have a hierarchy of priorities:

(1) Anything that affects seaworthiness or structural integrity MUST be done right, and if I don't know how, I make myself swallow pride and ask for advice.

(2) I select a few prominent details that eyes are likely to be drawn to and put my best efforts into them—e.g., bowsprit, cabin trunk, companionway doors, cockpit sole.

(3) For all the rest of the cosmetics, I keep reminding myself that it doesn't matter what other people think of them, or by extension, of me. As CStevens wrote above, it "comes down to what makes you happy." When I commit yet another cosmetic imperfection, I imagine myself being aboard the boat a couple of years in the future and ponder whether it's bad enough to bother me. Is it worth doing over? Usually, no.

I've also been designing and building furniture for my home over the last 15 years. None of the pieces are perfect. The earlier ones are much farther from perfect than the more recent ones. I've kept them all because they form a kind of graph of my (very slow) progress. Which is the best most of us highly imperfect humans can do.

[pvg]

Two things...
There's no such thing as "perfect", it's a theoretical concept...
As my friend and boatbuilding mentor told me, there's only one person you have to please...

[Breakaway]

Perfection is the enemy of good.


Kevin

[stromborg]

Unless you are in high level competitive class racing a perfectl bottom doesn't mean much and the fish don't care. I too admire those highly polished gems of the small craft world that sit on their trailers at the boat shows, my suspicion is many of them don't see the water much. If that is what gives their owner/builders joy then great for them but the water world is full of flotsam, jetsam and birds that poop indiscriminately.

[Autonomous]

I've built and modified a few boats to near perfect.
We've all seen workboats we admired. If there is a next build, it will be finished to good workboat level. The boat's lines and smart color scheme will be enough to express the beauty.

[Toxophilite]

Yes, don't let perfection get in the way of good enough. All the cosmetic things you're obsessing about now will not matter when you are out boating. You won't won't think of them all.
As much of my previous fine work had to do with smaller things, like guitar parts and bows, adjusting my perception of finishing to larger things like boats was a leap

[jpatrick]

Something Martha Graham said could be applied to boatbuilders:

"No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

I've carried her thoughts with me for many years and have found them to be perfectly applicable to every single one of my creative endeavors.

Jeff

[Scrib]

I really like this discussion. I'm a constant peruser (?) but seldom contributor to this forum simply because I have not really felt I have a lot to offer as far as advice or skills. That being said, I am reaching the completion of my 4th small wooden boat and the most complex and beautiful of all the others and believe me I've had to say "good enough" a number of times during the 4 yr build. The important parts (like the hull & deck) I've done as right as I possibly can and the rest I've simply done as best I can given my somewhat limited skills. What has always amazed me is the excitement others exude when they look at my work; almost all of them say it's incredible work. That tells me, as several have mentioned above, that perfection is an inward facing characteristic while good enough is definitely an outward facing one ... make sense? Either way, since I've started down this path of boat building I have had an unmitigated ton of fun and that makes it all worthwhile to me!
BTW, I've decided on the next project, an iceboat complete with a carbon fiber wing mast. Since it will be of wood construction maybe I'll find the confidence to post the build!

[Autonomous]

Drift alert.

I've come to enjoy looking at photography. The online availability is amazing in content and diversity. The world at my fingertips.
Black and white images have become my hands down favorite. Before my 'education' I thought they were just old fashioned and lacking, I wanted perfect color.
Another education was seeing my first Rembrandt. Definitely not a perfect photograph.

Texture, a sweet line, complementing, contrasting, surprising color choices all trump a mirror finish.

What I'm getting at is perfection does not equal perfection.

[heimlaga]

I have been taught that once you have planed away most of the axe scallops and brushed on some pine tar the surface is good enough for a boat.

Anything better is superficial.

[John Meachen]

Perfectionism is a hard taskmaster.I suspect that most people suffering from it have some degree of OCD and I have sympathy.Much less demanding is to settle for "mere" excellence,which in boat terms means that they float and look good from half a boat length away.There are some things that do attract the eye more than others and unfortunately plank lines are one of the more prominent.Most of the rest relates to fair lines and good fits under a run-free paint job.

[JimConlin]

Who are you trying to serve? Among my twenty plus boats have been:
- A canoe that was a perfect as I could manage. I couldn’t bear to scratch it and didn’t enjoy using it.
It’s now an indoor decoration.
- Seven primitive stitch&glue rowboats for grandkids and other kids. They’ll last slightly longer than the kids’ interest.
- A fancy fantail launch that starred in my only daughter’s wedding.
- A glass, foam and carbon sporty trimaran. Experimental light structure in new-to-me materials. Finishes were
amateurish, but the structure has mostly worked for fifteen years.
- A simple plywood pram tender. Never impressed anyone in its thirty years.

Different boats have different objectives. You can try to do something fancy, ambitious or impressive or you can get it done and get on the water.

BTW, Jim’s catboat thread started in 2008. I applaud both his skill and his patience.

[MushCreek]

Here's a link to my build thread. I'm building a Peregrine 18 rowboat.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...a-Peregrine-18

[willin woodworks]

There is nothing wrong with being your own worst critic. I can always see something that I coulda, woulda, shoulda done better when my clients are perfectly happy with the final product.
Strive for perfection and settle for really good.

[heimlaga]

After all that is how boats develop. A skilled boatbuilder will notice the weaknesses in his earlier builds and correct them in his later builds and tech his apprentices to not repeat his errors.

[pez_leon]

This thread has been humming along in the back of my mind all weekend. I, too, feel the tension between the perfect and the attainable, and I wonder when to abandon the platonic ideal in my mind in favor of the flawed but realized object in front of me.
At the risk of leading others down a philosophically dubious path I will share a thought experiment. I prefer to see boatbuilding as a means to build skills and knowledge that occasionally produces watercraft as an incidental byproduct. When I started my first boat I couldn't sew or splice. I couldn't rig a purchase or winch to move my trailer, overhaul bearings, or work metal reliably to my purposes. I was weak with curves or non-right angles in wood. I couldn't glue with epoxy, fillet, or lay fiberglass. My painting was a joke and I had never varnished anything. I didn't know how to plan and build by superimposition or bodge through somewhat mysterious under documented processes in the shop. I didn't have a fraction of the confidence I now feel in my ability to fix and make things around the house and I hadn't happily and steadily applied that confidence to fixing and making things for the people I care about. Looking back I can hardly believe how improved I am by having completed one and seven-eights boats. I may not have built anything like a perfect object, but I have made a vastly improved boatbuilder.
Now this may not be a recipe for an improved society or for great art. I very much doubt that the people who built cathedrals would subscribe to my doctrine of radical self interest and improvement. But it does lend a measure of comfort to my reflections on my many, many mistakes.
Thanks, all, for posting!

- James

[Slacko]

I built a tender a few years ago that still stops passersby, who praise it and take photo's.
The experience has taught me how to accept praise for work that is good but not perfect, because most would not see the faults even if I pointed them out to them.

I would paint the hull with epoxy primer so the hull is a uniform colour and texture.
This will give an idea what will be seen if it was painted at that point.
You can then decide if that meets your acceptable standard.
The epoxy primer can then have fairing compound over the top to bring it up to the level of fairness you are aiming for.
I achieved a 1 metre finish by this method, but it took 4 coats to get there with dark blue high gloss International Perfection.
The third coat looked good, but the 4th one suddenly had depth of colour.

[Yeadon]

I tend to mumble “Perfect enough” on a regular basis.

[Mike1902]

The idea behind the principle is to focus on the effort, not the outcome. According to Carol Dweck, a renowned psychologist at Stanford University, “They may appreciate endowment, but they admire effort, for no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”

[neil.henderson]

I used to work in IT and used to design and architect till we reached "just enough". I use the same principle in my boat building (currently on number 4) and it has the wonderful advantage that enough is a term that the user can vary according to available energy, motivation and skill :-)

My tuppenceworth Regards Neil

[SBrookman]

As others have said it comes down to your personality, skill level and intended use. If I were building for a client I'd still be fussing, but I build for myself and take it to that good enough level. As builders we notice every little flaw and for some reason need to point them out, don't know why we do that. Once built the boat has a character of its own, the finished project is viewed in total, with the imperfections unnoticed to all but the most critical viewer.
I was not pleased as the first birdsmouth mast I built was far from perfect, it was not straight! I rushed the job, inadequate blocking, and now I had bent mast. I was so discouraged until I raised it and when in position it had a rake that seemed reasonable. That was 8 years ago and no one has ever mentioned it and Rivus has had more than a few Nantucket Sleigh-rides, so it's strong enough. I still intend to remake it someday as seeing it laying misshapen in storage bothers me, but not enough to get it higher up the to-do list.

[neil.henderson]

As others have said it comes down to your personality, skill level and intended use. If I were building for a client I'd still be fussing, but I build for myself and take it to that good enough level. As builders we notice every little flaw and for some reason need to point them out, don't know why we do that. Once built the boat has a character of its own, the finished project is viewed in total, with the imperfections unnoticed to all but the most critical viewer.
I was not pleased as the first birdsmouth mast I built was far from perfect, it was not straight! I rushed the job, inadequate blocking, and now I had bent mast. I was so discouraged until I raised it and when in position it had a rake that seemed reasonable. That was 8 years ago and no one has ever mentioned it and Rivus has had more than a few Nantucket Sleigh-rides, so it's strong enough. I still intend to remake it someday as seeing it laying misshapen in storage bothers me, but not enough to get it higher up the to-do list.

I need to build a mast (plus 5 other spars) for the CY I am building - I might try the birdsmouth technique now - thankyou.

Regards Neil