Cold-Molded Boatbuilding

[Doug Canada]

Where could I get a definition of "Cold-Molded Boatbuilding"?

Is there a (wooden) boatbuilding encyclopedia out-there?

Thank you,
Doug

.

[Hwyl]

From Wikipedia

Cold-molded refers to a type of building one-off hulls using thin strips of wood applied to a series of forms at 45-degree angles to the centerline. This method is often called double-diagonal because a minimum of two layers is recommended, each occurring at opposing 45-degree angles. "Cold-molding" is now a relatively archaic term because the contrasting "hot-molded" method of building boats, which used ovens to heat and cure the resin, has not been widely used since WWII. Now almost all curing is done at room temperature.

Edited to add: This is a quote and is not my opinion of what cold moulded boat building is.

[ 01-01-2006, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Hwyl ]

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

There is a really good book by Ian Nicolson:
"Cold-Moulded And Strip-Planked Wood Boatbuilding"
ISBN 0-7136-3524-X

It has been published by Adlard Coles and by Stanford Marine - but I couldn't say if it is still in print.

It is top class writing - and a really dry wit.

I once used an electric planer when making a mast; getting impatient after a long hard slog, I reset the blade too deeply and the next minute I had sheared away too much wood. As a result for the next five years I sailed in the shadow of a mast just slightly to thin and whippy.

[John Turpin]

There are many copies of the Nicolson book out there. Search for it at www.bookfinder.com

[JimConlin]

See also the Gougeon book, of which there's a new (5th) edition.

[Clinton B Chase]

Gougeon Bros like to think of cold molding as "laminating". They say in the 5th ed., "While our hulls may be considered cold molded, we prefere to think of them as laminated. Cold molding arose after the 50s when glues that didn't require heat or pressure were invented. Cold molding is making a layer cake with wood where the wood is the cake and the epoxy is the frosting. Cure happens at room temperature under direct pressure (usually vacuum bagging pressure). I am involved in building a cold molded hull and when I look at it I see a huge piece of plywood formed into the shape of a hull. Someone mentioned diagonal planking -- the Gougeon Bros made hulls with longitudinal planking too. I love that they finished them bright, too, a testament to there awesome skill in laminating and getting great fits.

Cheers,
Clint

[JimConlin]

The other intersting thing about cold molding is that it's fallen out of fashion. The strip canoe people discovered that a single 1/4" ply of cedar, oriented in the direction of greatest stress and then sheathed with glass set in epoxy produced a boat with the same strength as cold-molded with considerable savings in labor and materials. Subsequent engineering and experimentation has extended the practical range of sheathed strip composite method to mid-size boats.

There were once several outfits advertising cedar veneers in the back pages of WoodenBoat. Now there are none.

[Ed Armstrong]

Paul Gartsides expresses some interesting opinions about strip vs. cold molding on his website:

http://www.gartsideboats.com/faq2.php#strip

Thoughts?

Ed