Im hijacking the thread title for a moment. I was up in the English Lakes
recently and visited the Windermere Steamboat Museum. Because of the sad
man I am, I was far more interested in the small sailing, rowing and
paddling craft than in the big steam launches, and I spotted a rather
interesting little ~10 footer. If you think of cold moulding using strips
of veneer where you might set two layers of veneer at 90 degrees to one
another and then glue with epoxy you'll get rought what the hull looked
like. Attractive near-wine glass stern, pleasent bow form and an almost
barrel like turn to the bilge. But the odd thing about this boat (which I
at first took to be cold moulded) was the existence of a large number of
rivets. It was in fact a canvas sandwich, the two layers of wood were
riveted to each other (as in cold moulding you would glue) to get a complex
hull shape in wood that was very strong and very lightweight, but because at
the time of it's construction adhesive and caulking wasn't up to the job, a
layer of canvas was placed between the wood layers. It was an absolutely
gorgeous little boat, very shapely curves, everything in perfect proportion.
But it's interesting because this is the first time that I've seen this sort
of rivetted cold moulded type construction. Has anyone else seen this?
Obviously the modern cold moulded alternative is far superior in terms of
strength and weight, but it was so unusual and beautifully done that it
really rather made my day.

Al