"Eide" wrote in message
Sorry for the rant, but they were doing something right back then.


And progress produces only junk . . . :-)

--
Jacques
http://www.bateau.com

"William R. Watt" wrote in message
...
snipe

the old growth wood with the close rings would no longer be available?
snipe

There is old growth available, you just have to talk the guy that owns it
into selling it to you.. If you are building a real classic or Heritage
boat, you can sometimes get permission from the State Parks to take a wind
fall or few off their hands. (I know one park Ranger who is burning old
growth for home heat.) I know that there are giant ceder logs laying all
over the Olympic forest reserve. The Native American wood carvers get
permission all the time..

When I was building a boat in RI, back in the early '70s I wanted white oak
for the frames, etc... I just went off for a drive into the back country
over in Mass. Stop ever once in a while and listen for the sound of a chain
saw or saw mill.. Soon I found an old family operated saw mill.. I hung
around until they stopped for a break (repair something). Told the old man
that I wanted some oak for sawn frames of a traditional boat.. He said that
he was cutting white oak for a furnisher mfg and would be busy for the rest
of the winter.. However, since I mentioned that I really wanted seasoned
oak, he pointed me to a dozen stacks of ugly blackish lumber, half covered
with snow.. "Take a look over there. That was an order I sawed up years
ago and the fellow never came to get it." It was just what I was looking
for. 5/4 and thicker, rough sawn, random widths and lengths.. I paid $200
for a trailer load of this wood..

I know of a half dozen backyard saw mills around here in western WA. They
usually saw for half of the lumber and have stacks of nice wood, already air
dried.. The backyard sawmills tend to get the single or several logs from
small land owners who are just clearing a site for building, etc..

Bottom line, if your really want to build a fine traditional boat, the
lumber is available.. Just not at HD.


--
My opinion and experience. FWIW

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

Excellent, Gregg! Enjoyed your web site a lot! Keep up the good work on
that boat!

Brian


"Gregg Germain" wrote in message
...
William R. Watt wrote:
: just out of curiosity of what use are plans that old?

Pretty damned useful. Especially if you have one of their boats - as
I do - and are trying to rebuild it back to original condition.

Furthermore, you can get perfectly fine wood and build off their
plans and have a great boat. It doesn't require the finest wood
imaginable.

As for the hardware, you can get replica herreshoff hardware, if you
want.

ZERO alteration would be required to make one of their boats to plan.

However, when you get the plans officially, you arerequired to promise
that you will NOT make a fiberglass or concrete or aluminum version of
their boats. Of course you can break the promise - but why would you?
The design assumes wood which impacts sailing quality.


Restoration of my 84 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm


: the old growth wood with the close rings would no longer be available?
: Hereshoff made his own hardware, in fact his whole operation was
: completely verticaly integrated?
: how much alteration would be needed to build a lookalike today?

: Courtney Thomas ) writes:
: If so, where can they be accessed, please ?
:
: Thank you.
: --
: Courtney Thomas
: s/v Mutiny
: lying Oriental, NC
: WDB5619
:


: --

: --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
: William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community
network
: homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
: warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's
returned

--


--- Gregg
"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558

On 23 Dec 2003 10:28:04 -0400, Gregg Germain
wrote:

Yeah...tapered frames. All very well - removes weight at the sheer
etc. Helps performance.

But I'm here to tell you it's an infernal nuisance when you are
rebuilding (possibly easier when building from scratch).

first just getting the frames out of the flitches is much more time
consuming. They start 1" x 1" at the sheer and increase 1/16",
moulded and sided, for every foot of length.

I don't think it took that much longer in a shop that did it
routinely. I have an anecdote that explains.

When I had a loft in Boston for instrument making, through the mid
1970s, the Charlestown Naval Shipyard auctioned off its equipment.
Everything that could be easily moved was collected in a large room,
but a few things stayed in place.

Among thes was two machines I was later told were "ship saws." They
were effectively "tilting arbor" band saws with stationary tables
about 6 or 7 feet square, 6-foot wheels, and a yoke whose exterior was
a semicircular arc centered on the hole in the table where the boade
passed. The lower wheel was in a slot in the follr, so the table was
at a reasonable working height.

The outside of the arc had gear teeth, and there was a crank located
so a man could turn it while he observed the cut from above. There
were degrees of tilt marked on it as well. I tried to imagine how this
was used, and why there were two of them.

Three brothers who had a millwork shop on the first floor of my loft
building were able to describe its use. They had worked for a yard
that built small craft for the US Navy during WW2.

That machine was used to make sawn ribs.The curve was transferred from
drawing to the top surface, and numbers indicating the angle of the
plank marked along the curve.

Two men worked together to cut the ribs. One fed the piece into the
saw, supported by the always flat table. The other would turn the tilt
crank to produce smooth transitions of tilt from one number to the
next.

Thus, the outer surface of the rib would closely approximate the inner
surface of the plank that would eventually lie against it. And these
saws could do ribs for jobs as big as the restoration of the USS
Constitution.

Nearby was a station for a 36" DeWalt RAS, which had been moved to the
warehouse. That was an astonishing machine to see. It had a power
feed.

On the ground floor below the ship saws was a band sawmill to saw logs
that came in directly from schooners tied to the seawall. A coiled
blade lay on the floor. Its width reached my knee from the floor. I
can't imagine how you would coil a bandsaw blade that big.

I don't know what happened to these magnificent machines. I hope they
are in a museum but if they are I don't know where it is.



Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Gjo/a


"In this house we _obey_ the laws of thermodynamics." --Homer Simpson

There are still 'Tilting Arbor Band Saws" around in major shipyards.. In
fact, when I was running the wood hobby shop in Guam, we installed a smaller
version of what you discribed..

Although there is little need for them to cut the bevel on ships frames, the
smaller versions are used to cut fitted blocks for the side block caps in
dry docks.. Most commercial ships are docked on universal blocks that are
convex on top with little or no bevel.. For navy ships the top of the side
blocks must be cut to fit the contour of the hull.. This is usually cut from
12"x12" Douglas Fir. For this you need to cut both the curve of the hull and
the bevel.. The docking plan gives a table for this that is derived (after a
fashion) from the original table of offsets.

Your tax dollars at work..

Just some shipyard/drydock trivia. FWIW

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

Different strokes for different folks. Function versus form versus
maintenance versus utility versus beauty versus ... ... ... the trade-offs
go on forever.

"Jacques Mertens" wrote in message
.. .
"Eide" wrote in message
Sorry for the rant, but they were doing something right back then.


And progress produces only junk . . . :-)

--
Jacques
http://www.bateau.com

Gregg,

Are there no steel reproductions/simulations/etc. of Herreshoff designs ?

Would those in charge of the archived plans obstruct an attempt to do
such a thing ?

Appreciatively,

Courtney



Gregg Germain wrote:

Eide wrote:
:
: Moulds on every frame,
: tapered frames,

Yeah...tapered frames. All very well - removes weight at the sheer
etc. Helps performance.

But I'm here to tell you it's an infernal nuisance when you are
rebuilding (possibly easier when building from scratch).

first just getting the frames out of the flitches is much more time
consuming. They start 1" x 1" at the sheer and increase 1/16",
moulded and sided, for every foot of length.

So each rib is a different length therefore different dimensions
moulded and sided. So you cannot steam up a bunch of them and if one
breaks toss it over the side and grabe the next one out of the box.
Each is cut to size and fits only in that one location.

Still, I'm adhering to the tapers.


--- Gregg

My woodworking projects:


Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm


"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558




--
Courtney Thomas
s/v Mutiny
lying Oriental, NC
WDB5619

Ask the curator at
http://www.herreshoff.org/Tops/herre..._drawings.html

Courtney Thomas wrote:

Gregg,

Are there no steel reproductions/simulations/etc. of Herreshoff designs ?

Would those in charge of the archived plans obstruct an attempt to do
such a thing ?

Appreciatively,

Courtney

Gregg Germain wrote:

Eide wrote:
:
: Moulds on every frame,
: tapered frames,

Yeah...tapered frames. All very well - removes weight at the sheer
etc. Helps performance.

But I'm here to tell you it's an infernal nuisance when you are
rebuilding (possibly easier when building from scratch).

first just getting the frames out of the flitches is much more time
consuming. They start 1" x 1" at the sheer and increase 1/16",
moulded and sided, for every foot of length.

So each rib is a different length therefore different dimensions
moulded and sided. So you cannot steam up a bunch of them and if one
breaks toss it over the side and grabe the next one out of the box.
Each is cut to size and fits only in that one location.

Still, I'm adhering to the tapers.


--- Gregg

My woodworking projects:


Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm


"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558



--
Courtney Thomas
s/v Mutiny
lying Oriental, NC
WDB5619

"Courtney Thomas" wrote in message
...
Gregg,

Are there no steel reproductions/simulations/etc. of Herreshoff designs ?

Would those in charge of the archived plans obstruct an attempt to do
such a thing ?

Appreciatively,

Courtney




Cape Cod Shipbuilding owns the rights and tooling for the 12, the 15, and a
couple other small desigins. They built some wooden 12's back in the '50s
(I own one), and currenty produce a fiberglass version of the 12. An
original set of molds for the 12 is in the Herreshoff Museum, labeled as
"courtesey Gordon Goodwin, Cape Cod Shipbuilding." At the Annapolis
Sailboat Show last October, one of Gordon's daughters told me that they
(Cape Cod) are happy to help restoration projects with replacement hardware,
construction information, etc.

For those trying to figure out how the HMCo document collection at MIT is
organized, a copy of "Guide to The Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection"
published by the MIT Museum (ISBN 0-917027-051) will help. It also spells
out MIT's policies regarding replicas and reproductions for boats other than
those whose rights are held by Cape Cod Shipbuilding. Also, Mystic Seaport
has lines (without offsets) for the Herreshoff boats in their collection (a
12 and "Alerion") that are suitable for half-hull model building.

Here's one
ttp://www.mjhyachts.com/brokerage_vente/classic35_+/eleonora.htm

Courtney Thomas wrote:

Gregg,

Are there no steel reproductions/simulations/etc. of Herreshoff designs ?

Would those in charge of the archived plans obstruct an attempt to do
such a thing ?

Appreciatively,

Courtney

Gregg Germain wrote:

Eide wrote:
:
: Moulds on every frame,
: tapered frames,

Yeah...tapered frames. All very well - removes weight at the sheer
etc. Helps performance.

But I'm here to tell you it's an infernal nuisance when you are
rebuilding (possibly easier when building from scratch).

first just getting the frames out of the flitches is much more time
consuming. They start 1" x 1" at the sheer and increase 1/16",
moulded and sided, for every foot of length.

So each rib is a different length therefore different dimensions
moulded and sided. So you cannot steam up a bunch of them and if one
breaks toss it over the side and grabe the next one out of the box.
Each is cut to size and fits only in that one location.

Still, I'm adhering to the tapers.


--- Gregg

My woodworking projects:


Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm


"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558



--
Courtney Thomas
s/v Mutiny
lying Oriental, NC
WDB5619