Can you imagine cutting the planks for a 74 gun ship-of-the-line by hand?
Two sawyers per team, one on top and one in the pit, big muscles, long
hours -- better them than me. Entire forests of oak trees vanished in
England and Europe in the late 1700s and early 1800s. From
http://www.boatbuilding.net/ we have "The planks are vertically sawn in a
spiral pattern BY HAND in a saw pit. It takes 2 people over a week just to
cut the 3 planks!" (referring to restoring a Norse Faering).

The maritime museum in Amsterdam had a fascinating film describing the
armadas of ships sent to the East Indies by the Dutch (and the death toll of
sailors which often exceeded 50%).

Special planes can be made that would cut the groove quite well. The glue
would be another question though.

I found the reference, page 126: " ... invented by Barry Noble, patented by
R. Mason & Son of Bristol." Unfortunately, it doesn't give a date. It may
well have been after the introduction of steam power in factories.

Wooden Boat magazine had an article with pictures that described the process
quite well, but didn't acknowledge Barry Noble -- July/August 1999.

Roger

http://home.insightbb.com/~derbyrm

"Paul Reagan" wrote in message
...
It would seem to me that the birdsmouth system would be impractical before
the appearance of power tools. I can't imagine the construction of a
birdsmouth mast using hand planes. I think there would have been more
practical methods.
Paul Reagan
"derbyrm" wrote in message
m...
I've seen it described as the "Noble System" and I think it was patented
in England.

Without looking, I believe the description was in the section on masts in
"Practical Junk Rig" by H. G. Hasler and J. K. McLeod/

Roger

http://home.insightbb.com/~derbyrm

"quixote" wrote in message
oups.com...
Does anyone know how old birdsmouth masts are (or anything using
birdsmouth jointery, really)?

I did some looking around, and didn't find anything that listed
anything similar to historical relavance, and I am always curious about
these things and how they developed.