Building an Adirondack Guideboat-The “furniture” part 1

My friend Andy at the Adirondack Museum knows just about everything there is to know about boats.  He grew up in Barnegat Bay in New Jersey where boats were a way of life back then.  He knows every boat on the floor of the Museum’s Watercraft Building and can provide interesting stories about them to any visitor lucky enough to meet up with him.

Andy calls the seats in guideboats their “furniture”.  Indeed guideboat seats have evolved into a sort of furniture as the guideboat itself evolved.  Originally guideboats served as a work boat and were built mainly by guides during the long Adirondack winters.  Any amenities such as caned seats were out of the question.  A thin plank of wood was all that was required back in the early boats.

Later, in the 1870’s and 1880’s, those with great wealth built second homes, called Great Camps, on the shores of Adirondack Lakes.  They were intrigued by the beauty of  guideboats and began to purchase them from local builders.  The demand for the boats grew such that the well known builders like Chase, Grant and the Parson Brothers could hire a five or six man crew to meet the demand.

Caned seats and the caned rear seat back became the standard,  At some point a fold down seat back for the middle seat was introduced and became a must have for some.

There are three seats in an Adirondack guideboat.  One sits and rows from the middle seat when he/she is alone in the boat or when accompanied by at least two other people.  One rows from the forward seat when there is at least one other person in the boat.

Seats rest on cleats made of strips of hardwood that are fastened to the ribs.  I learned not to scrimp on making sure the cleats were hefty enough.  My wife and I were out for a row one day.  She was forward doing the rowing and I was in the rear seat enjoying the scenery.  Seemingly out of nowhere a large power boat roared by us leaving behind a large wake.  Fran wisely turned into the wake and we bobbed like a cork as it passed.  But as the second of three or four  waves passed under us there was a loud crack. The rear seat cleat had broken from the extra force on it as the boat slid down the wave into its trough.  I have beefed up the cleats from 1/2″ square to 1/2″ X 3/4″ stock.

There is another cleat that has nothing to do with the seats.  It is the yoke cleat.  The guides carried their boats using a yoke resting on their shoulders so that the boat could be carried over their heads.  The yoke cleat has long extensions facing forward that are used as handles.

The yoke cleat is not hard to make.  I made mine from 1/2″ inch thick cherry.  After laying out the cleat I drilled a 1 1/4″ hole with a Forstner bit where the yoke fits the cleat.  This gives a perfectly round semi-circle that would be difficult to accomplish any other way.  Then I rounded the edges with a contour plane.

Shaping the yoke cleat.
Shaping the yoke cleat.

After several coats of varnish, the cleats are ready to be fastened to the ribs.  I use #8 X 1″ oval head brass screws to secure them.

Yoke and middle seat cleats are attached.
Yoke and middle seat cleats are attached.

Making the middle seat is the least difficult of the three seats.  It is rectangular, probably the only thing on the boat with right angles.

I use mortise and tenon joinery.  I rigged up my plunge router to make the mortises.  As you can see, I built a box with a spring loaded fence to hold the stock while the mortise is being milled.  The rotating router bit is first plunged into the stock.  Then the stock is pushed to a “stop” to mill the proper length of the mortise.

Plunge router set-up to make mortise joinery.
Plunge router set-up to make mortise joinery.

The tenons are cut on the table saw.  I bought a special jig for the saw that makes this relatively easy to do.

I had a decision to make regarding caning of the seats.  I have caned my guideboat seats in the past.  I absolutely abhor it!  It is not hard to do but I find it tedious and not amenable to my large fingers.  I am just not suited for caning.  One funny thing about caning.  When I show off my guideboats some one is sure to ask if I did the caning.  When I reply that “Yes indeed I did the caning” they are absolutely amazed.  When I explain that caning is the simplest task in making a guideboat they walk away not really believing what they just heard.

So I opted out of the caning and got a friend, Hallie Bond, to do it for me.  As you can see below she did a magnificent job.

The middle seat.
The middle seat.

The middle seat is the only set that is not fastened to the cleats.  It is removable and can be positioned fore and aft to suit the build of the rower.

One thing to be wary of with middle seat is that it will damage the inside of  the hull if it is allowed to slide sideways.  I use what I call chocks to prevent this from happening.  Chocks are small blocks of wood attached to the underside of each of the two seat rails.

Chock on the underside of the middle seat rail.
Chock on the underside of the middle seat rail.

So next time we will deal with the bow and stern seats.  We nearing the end of the long process of guideboat construction.

 

 

Building an Adirondack Guideboat-Finishing the decks

One would think that fitting a rather thin sheet of wood into the triangular shape at the bow and stern of a guideboat wouldn’t be all that difficult.  What complicates matters is that the triangle is a “fat” one.  It bulges outward as it follows the line of the gunwale to the stem.

I have chosen to make the decks of bird’s eye maple and cherry.  These possess wonderful “figure” as you will see.  Before I can use this beautiful wood I must reduce the thickness of each parent plank from four quarters (about one inch thick) to a final thickness of 3/16″.

I resaw the planks (cut them lengthwise in two).  I start by using my table saw that is set so that it does not cut entirely through the plank after making two passes (one pass through the plank bottom and then a flip to cut what was the top of the plank).  This leaves a “web” about 1 1/2″ or so thick.  I then cut the two planks free by running the webbed plank through my band saw.  The two planks resulting from this operation are surface planed down to a final thickness of 3/16″.  I now have what boat builders and wood workers call book matched stock.  The figure on one piece is the mirror image of that on the other.

The maximum span of the bow deck is about 18″.  My stock is not wide enough to accommodate a deck that wide.  So I glue the two book matched pieces of maple to a triangular piece of cherry to get the required width.

Gluing up the stock for the decks.
Gluing up the stock for the decks.

The decks will be inlayed into their allotted space at each end of the boat so that they are even with the top of the gunwale.  A rabbet must be cut out of the planking adjacent to the gunwale to accept the deck.

Forming a rabbet to accept the deck.
Forming a rabbet to accept the deck.

Blocks 3/4″ square are then fastened along the bottom edge of the rabbet.  They will accept the fasteners holding the deck in place.

Next, I set the glued up deck stock in position over the gunwales. I draw a line on the deck stock down the outside of the gunwale and cut away the waste.  Now I have a really “fat” deck that must be slimmed down to fit into the rabbet.

I get closer to a fit by scribing a line down one side of the deck material.  This line follows the inner contour of the gunwale and is the width of the gunwale.  Then I switch and do the same on the other side.

Scribing the deck contour.
Scribing the deck contour.

I want to err on the side of being too “fat” here since I want the decks to fit tightly between the gunwales.  One nice thing about the triangular shape of the decks is that the apex of the triangle works for you.  If you take too much off in any one part of a side you can remove some material from the rest of  that side and push the triangle towards the stem to get a better fit.

It is is not an easy job to get the decks to fit into their allotted space.  After much sanding a little away here and checking the fit innumerable times I finally am satisfied.

Partially finished stern deck.
Partially finished stern deck.

Now to fasten the deck in place.  I use #8 X 3/4″ brass oval head screws to fasten it.  The oval head gives a decorative touch to the deck.  The photo below shows drilling the holes for the deck fasteners.

Drilling holes for fastening the deck.
Drilling holes for fastening the deck.

The midships end of the deck needs to be cut away to follow the contour of the bow.  I let the deck edge extend about 1/4″ out from the deck bridge bow.  Then I make a cap of cherry to fit over the stem end side of the deck.  The photo below shows the deck nearly complete.

The deck is nearly completed.
The deck is nearly completed.

As I mentioned before, Chase liked to put a feed thru in the bow decks of his boats for holding a candle lantern or a pennant.  I found one that would work from an outfit called Tendercraft.  I drilled a hole with a Forstner bit and dropped it in.

Drilling hole for feed thru.
Drilling hole for feed thru.

Here is the finished bow deck.  Notice the figure on the maple.  It appears to me to take the shape of butterflies, one on each side.

Finished bow deck.
Finished bow deck.

One final photo to show the curvature of the decks, in this case the bow deck.

Curvature of the bow deck.
Curvature of the bow deck.

Next time we tackle guideboat “furniture”.

 

Building an Adirondack Guideboat-Starting the decks

The decks on an Adirondack guideboat are a clever way of hiding the carrying handles.  With canoes there is no attempt to hide the carrying handles, they are in plain site.  Indeed there is no need to hide the handles on a guideboat.  But the early guideboat builders recognized that putting decks on their boats could be used to their advantage.

In the Adirondack Museum there is a full-size cutaway model of a guideboat.  It was built by Willard Hanmer.  All the important parts of a guideboat are labelled.  Visitors can push a button to make the model rotate on a longitudinal axis so that all parts of the boat are clearly visible.  At the same time an audio tape plays interpreting what the visitor is seeing.  The narrator explains that “all guideboats are similar in construction”.  Sure enough it is often very hard, if not impossible to tell who built a particular guideboat.  The narrator goes on to say that the decks were where the builder could use his creativity to put his stamp on the boat.  For example, Hanmer liked to put an oblong cutout in his decks so that, when carrying the boat, one’s fingers could wrap all around the handle.  Rushton made a sort of sun burst deck by gluing thin strips of wood together to form a fan-like structure.

Decks on boats made by Caleb Chase were pretty ordinary except for two things.  The first is that on some of the boats he built the deck is crowned.  The crown is not great but it serves to lend a sense of motion to the whole creation.  To see the difference one needs only to compare a guideboat with a flat deck with a crowned deck on one of Chase’s boats.  Of course making a crowned deck adds another level of complexity to the already complex task constructing a guideboat deck.

The other trait of many of the Chase guideboats was that there was often a hole in the bow deck.  The hole was not more than 2″  in diameter.  In the early days it probably served to support a candle lantern used to “jack” deer at night while hunting from the boat.  Later on the hole was adorned with a brass ring.  Its use was now more benign and it supported a pennant or burgee.

So why does constructing a guideboat deck pose such a challenge to the builder?  The reason is that all boats are chock full of curve upon curve.  This is particularly true of a guideboat.  Here the curves are accentuated at bow and stern where the hull still flares out when going upward from garboard to gunwale and the planking is rapidly bending to make its rendezvous with the stem.  So I must be conscious of curves running both horizontally and vertically.  I think boat builders refer to them as complex cures.

I start by making what I call the bow.  The bow is a nearly semi-circular wooden hoop.  I have chosen to make it of maple this time. Fortunately I have a template of the bow I used on a previous boat.  I cut out the bow on the band saw and then smooth it with the long board.  I make sure that the bow is about 3/16″ higher in the center to lend some crown to the deck.

Final shaping of the bow using a long board.
Final shaping of the bow using a long board.

I then remove the waste to form the hoop, or bow.  Next comes shaping the bow so it fits nicely in its appointed place, bow or stern. I lay it up against the gunwale where it is to go and mark where I must cut it off.  As I said before we are not dealing with a straight cut here.  I estimate the angle of the hull at the cut off point with  a sliding bevel and apply that angle to the bow.  Next I make cuts on each side to complete the bow.  Then I keep my fingers crossed and check to see how well it fits.

Cutting the hoop on an angle to form the bow.
Cutting the hoop on an angle to form the bow.

Before going further with the bow, I make a cross member that, together with the bow, will form what I call the deck bridge.  The cross member has pretty much the same complex angle at each end as the bow.

After much backing and forthing to shape and test the fit, I am finally satisfied with the deck bridge.

The deck bridge ready for fastening.
The deck bridge ready for fastening.

The next step is to fasten the bridge in place.  I use #8 oval head brass screws 1 1/2″ long.  I want to be totally confident that the handle will not give way when the boat is being carried.

Fastening the deck bridge.
Fastening the deck bridge.

The next step will be to finish the deck by covering it with a thin sheet of decorative wood. It will hide the deck bridge (handle).   The deck cap, a pie-shaped piece of cherry, will then go over the upper portion of the deck.  Then a brass ring is fitted into the cap and we are done.

All that will happen next time.

Building and Adirondack Guideboat-Varnishing-Ugh!

The inside of the hull is finally ready for varnishing.  This is an onerous task for several reasons.  There is much prep work to be done before the first drop of varnish can be applied.  Application of varnish is tricky.  It has to go on just right or it will not justify all the work you put into it.

The prep work involves scraping and sanding the planks to smooth them and bring the laps down to a true feather edge.  I use a scraper with a curved blade and 100 grit sand paper stuck onto a large dowel.  The work goes slowly because of the hindrance caused by the ribs.  The ribs form “bays” about 6″ wide.  They cramp and slow the operation.

Tools used to prepare the inner hull for varnishing.
Tools used to prepare the inner hull for varnishing.

There is a tradition amongst guideboat builders that before applying varnish the wood should receive a mixture of linseed oil and mineral spirits.  Being something of a doubting Thomas I never subscribed to this practice.  It wasn’t clear to me just what this would accomplish.  Hasn’t one hundred years of varnish research eliminated the need for this practice and whatever benefit it might provide?  I asked a friend of mine, Doc Hank about it.  Hank worked for 30 years for DuPont in research on paint technology.  He said it wasn’t obvious to him how linseed oil could be of benefit here.  He also added that linseed oil is not a stable organic compound and degrades rather quickly.

I remove all the dust and shavings using a shop vac and go over the hull with tack cloth to get the wood as free of dust as possible.  It is recommended by the manufacturer that the first coat of varnish be diluted by about 10 percent.  I apply the first two coats of Epifanes wood finish gloss varnish without sanding between coats.  I can do this with Epifanes as long as the second coat is applied within 72 hours.

The bottom board gets varnished first while the hull is upright and the bottom board is  horizontal.  This prevents runs.  Then I tilt the hull and varnish the tilted side so that I can keep as much of it as possible on a horizontal plane.  Again, I am looking to prevent runs.  Then I tilt the hull the opposite way and do the other side.

As I move along to the third and fourth coats it becomes clear why varnishing is such a vexing job.  Varnishing is very unlike painting where you can see a run or a skip (or holiday).  Varnishing is pretty much flying blind. I helps to bring lots of light to bear on the subject.  I use a 500 watt halogen lamp and look at the coated surface from various angles to try to pick up skips and runs.

Here I am applying the third coat of varnish to the hull.

Applying varnish to previously sanded hull.
Applying varnish to previously sanded hull.

I had hoped to get away with four coats of varnish on the inner hull.  But after the fouth coat I just wasn’t happy with the appearance.  It was OK but I couldn’t live with just OK.

So I sanded the hull yet again.  Epifanes recommends 320 grit paper.  It turns out that 3M makes a marvelous grade of 320 grit paper.  They claim it lasts 10 times longer than other sand papers.  I believe them.  It just doesn’t clog or wear out like the others.

3M's new sandpaper.
3M’s new sandpaper.

So here I am using tack cloth after sanding the fourth coat of varnish.

Using tack cloth after the fourth coat of varnish.
Using tack cloth after the fourth coat of varnish.

So the final coat of vanish is applied.  I am happy with the result and glad I put in the extra effort.

Hull after fifth coat of varnish.
Hull after fifth coat of varnish.

The next big hurdle is installing the decks.  This will be a major challenge because things have to fit just so.  Stay tuned.