Building an Adirondack Guideboat-The Flitches arrive!

I have never built a guideboat in the truly traditional manner.  The ribs and stems for my boats were made of laminates formed by gluing together thin strips of wood in a mold that had the shape of the rib or stem.  The main reason for making the ribs this way was that I could never find someone who was willing to part with the flitches, or sections of spruce roots, that could form the strong, but light, ribs and stems.

I was delighted when Keith Austin of Blue Line Hardwoods in Long Lake offered to sell me enough flitches to build a boat.  Brian, the owner of Blue Line, then offered to deliver the flitches, and material for a bottom board, to my home in Delaware.  True to his word, these items arrived last October.

My friend Jeff says that “An adventure starts with questions and uncertainties”.  This was surely the case since I had no experience building a boat using flitches or “roots” or “stumps” as the native Adirondackers call them.  How many flictches are needed to build a guideboat?  I really didn’t know.  I knew the trick would be to align the rib patterns as closely to the path of the grain in each root.  How easy would that be? Would the flow of the grain in the flitches accommodate the varying shape of the ribs as one moves from midships to the stems?  I was about to find out.

Keith sent me fourteen flitches.  One of my former bosses would have called them a “dog’s breakfast”.  I never asked him what he meant by the term but I assumed he meant a mixed bag.  They were indeed a mixed bag.  I wondered if fourteen flitches were enough to do the job (there are a total of 48 ribs and two stems in my boat).  That question would nag me throughout the entire process of “getting out” the ribs and stems.

The flitches had various deformities that I would have to work around.  There were checks, or splits, knots, and worm holes.  Some flitches were superb while others not so good.  But as I began to work with them I found that “ugliness is only skin deep”

The flitches were taken from Adirondack red spruce stumps.  Red spruce grows only at higher elevations and usually grows at a very slow rate.  Hence the grain is very tight.  I found the spruce to have a lovely white color causing me to immediately think of ivory.  It is a delight to work with being very forgiving of the woodworker’s bumbling.  It made me realize, once again, why I prefer to work wood with hand tools.  It is a sensory thing that flows from the wood through the tool to the craftsman.

So the first step in getting out ribs is to lay some patterns on a flitch so that the curve of the rib follows the grain as closely as possible.  You want to absolutely avoid cross grain, or grain that is perpendicular to the curve of the rib.  Cross grain would cause a dangerously weak area in the finished rib.  With these flitches avoiding cross grain was not difficult.  Even as the ribs began to be more upright at each end of the boat I could find flitches that would give me a grain pattern the followed the arm of the rib and yet gathered to become horizontal at the foot.

Here I lay out the patterns on a flitch.

Laying out ribs on a flitch.
Laying out ribs on a flitch.

The next step is to cut out what I call a “bundle”  The flitches are a little over 2″ thick so, with care, I should be able to get four ribs from one bundle.  That is what I need because the boat is symmetrical.  There are identical ribs fore and aft.  There is little margin for error as I extract them from a bundle since I want my finished ribs to be 7/16″ thick.

Here I am cutting out a stem bundle.

Cutting out a stem bundle.
Cutting out a stem bundle.

The next step is to rip the stem bundle in two or a rib bundle into four rough cut ribs.

Ripping a stem bundle to form two rough cut stems.
Ripping a stem bundle to form two rough cut stems.

The same goes for the rib bundles.

Ripping a rib bundle.
Ripping a rib bundle.

I am using a finger board to prevent any wandering of the band saw blade.  I must get good straight cuts if I am to get four rough cut rib blanks from a bundle.

I then surface plane the rough cut ribs down to their final thickness of 7/16″.

Surface planing a rough cut rib down to its final thickness.
Surface planing a rough cut rib down to its final thickness.

That rough cut rib must be given its final shape.  This is where a lot of hand tool work must be done.  First the shape of the rib is transferred to the rib blank from the pattern and the band saw is used to cut away much of the excess.

Trimming away some of the excess from the rib blank.
Trimming away some of the excess from the rib blank.

The hull side of the rib is given its final shape using a block plane and long board.

 Shaping the hull side of the rib using a block plane. Shaping the hull side of a rib using a block plane.

Shaping the hull side of the rib using a block plane.

A final smoothing is done using the long board.

Using a long board for final smoothing of the rib hull side surface.
Using a long board for final smoothing of the rib hull side surface.

The rib hull surface must be perpendicular to the sides.  Here I am checking that with a small square.

Checking to make sure rib hull side surface is square to sides.
Checking to make sure rib hull side surface is square to sides.

It is very important to get the correct angle between the rib foot and the arm.  Even a small deviation in this angle will cause larger and larger shifts of the rib out of position on the hull as one moves up the arm.

Shaping the rib foot to get the proper angle between the rib arm and foot.
Shaping the rib foot to get the proper angle between the rib arm and foot.

Now the inside surface of each rib must be shaped.  Below are the tools I used to do this.  They are a Veritas spoke shave, two sizes of contour planes, a cabinet scraper, long board for sanding, and a home-made curved sanding block.  Then, of course, my old faithful Black and Decker Shop Mate.  I couldn’t live without it.

Tools for shaping the inside of the rib surface.
Tools for shaping the inside of the rib surface.

Here I am shaping the inside surface of a rib using one of the contour planes.

Shaping the inside surface of a rib.
Shaping the inside surface of a rib.

Here are some of the ribs that have reached this stage of execution.

Some of the ribs that are near completion.,  They represent ribs 0-3 at the bottom to the scribe ribs at the top.
Some of the ribs that are near completion., They represent ribs 0-3 at the bottom to the scribe ribs at the top.

I still need to round off the top surface of each rib and shape each foot.

Getting out ribs is a big deal.  But my concerns at the start were ill founded and I have a great set of ribs to build a boat.

Next time I think I will switch gears and talk about hunting from a guideboat.

Building an Adirondack Guideboat-My next boat

In my last post I said that I had decided to build another guideboat.  This will be the fourth guideboat that I will have built in the traditional fashion.  I said that I would do things differently this time.  This was prompted by remembering all the work done in the past to make the laminated ribs and stems for a boat.  It seemed to take months and it probably did.  In the end they are worth the effort since they are stronger, yet as light, as those made from spruce roots.  Some people find that appearance of the laminated components very attractive with their dark and light bands.   I was forced to use laminated ribs in my earlier boats because spruce roots simply couldn’t be found.

That changed when Keith Austin at Blue Line Hardwoods in Long Lake said he would sell me spruce root flitches (roots) for making the ribs and stems for my latest boat.  What a great idea, I thought.   Now I would be able to build a guideboat truly as the old time builders did.  I would find out how to lay out the ribs and stems to follow the grain of the root and see what other challenges there are in using this old way of doing things.  I knew  that these slabs, taken from stumps, are truly a natural material.  As such they would present some surprises.  I was not disappointed.

Blue Line Hard Wood also had a nice plank of quarter sawn pine sixteen feet long and ten inches wide that I could use for the bottom board.  Up to now I had had to scarf two shorter planks together to get the length I needed.  Scarfing works fine but is not easily done with stock this size.

Brian, the proprietor of Blue Line Hardwoods, said he would deliver the flitches and bottom board stock to me in Delaware.  Since it would be a month or more before he could arrange for delivery, I decided to make a set of seat frames for the new boat.   This is putting the cart before the horse but I had the time so why not.  I made the seat frames before making the boat the last time around so why not now too.

Like most things involved with guideboats nothing comes together at right angles (except the middle seat)  This complicates matters since a little misalignment on one rail or stile throws everything off.  I’m using the cabinet maker’s convention here; the stile is the vertical piece of the frame and the rail the horizontal one.

So we start by cutting dados (grooves) in the stiles.  This is the first step in making the tenons.  This is most easily done using the table saw and the miter gage set at the proper  angle.  Here we go.

Cutting a dado in the seat stiles.
Cutting a dado in the seat stiles.

The miter gage is behind my hands so you can’t see it.  It is set so as to give the proper angle to the dado cut.  I have ganged two stiles together so that each gets an identical cut.

Next we cut away the excess with a band saw to produce the tenon.

Cutting away the excess to form the tenon in the stile.
Cutting away the excess to form a tenon in the stile.

Before  I did some hard thinking about how to do this tenoning thing I bought a jig from Delta to make tenons.  Here it is:

Delta jig for making tenons.
Delta jig for making tenons.

It is definitely not worth the money.  You use it with a Delta dado blade assembly that makes the tenon with two passes.  The stile is clamped into it and passed over the rotating dado blade.  The problem I had with it was that the dado blade assembly did not produce a clean straight cut but instead a sort of a “lip” at the shoulder.

The completed tenons are squared up with the rails as shown below.

The tenons are aligned to be square to the rails.
The tenons are aligned to be square to the rails.

The mortises in the rails are done next.  To do these I use my plunge router.  I made a jig consisting of a box, open at each end, that had a spring-loaded panel on one side.  This arrangement held the rail centered over the router’s bit but allowed it to be moved under the rotating bit.  It enabled me to plunge the bit into the rail to the proper depth and move the rail against the spinning bit until the mortise was as long as the tenon was wide.  The set-up is shown below.

Mortise in rail-5

Any irregularities in the mortise are cleaned up using a chisel.

The tenons need to be rounded on each end so they will fit into the mortise.  I use my long board to sand them into shape.

There is some backing and forthing to get the four frame joints to fit properly.  Sometimes you feel you are chasing your tail in trying to get all four to match up.  You no sooner get one or two joints to fit together nicely when the others go awry.  After some perserverence things come together and  it is time to glue up the frames. I use resorcinol glue for that job.

Now to tackle the seat back for the stern seat.  The seat back for the stern seat is unusual in that the top of it is rounded.  You start making it by laying it out and cutting out the shape of the top on the band saw.  A dado is cut into it just as with the stiles.  In the case of the stern seat the tenons, which are now on the frames, fit into the uprights, or stiles.  Here the dado is being cut into the upper seat back.

Dado being cut into the upper portion of the seat back.
Dado being cut into the upper portion of the seat back.

The excess is removed with a band saw to form the tenon.  The next step is to form the curve in the seat back.  You start by cutting away the excess with a band saw.

Cutting way the excess to form a curve in the upper seat back.
Cutting way the excess to form a curve in the upper seat back.

I use my block plane with the rounded sole to complete the rounding of the seat back.

Finishing forming the curve in the seat back using a block plane with a curved sole.
Finishing forming the curve in the seat back using a block plane with a curved sole.

Once all the frames and seat back are glued up the next thing is to drill the holes for the cane.  The holes should be 1/4″ in diameter and 5/8″ apart.  It is best to lay them out with a compass.  Here they are being drilled into the middle seat frame.

Drilling holes for the cane into the middle seat frame.
Drilling holes for the cane into the middle seat frame.

I round off the top side holes just to make it easier on the cane.  I use my portable electric drill and a countersink bit to do that.

Rounding off the topside holes.
Rounding off the topside holes.

Time now to apply several coats of spar varnish and they are ready for caning.  I found out long ago that I didn’t have the where with all for caning and I gladly pay for someone who does.  Here are the seat frames ready for the caner.

Finished guideboat seat frames ready for caning.
Finished guideboat seat frames ready for caning.  They are, front to back; middle seat, stern seat, bow seat, and rear seat back.

Next time the flitches arrive.  Will there be enough to make 48 ribs and two stems?