Thread: Teaching at Duckflat Autumn School 2009

Mik,

I'm curious. None of those boat look to be complete. Do the owners take them as-is, and finish them at home? Do they sign up for another weeks worth of classes? Or do they - on the eve of the final day - do as I sometimes do in my shop: leave offerings of beer, wiskey, or even chocolate for the Sawdust Fairies, hoping that these magical creatures will come and finish the job in the mystical midnight?

The stick technique works great...we also will scribe some cheap plywood to the hull and hot glue two scribed pieces together with cross pieces, lift out trace and cut. Nice way to teach scribing.

How are they teaching making planks? Are they scribing, making patterns, or transferring marks direct to the stock? It also appears that the molds were notched.Were they laboriously notched or just appear so?

A 19' Fulmar is a big boat...I have a design that is about that so it'll be fun to see pics of the planked hull. Go back to the shot of the Fulmar looking at the stem. Notice the way the siding of the stem flares out to the sheer! Very clever...that is the only way to fair all the flare the hull has forward as it comes into the stem. Not easy to draw!

arbordg wrote:

I'm curious. None of those boat look to be complete. Do the owners take them as-is, and finish them at home? Do they sign up for another weeks worth of classes? Or do they - on the eve of the final day - do as I sometimes do in my shop: leave offerings of beer, wiskey, or even chocolate for the Sawdust Fairies, hoping that these magical creatures will come and finish the job in the mystical midnight?

This is something that has gone through my mind on the many occassions that I have considered doing one of the DFBB schools. Do I spend 10 days cutting out pieces of Goat and ship them back to Sydney on a truck, or donate them to a worthy cause in Adelaide, or store them at my BIL's place in the Hills (he'd probably charge me agistment, sorry, BIL ;)?

Or act as general extra pair of hands (if not extra brain), gopher and tools carrier for the general population of boat building students?

I'm really interested in your response too, MIK :).

Cheers,
Alex.

Howdy,

Duckflat do assess where boats are likely to get to and explain that to the builder before confirming the project.

The main idea of the class is to get the boats to the point where they are stable and strong enough to be taken home whichever stage they are at. Problem is, of course, that people have very different building rates and may even bring an extra pair of hands.

Extra hands can speed things up ... but they can also slow them down!

So each boat has to be got to a situation where it can be transported - either by the owner or a trucking company.

MIK

Hi MIK,

That all makes sense. The cost of transport would have to be factored before signing up. This could include welding up a road-legal trailer beforehand and driving across... Which is not such a silly idea, given that I could thereby bring more tools than I could on the plane, and the Goat will need a trailer sooner or later in any case: I'm not planning on car-topping her! Would have to be a bit careful at towing an unloaded trailer though - maybe not such a good idea, especially over the Hay Plain! Maybe I could shoe-horn someone's boat that needed to go to Adelaide onto it and give it a lift... Only half kidding there, too. Or maybe it's the codiene talking!

Cheers,
Alex.

Yes, just means that people have to think it through. Sending it can be quite expensive, but most just bring either the final trailer made for the boat or bring a box trailer if the boat is not too big.

Some get one of those "assemble yourself" trailers delivered to Duckflat.

Some order a trailer from a local manufacturer.

MIK

Thinking things through is good :). I shall do some more of the same about this while I'm recovering. Fortunately my welding isn't too bad - getting the structure hot-dip galved is another matter though...

Originally Posted by Boatmik

...So each boat has to be got to a situation where it can be transported - either by the owner or a trucking company.

MIK

I found at the autumn scool that there was a surprising amount of flexibility in the build process - Mik, David and Ted encouraged us to prioritise things that would get us transportable boats by the end of the 10 days, rather than losing precious time doing stuff that could just as easily be done at home.

They were also pretty good at picking which stages of the build process we were most hesitant about, and encouraging us to do those while there was someone around to help us out with advice and example.

So there were actually some subtle differences in process between the two Eurekas, partially because I was a day or two behind, and keen to get the 'glass cloth on before heading home.

At the end of the 10 days Mik devised some temporary bracing knees for the bow and stern of the Eureka and the gunwales were temporarily tacked in, to make sure the boat would be rigid enough to survive an interstate roof-rack/trailer trip in pretty foul weather. The non-watertight bits were wrapped in glad-wrap - did I mention the foul weather?

10 days is a short time to build a boat - particularly for a 10-thumbs like myself. But by the end of 10 days an incomplete boat looks a whole lot less intimidating than it might have at the start.

Jack

Cheers Jack,

When I say the weather you were all heading back in I thought that it might be prudent to wrap the drivers in glad wrap too. But considering the drought .. the rain probably was not hugely extensive. Your boat was pretty well sealed with epoxy by that stage anyhow.

MIK

True... The only real risk on the way home was dodging all those Mallee farmers dancing for joy at the sight of rain!

Jack