Serve and Protect, Prepping the Shrouds - Episode 242 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- THE LAST DAY you can get domestic shipping on time in the US is December 19, and we're a tiny operation here. If you want to support us while giving a gift, visit here: www.acorntoara...
Next week is December's Live from the Boat Shed. $5/mo on Patreon gets you an invite! / acorntoarabella
An abovedecks extravaganza of important projects hurtling toward completion. Lots of progress this week, friends. Roll up your sleeves, let's dig in to making the square wooden spar round and about the galvanized shrouds for this wooden sailboat.
Keith Mitchell from Shipwright Skills takes a long walk by way of a lot of passes up and down the mast. Many cuts are needed to achieve the ever-smaller facets that progress to the final round shape. The wooden mast is made octagonal, then 16-sided, then 32-sided... then laboriously sanded to round.
Steve explains why we've chosen galvanized standing rigging for the shrouds. Arabella's forestay will be of stainless steel, as it needs to stand up to a furler's foil moving around it, but everything else will be parceled, served, then sloshed galvanized wire. Eyesplices captured top and bottom (top over a special piece of hardware, and bottom attached to deadeyes).
We'll also check in with KP for a hot minute for the detail being routed into the overhead of the coach roof. Happy Friday!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sign up for our email newsletter: eepurl.com/hn3Qyv
Acorn to Arabella is a wooden boat building project taking place in Granby, Massachusetts. Steve started as an amateur wooden boat builder building a 38' wooden sailboat in his backyard: designer William Atkin's Ingrid with a Stormy Petrel's gaff rig. These videos follow the journey from tree felling, to lumber milling, to lofting, to the lead keel pour and beyond-sharing details of the woodworking, carpentry, metal smithing, tool building, and tool maintenance that classic wooden boats command. This ultimate DIY boatbuilding project will continue well past launch, when he and the crew will travel and learn to cruise aboard the handmade wooden boat that they've built. Just kidding about all that, this channel is about a Siberian Laika named Akiva.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are interested in supporting/helping here are a few ways:
www.acorntoara...
Acorn to Arabella's wishlist:
www.acorntoara...
TotalBoat Referral:
Need something TotalBoat sells? They'll send us 10% of your purchase to support our videos! Click here, then shop: www.totalboat....
To offer recurring support via Patreon, CLICK BELOW. Just $5 a month gets you an invite to our monthly patron-only livestream Q&A sessions!
/ acorntoarabella
Original Soundtrack available at benfundis.bandcamp.com
FOLLOW US:
Patreon: / acorntoarabella
Instagram: / acorntoarabella
Facebook: / acorntoarabella
Website: www.acorntoarab...
@5:50 The real unsung hero of the Arabella project, Mr. Spider the quality control manager.
Quiet. Collected. Necessary. -Anne 😊
I saw that too. I also saw the spider on Queen Elizabeth's coffin. It was walking around the flowers on the coffin and around the note placed in the flowers. I don't know how many others caught that little tidbit with the eleven days of mourning going on but I saw the little bugger. I guess it was in such great company he decided to spend eternity with the royals. 🕷️
People: I can't afford much but please support Steve and his team if you have a few dollars a month spare. Wholesome project run by an absolute top bloke
Some years back, I got to hear a talk by the late Brian Toss, and bought an autographed copy of his book, “The Riggers Apprentice”. It’s still in print, and highly recommended. In it, he goes in detail about fabricating spliced standing rigging from galvanized steel wire. His entertaining descriptions of the process of serving and splicing kept drawing me back over the years, but I always thought that “nobody does that stuff anymore”, except for museums and refits of classic yachts. Seeing Steve’s rationale for using traditional materials and techniques on a new vessel with wooden spars was an eye-opener. I hope that Becca invites the Arabella video crew to her shop, so we can see her do a splice. After years of studying Toss’s illustrations, it would be great to see how it’s actually done.
What a wonderful memory of a person who was so important to our community. Thanks for sharing it! -Anne
The ship's spider inspecting the work as always!
Yep. I saw that spider around 5min. 50 sec into the video. I expect that she and her family will make a nest and travel around the globe with Steve and friends.
It's great that Steve could afford to bring on board such a talented craftsperson. It's amazing to me that such a narrow width can make a strong enough mast.
Keith was a huge help, and the work put us into high speed for a couple weeks!
I can only imagine how many masts he had to build before he got so good at it. Really tricky stuff. I feel like he could have written a whole geometry textbook explaining how to build that mast :D
It's incredible to see the mast come together! The gunsmith Larry Potterfield always says "To make it round we start be making a series of flats." That's exactly how the mast came together!
Many kudos to the man working on the mast-- he clearly knows what he's doing! Tremendous amount of work, very impressive.
It's a great Friday morning in chilly East TN but the coffee is hot and Friday's A2A video is warming the room! Good morning everyone.
Good morning and happy Friday!
Upstairs: taking something square and making it round. Downstairs: taking something round and making it square 😊
🙌😉
Worm and parser with the lay
Turn and serve the other way
The strange things we remember
Happy Friday beautiful people!!! The main mast is looking amazing, thanks for the explanation behind your decision on the Galvanised wires, as a "non boaty" I thought with your experience with ropes and climbing you would have gone for the latest and greatest of modern synthetic ropes but now I understand a bit more, thank you for the ever growing education, Oh and the end of that cotton tape wrap was soo satisfying lol . Have a fantastic week, and a wonderful Christmas. And if you are just passing by reading this, Please don't forget to like and share, It Costs Nothing and helps the Channel more than you realise.....thank you.
Cheers for your support as always, Aynsley!
Wow, the mast is a thing of beauty. Amazing the amount of cutting to arrive at the final shape and taper. Thanks Ben for putting this all together.
So glad we started actively following Acorn To Arabella again.
Welcome back, Vaughn!
Steve once again have to say, having never sailed, never built a boat, a formers background, you have shown a brilliant for learning and acting on what that learning brought you. God Speed!
Thank you, Michael!
Brilliant marking technique at 4:32
Up here in the Great White North we know friction tape as simply hockey stick tape!
😁
The mast build and rigging is really interesting. The craftsmanship is unequaled. You guys are amazing.
Thanks so much, Charlie!
I was really skeptical on the mast but turned out surprisingly well. Salute and Respect to a very skilled master
A joyous Arabella day to us, everyone.
🎉happy Friday, Tracy!
The main mast is looking awesome. Keith is the man. More technique than you might think. I'd love to watch Becca splice the eyes in the wire rope. Love to watch skills happening.
We hope to have some footage from her!
@@AcornToArabella I would love to see it.
You guys never cease to amaze me with your thoroughness and skills. It's getting exciting!!! Friction tape....aka..hockey tape!
Yep, Hockey Tape, Canada Eh?
STILL to this day, that type of filling the end of a braided wire with molten metal to keep it from pulling thru a metal end is used in Motorcycle control cable making- (Throttle cable, clutch cable, Drum brake cables, choke, etc) I still make cable from raw stock of inner wire and outer sheath today! so it might be getting rare on Sailboats but it's still the only way to correctly make control cables that last to any custom length on a MC
COOL!
I would think that cutting that mast out of the block would be terrifying! I love Anne's "Screw aerodynamics" addition! 🤣
😉
Spelter sockets are still quite widely used.
You'll find them on the end of Bowden cables, especially for cross bar, ball end and shank end terminations where brass ends are specified.
The photos of tghe airborne shavings are wonderful! Nice work!
Thanks, Barry!
When you cut that spar!! Such beautiful grain, straight as an arrow. And the rounding of the mast, sweet workmanship! Well done all!!
Happy Friday, James!
So many specialized skills needed, great Acorn to Arabella has brought some of these experts in to help, great to see many people helping out. A lot of what was said by Artemis launch director is appropriate for this incredible project. Artemis launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson speaks to her team at NASA's Kennedy Space Center 11/16/2022
Well, for once I might be speechless. So, you guys know, I have talked a lot about appreciating
the moment that you’re in and we have worked hard as a team. You guys have worked hard
as a team for this moment.
This is your moment. It is not by chance that you were here today. So, I want you to look around look around at this team and know that you have earned it. You have earned your place in the room. You’ve earned this moment you have earned your place in history. You were part of a first.
Didn’t come along very often. Once in a career, maybe. But we are all part of something, incredibly special. The first launch of Artemis, the first step in returning our country to the moon, and on to Mars, what you have done.
Well what you have done today. Inspire generations to come. So thank you. Thank you for your resilience. You know, I said at the pretest briefing, the harder the climb, the better, the view
we showed the Space Coast tonight. What a beautiful view it is.
Love the "ELEMENT - screw aerodynamics" sticker! I had one years ago, the fuel consumption difference from 75 to 80mph was huge!
Massive! But there’s a sweet spot at 65/70
Such a work of art, craftsmanship, and skill!
When i was taught (in the 1960s) to do this the mantra was “worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way”. The spaces between wires was filled with a thin tar - the worms
Yup! And that’s definitely the right thing for three strand rope!
Norseman fittings with cones are another option for stainless; no swaging, repairable at sea. Basically the cones take the place of poured metal. My boat has them, along with a hollow sitka spruce mast that has a through-bolt and SS tangs for shroud attachment. Has held up for nearly 80 years so far.
Making that mast was a very impressive effort. Would be nice to see the splicing work on the shrouds in a future video.
We hope to deliver that!
That mast making is a most respectable bit of woodcrafting - well done!
I’m loving the apprentice angle-checking spider 🤗.
😊
I wondered how you were going to make the main mast. Years ago I saw a Mast lathe down in Mexico on the Pacific coast used on their large fishing boat fleet. It was huge. It had a concrete mounted head stock driven by a V-8 diesel engine with a movable tail stock. It used a railroad track for the powered tool head. To set the taper, the tail stock would be set over closer to the track than the head stock was. Never saw it working but I bet it was something to see!
Not sure where you’re at in the world but they have a working one at mystic seaport that they use from time to time.
Thanks for that special view into shaping the mast and prepping the wire. So many incredible skills required in boat making. Truly amazing! Thanks.
And thank you!
Worm and Parcel with the lay, Turn and Serve the other way.
You can go back and review how Salt &Tar rigged their mast.
Looking good crew.
This is a great channel! Thanks to everyone who puts it out every Friday morning (for this east-coaster). I'd like to shout-out Ben again for the tasty tunes and editing. I've noticed the end credits and am getting a huge kick out of them. Reminds me of the opening of another of my favorite build-it channels, Bad Obsession Motorsports, who built a one-of-a-kind all-wheel drive mini-cooper with much custom fabbed bracketry and groovy Funk music. Their openers always included a similar 'funny title' for a main character. Fir Trader was a knee-slapper! Who's writing them? I'm assuming Ben but could easily be mistaken.
So many pieces of talents that have gone into this boat. I wonder how many miles were clicked off to shape the mast??? Amazing work by all.
So many!
Another great thing about galvanized is that it will tell you when it's time to replace it, whereas SS just fails, hence the 10 year rule for SS, and just general condition for glv. I can't remember what the stretch limits are for glv, but I doubt if a boat that size with the size of wire you have would ever be a problem for 30 or 40 years.
My grandfadder said they used to melt a mixture of tar, seal oil, and linseed(but that would depend on what was available at the time) and soak the cable before parceling. They didn't even have galvanized, it would usually last the life of the boat (saltbox schooners in Newfoundland).
First off. I’m a Hugh fan of this channel. I watch Acura to Arabella and Samsons Boat, TallyHo.
Both builders are coming and progressing along fro slightly different experiences and expectations
The one aspect of Tallyho is the progression of and completion of each step. It seems like AA starts and nearly completes…. But not completely a segment of the boat. Then starts something different. What I’m hinting at is the completion of the hull but here it is many months later and there’s been no caulking and fairing and sealing the hull. Then the decking was installed and tarred. Now the Mast.
Two different styles of building construction and result expectations.
Both will be incredible boats. And a wonderful lesson on ‘how things are done’.
Thank you for tge continual lessons on patience and expectations.
Very different boats, very different sized crew, very different budgets… little is similar here besides the plain fact that these hulls are carvel planked. It’s not a different approach to the same problems/goals… they’re just plain different, to be honest.
Good stuff. FYI, we use poured metal sockets a fair bit in oceangraphy for cable terminations because they're the only method that maintains 100% of the wire strength. I just had one pulled to breaking last month and it broke in the wire far from the sockets. Of course you're not near breaking strength on any of your wires, so less of an issue here :)
VERY COOL! Cables for what type of equipment?
@@AcornToArabella We use it for towed instruments measuring a bunch of water properties (temperature, salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll, turbidity, etc. along with sonars). They might also be used in seabottom coring, which is where we actually go closest to the breaking strength. Not sure, I've never done that with a steel wire.
Nice stays! You coul concider to make the fore stay out of stainles wire. The shakles of the jib could rub off the zink of the galvinised wires :)
The forestay and staysail stay will be of stainless.
Just call him contortionist Steve! It's interesting to see just how many tight squeezes he can get out of. I loved the scene where Anne was under the main mast looking up at the "snow " falling on her. Now that is looking like a main mast! Well! Wasn't that a cool little tool for cutting cables. Thanks for another great episode.
Happy Friday, Kathy!
Incredible work as always! I can't wait to see the rigging installed, it's so nice to watch it start coming together
Great camera work again with this magical, intimate tone to it. Love the way you stray away for moments to capture and render life around the process. Congrats ! It's beautiful and entertaining. I'll keep the comments on the technology and engineering for later....
Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Jean-Pierre!
Upstairs rounding out a square; downstairs squaring out a round...
😁
Great video once again guys, watching Steve climb under and over the rollers and hoses of the surface planner reminded me that at heart he's a climber. I really learned a lot from this one thanks and keep up the great work.
Cheers, Nigel!
I'm such a fan of synthetic fibres, even for wooden rigs. Don't need tension, give it some slack, the mast will bend and tension the standing rigging anyway. You can use all the traditional ways in synthetics, no turnbuckles, etc. deadeyes will do. Do easy to put a mantle around it for chafe and uv resistance. Don't need anything but some splicing needles on board to replace it.
The skill of the mast maker is incredible. Great to watch the transformation take place. Love my weekly AtoA Friday fix. Highlight of the day. Thanks to all the AtoA crew for bring this to us.👍👍👍
Happy Friday and thanks for the kind words, Joss!
Every week the video is of a consistent excellent quality. The content is interesting, informative and enjoyable. No dramas for the sake of it just good solid content. I suppose that primarily reflects Steve, a man of substance rather than noise.
We’re a team of substance, to be sure. Thank you for these kind words!
Seeing you shape the long mast had me wonder why you didn't put that 100 foot huge wooden beam on a huge lathe
And then I realized what I said and understood.
Amazing video again Steve, you have a great team around you. Your absolutely nailing your side goal of creating an open source video archive on how to build a wood boat. I never miss a video mate loved every minute in the boat house with you
Always amazed at the amount of research you do. Must be the “teacher” in you. Love, loved that cable cutter. Makes me laugh at all the times I watched sailing channels muscling bolt cutters!
Teachers are professional learners!
Super interesting episode!
Thanks, Andy! Happy Friday!
Great explanation of how the rigging is made for us laymen.
Saw Kieth shaking out a cramp early in the video and my hand started hurting also. 😀
Yeah it was a LOT of walking and pushing and squeezing those buttons down!
It is cool in Fish Creek today boats out of water waiting for water to freeze over. Fun watching a mast being built.
Happy Friday, Bill!
Great episode. (And if that Douglas fir off-cut from Steve’s spar work hasn’t gone into the wood stove, it would make a great top for a fiddle or guitar.) 👍
Anne, I love the "wood snow" camera shots from below. Great job....and keep your fingers off that saw blade; we don't want to have to start calling you "Digit!!" The mast gauge; a block of wood, 2 pencils, and 2 dowel??? How is this even possible??? You have to have lasers, and electrons.....and....and ...!!! Hahahahah!! DD
Great video.
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Saint Michaels, Maryland is where we have the ACBS boat show every year. Nice.
A wonderful spot. I bought my boat there! -Anne
Once again I’m amazed by the work you guys do and the tools used to do so.
Great job crew 👏🏻
A treasure trouve of various options, skills, techniques, pro's & con's for rigging, using experts. Designing durability, maintainability and functionality. Mast building and rigging each have their individual unique requirements. Great teaching video.
We were hoping to make a resource, thanks!
Very aerodynamic vehicle. Love the addition under the name badge. 15:19
😉 -Anne
What about stretch? New lines will want to find their comfort zone I'd imagine the twine will create gaps when it's under pressure
And good morning from shores of Lake Huron, Northern Ontario Canada! As always, interesting, in formative and great editing! Thank you!
Stay warm up there and happy Friday, Roland!
I really enjoyed this episode, thank you.
Cheers, Geoff. Happy Friday!
Cannot wait to see it on the water. Such dedication from everyone is so great to see. What a learning process it is I'm in Iowa and now I wish I had a boat.
Here’s a tip for v grooving the ceiling. First do one pass as you have using a strait-edge. Install a shoe on the router with the positive “male “ profile of the groove you want at the distance of your spacing. Now all you do is use the last pass to guide your next pass supper fast. No repositioning of the straight edge !
Thanks for the tip!
"Worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way". I guess you don't need worming on small steel lines, but the rest still holds true. When a cadet on an old breakbulk freighter, I watched the old bos'un splice an eye in large wire rope effortlessly. 30 years of experience will do that.
Skill is a little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of time.
Good afternoon from Vienna Austria :)
And from Vorarlberg :)
Happy Friday!
So your down to the wire ..lol.. lookin good there !!
Heeeey yoooo!
Really beautiful and amazing episode as usual. I really like the explanation of the mast making, probably the best on TH-cam in my opinion.
Wow, thank you very much for saying that, Michael. We were hoping to make a good resource with these videos. -Anne
Dear Anne, Steve and Kaylyn plus all others who are working on Arabella,
It’s amazing to see how you made from a long and glued square bar of wood a round main mast for Arabella. I’ve done something similar but than in a maximum length of 9,2 feet for a column for a spiral staircase so I’m very impressed by the length you’ve made. For length till 4,5 feet I can use a lathe. Also on behalf of WIlleke I send you love from the Netherlands
Happy Friday, Dick and Willeke! Oh my goodness a spiral staircase with a heart of wood. That must have been beautiful. -Anne
I have been with you from the begining Steve. You are drawing very close to you launch date. I'm going to miss these friday mornings with you and your team. Hope that the high seas will be as exciting as this journey you have brought us on, from a acore to a masterpiece of a boat.
I remember way back when I was watching the tally ho prodject on the west coast. And they were, I believe, planking their boat at the time, and one of their workers took off one of his shirts and the one he had on had a "check out arabella logo" on it. That was really cool to see that even these guys working on their prodject were hooked on your story too.
We’ll still be bringing them. Arabella will be mostly finished, though need alteration after launch.
Best episode in a long time.
Wow, that’s high praise, thank you!
Such marvelous content and presentation!
Thanks, Todd!
Another great update of A2A. Thanks for sharing
And thanks for watching, David!
Any info on how to figure out where to place a main mass It's height weight length would be very helpful, thx so much I absolutely love the team work and vids you'll are awesome.👍💚
I like the concept of a spliced eye but that same mast movement, over time, will still impact the finish and expose bare wood to weather. I would consider adding a band under the splice anyway to prevent chaffing.
There will be chafe protection, and the mast will be coated in two-part epoxy paint which is very protective.
Easy vs Difficult is not the same as Simple vs Complicated. The origin of the word Complicated comes from Complex, which comes from the Latin complecti, which means “to entwine around, to embrace,” a word that is based in part on plectere (“to braid”). So, splicing, while it may not be very difficult, is complicated by definition.
Most excellent presentation, thank you. Anne; I drive a Honda Element also, 2004 model. By far the best auto I have ever owned. Y'all are making good progress - Forward!
They’re super fun!
for a few years i did fall safe protection anchoring and rigging for davits and repelling equipment with summit anchor in DC. We use stainless steel with crimp down fastenings. i can tell you that the old stuff that we replaced from 30 years ago "galvanized" were still in good shape. the issue here is that you have cable that moves around vs our stationary for the most part. the galvanizing rubs off from this action. the galvanizing does not rust... you CAN get galvanized steel cable in a coated wire too....
If you want more details on splicing look for 'Knots and Ropework' by Nola Trower
All the makings of a great episode!
Steve, that's a pretty unique scribing device that your mast maker used to keep the proportions equal as the mast narrowed down.
A craftsman creates the tools that allows for the task to be completed.
And these are ancient ones!
Dude, great video. This was very interesting I’ve been watching you since you were first cut down your trees. 👌
Thanks for being on the journey with us!
I love your work guys.
Put it on a mega lathe and spin it fast enough (2000rpm min) so it doesn’t have time to sag in the middle. Easy. Maybe wear some PPE.
Yeah we’ll just get one of those Ryobi mega-lathes. 😊
Loving the progress. In most of the videos, the team talks to the camera so that the observer feels they are a part of the team. However, when the cameraperson interjects verbally, or physically enters the shot, that connection to the observer is broken. I wish we could go back to the team talking to the camera or to each other to maintain that feeling of 'being there'. Thanks!
Respectfully disagree, Matthew. Anne helps pull information and story in the moment and saves me having to interject with a voiceover to make sure it all makes sense. And also, making the same style of video every week is boring. Thanks for watching.
We’ve lost the pretense, a long time ago, that there isn’t a team member behind the camera. There’s almost always a person there! Sometimes what gets in for commentary was a decision on Ben’s part to include it.
This makes my day. Thank you.
Wow, the children's museum parking lot... I can actually see my office window in frame here!
Neat!
The method of first squaring then making an octagon, then 16 then 32 sides to make a rounded pole is ingenius. Would not have thought about doing that, but then again I'm not a mast maker so what do I know. And the fact the the pole is tapered at one end makes it all the more difficult.
Glad you found it interesting!
Happy Friday, A2A crew!
"Fir Trader" Ha! Loving these, Ben. Keep it up!
Happy Friday, Paul!
Excellent stuff bro
Nice video and great work. Thanks folks.
Happy Friday 🎉
Happy Friday, Harold!
I can't wait to see the boat sailing in the water. It's been a long process and I'm glad I've been able to follow along all the way from the lead pour until now, granted I did miss some of the episodes along the way because TH-cam wasn't notifying me for a while and I believe it even Unsubscribed me at one point. Once the boat us finished and sailing in the water what's the plan going to be? To do like a vlog style videos of places your sailing to? I can't wait to see what's to come!
We hope you’re getting our newsletter! I will let you know every week that there’s a new video, plus a few other neat things.🙌 after we launch, will continue to make videos. There will be other things to finish on the boat, plus civil learn how to sell and yes, it will be a travel log. -Anne
Good morning from Siesta Key Florida
Happy Friday, Bill! Send up some heat!