July, 1922 
FOREST AND STREAM 
299 
aflfair, but it must be strong and made 
carefully to size and shape. Then a 
couple of horses to get the boat up to a 
comfortable working height. Logs or 
boxes will do. 
Build the boat bottom-side up and be- 
gin by fastening the side planks to the 
center form. Use screws if you have 
them, as they can be driven home and 
he easily removed. Then draw the sides to- 
gether at one end with rope until the end 
piece fits between them. Hold them there 
temporarily and do the same at the other 
end. Note that the side pieces touch 
the end boards only at the outer edges. 
Bevel off these edges until the sides lay 
fair on the end pieces or transoms, and 
their cross cleats. Coat the joints well 
with paint and nail together, using one 
and three-quarter inch nails about every 
one and one-half inches and staggering 
them as much as possible. Get galvanized 
nails if you can. 
We now need tw'o strips seven-eighths 
inch by one and one-half inch of the 
same material for the side planks. These 
are fastened along the inside bottom edge 
of the side planks to give a better fas- 
tening place for the bottom boards. Fit 
similar pieces along the slant or tuck-up 
at the ends. In boat-building parlance 
these are called “chines” for the beveling 
which comes next. Take a four-foot 
length of board with one straight edge 
for a guide, lay it across the bottom of 
the boat resting on the two side planks. 
It touches only their outer edges and 
perhaps the outer edges of the chines. 
These edges must be beveled off with a 
plane so that the straight edge shows a 
good flat bearing on both sides, all along 
the boat. When you reach the ends you 
will find the bottom edge of the transoms 
will also need beveling to conform with 
the tuck-up of the sides. 
The bottom boards go on crosswise 
and should be not more than six nor less 
than four inches wide. Begin at one 
end, the first board lapping over the 
bottom of the transom and nailed to 
transom and sides. Be sure the edges 
of the boards are straight and lie close 
together; then give one of them in each 
joint a slight bevel with the plane, so 
that while tight on the inside, the joint 
will show slightly open on the outside 
for caulking purposes. A joint must 
come exactly on the knuckle where the 
tuck-up begins and here the edges of 
both boards will be beveled to halve the 
angle, lie close together on the inside 
and only a sixteenth of an inch or little 
more open on the outside. 
Before nailing the bottom, however, 
we must give some thought to making 
the boat water-tight, and we have a long 
joint or seam between sides and bottom. 
The easiest way to do this job is to lay 
a thread of twisted cotton calking along 
the edge, daub it well with paint just 
before nailing on a board and see that 
some nails are driven so that the cotton 
can’t get out. In the absence of regular 
calking four or five strands of white 
string loosely twisted together will do, 
or even the ravellings from a gunny- 
sack. After the bottom is nailed on and 
the nails well set in, saw and plane the 
ends of the boards so that the sides are 
smooth. Do the same on the ends, and 
turn the boat over. 
A chafing strip or guard three-quar- 
ters inch by one and one-half inches of 
oak (if possible) must be run around 
outside the upper edge or “gunwale” and 
well fastened to the sides. Four cleats 
or ribs of the same dimension and ma- 
terial put in where shown. They will 
be notched over the chines and screwed 
through the sides. The riser for the 
center seat or “thwart” and the thwart 
itself can now be fitted, fastened and 
the temporary form removed. 
Note that this thwart is not in the 
mid length of the boat, but a little nearer 
one end. This is one of the minor dif- 
ferences between this and similar boats. 
Fit it with two pair of sockets for row- 
locks as shown. Then when you are 
alone in the boat you face the short end 
and the boat is a little deeper in the 
water at the stern, “trims by the stern.” 
This is as it should be for easy handling. 
A boat dragging a trifle at the stern will 
keep a fairly straight course of her own 
accord, while if she were “down by the 
head” or deeper at the bow she would 
swing all over and it would be hard to 
keep her straight. If you take a friend 
along, face the long end and put your 
friend in front of you. The boat still 
trims properly and not too much down 
by the stern, as she would be were the 
rowing thwart exactly in the middle. 
The bottom so far is a little weak and 
we must stiffen it up by putting a strip 
{Continued on page 322) 
