FOREST AND STREAM 
4 
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There is no Camping Luxury Greater Than Good Reading on a Rainy Day. 
the boards into lengths 6 feet 3 inches long, and 
lay them across the bow, after fitting in stud¬ 
ding to lay them on. Perhaps the better way is 
to lay them lengthwise. 
Bumpers are spiked across the ends of the boat. 
These bumpers are simply two-inch planed plank, 
6 inches wide and 6 feet 3 inches long. There 
are two at each end. When they are nailed 
fast, two pieces of studding are fitted in each 
of the rakes to back the rake planking. 
The rake planking is sawed so that the ends 
will fit against the bottom plank ends and against 
the side of the bottom edge of the bumper. This 
is easily understood by looking at diagram 
No. 4 “a.” 
These short lengths are about 2 feet 3 inches 
long on the long side, and 2 feet long on the short 
side. But if the boat isn’t built on exact dimen¬ 
sions, the best way to do is to measure for each 
piece that s the way the unskilled Mississippi 
River shanty-boater does. 
The great secret of a tight boat, that won’t 
leak, is to use just enough of white lead and 
calking of cotton string—loose waste or cord or 
unraveled cotton rope or oakum, especially in 
such ticklish places as in the bow and stern 
rakes. 
When the hull is planked, the boat is turned 
over. Then the deck is laid—ordinary inch 
spruce or pine flooring will serve for this. But 
it is a good plan to white lead each tongue and 
groove, and lay a cotton string, well daubed with 
white lead, along the grooves. 
If the boat is going to lie at anchor, there is 
no need of oars and oar pin heads. But if the 
boat is to be rowed around, or float down stream, 
a little thought must be given to the question 
of oars. 
Two lengths of white oak, or other good hard 
wood, 42 inches long, and 4x4 inches makes the 
best oar pin heads. Before the deck planking 
is laid, these posts should be squared off at the 
bottom and top, and then bolted or spiked to 
the side planking and through the studding 
frames in the position shown at “a,” “a" in 
diagram No. 3. 
In the tops of these posts is bored a 5^-inch 
hole in the exact center. Then a 15-inch length 
of round ft -inch bar iron is driven into each hole 
till about five inches sticks up. On these irons 
the sweeps swing. Of course, instead of these 
pins, one can have oar-locks for the sweeps. 
When the deck is laid, and the flooring is laid 
in the cabin part of the hull, it is time to build 
the cabin. Now there is the widest possible 
Your Glad Rags Can be Kept in Apple Pie 
Order. 
range for a cabin. One can put a “rag house” 
on the hull. This is simply a tent, pitched on 
poles nailed to the hull, and the tent is perhaps 
the simplest of the shanty-boat cabins. The next 
simplest is the tar-paper cabin. There are hun¬ 
dreds of river people who live in tar-paper cabin 
boats down the Mississippi—they claim the tar 
keeps the mosquitoes away! Just as simple, and 
much more durable is the roofing paper cabin. 
A frame is built out of 2x1^2 spruce or pine. 
Twelve pieces are cut six feet long. Five of 
these are put along each side of the hull, and 
nailed one in each amidships corner of the 
cabin, and one to each of the hull frame up¬ 
rights (b, b, b, b, b, diagram No. 3). Four are 
cut five feet long and nailed in the corners 
“c.” “c,” where the rake comes. 
On top of these uprights are laid two plates, 
each 11 feet 6 inches long. These plates are 
2 -iJ^-inch material, like the uprights. 
The carlins, which reach from side to side of 
the uprights, are 6 feet 6 inches long (diagram 
4, x). They are inch boards, sawed in a curve 
so that they are 6 inches wide in the center, 
and 1 inch wide at the ends. Six are required, 
one for each pair of uprights. They are nailed 
to the plates, and the curve gives the pitch to 
the roof. 
If the sides and roof are to be covered with 
roofing material—which makes as good a boat as 
any—thin boards are nailed on the uprights and 
on the carlins. Then the roofing is carefully 
fastened to this siding. 
A space is left at “d,” diagram No. 3, for the 
doorway, and windows are sawed out and glazed 
according to one’s desires. The river man does 
not have a window facing the bow deck, as a 
rule. This is so that when the boat is moored 
bow to the bank, no one can look into the 
window. 
In putting on the housing material, the main 
thing is to have the boat tight, so that wind 
cannot come through anywhere. Every least 
crack should be chinked up tight. 
The door is fitted in at -the deck end of the 
cabin. Perhaps 28 inches is a good width for 
young folks, and many river house-boats have 
no wider doors. The door framing is made of 
planed boards, 3 inches wide, with a jamb of 
2-inch wide material, nailed to the uprights 
(bd, bd, diagram No. 4). The door is tour feet 
high, and swings on hinges, like a barn mow or 
garret door. 
A step is put under the door, so that it will 
not be so far to climb out of the cabin onto 
the deck, through the doorway. 
A small stove for cooking and heating should 
be mounted firmly in the cabin. The galvanized 
pipe should go through a piece of sheet iron 
with a hole in the center in the roof. The sheet 
iron collar is to prevent the roof catching fire, 
and the chimney should extend about cwo feet 
above the roof. 
A pair of oars, fifty feet of half-inch line for 
This Little Boat Boasts the Luxury of a Brass 
Bed. 
