Cold Molding

On the sailboat, I was debating how to construct the hull. After reading this book, I'm going to give cold molding a try.

This is the bible of cold molded construction. It samples using much larger boats than the one I'm building, but the process scales down. Hull construction is the only thing that is significantly different from traditional boat building concepts. The book has a great section on how to build out cabins, build masts, all kinds of interesting stuff around the deck. Great section on lofting. But a lot of that is also available in other books too.

What makes cold molding unique among plywood hull techniques is the layering. My biggest problem is leaks in the plywood joints, and cold molding solves this with layers and epoxy. In my sailboat, first I'm going to scarf the plywood joints going left to right. Second I'm going to use two layers of 3/8" plywood so I can stagger the joints over the layers. This should give me a leak-free hull. Plus I'm going to have to use copious amounts of fairing compound and epoxy.

If this is your first book on boat construction, you picked a good place to start. If, like me, you've read a crap ton of books on boat construction, this is a really informative read on a very specific aspect of boat construction. It feels like I gain something new from each book. In addition to the hull aspects, I also learned a ton about building your own mast & booms and other sailboat-specific aspects. Most books will focus on general concepts and throw in stuff like "if you're building a sailboat try this..." but this book is specific about sailboat construction. I'm sure there are other books about motorboat construction that have details about the electrical systems or steering consoles. But this one is specific to sailboats and covers sailboat-only details better than any other book that I've read.

Two book reviews

I finished reading a few books recently and thought I would post some reccomendations

Building Small Boats by Greg Rossel is a real gospel for small boat building. I was about halfway through it when I took the class at the Watercraft Center back in September. Every technique that we covered in the class was also explained in the book. The chapter on lofting alone is worth the cover price.

Lofting is one of those concepts where you have to hear the procedure several times before it finally sinks in. I finished that chapter before the class and thought maybe I had it, but then doing it with someone who knew how really drove it home.

The chapters on planking, decking, topside finishing, and spiling were great too. Really I found the chapter on tools to be a bit plain, but that's just because I've already got a full load of tools. There's no special boatbuilding equipment that you don't make yourself. If you're looking for a bible of wooden boatbuilding, Greg Rossel wrote it.

John Atkin and his father are both very prolific boat designers. There are a few chapters first about the merit of design and some concepts that are really interesting. But the main meat of this book is boat plans, about 40 of them. The book is printed small, physically, but the plans are complete enough to allow you to choose one if you wanted to build it.

They are supposed to be complete plans in the book. Really, I doubt you could build or even loft directly from what is printed here. Some plans have more information than others, but a table of offsets is a rare sight. I read this book when I was looking for plans to build and chose not to build any of these. But as a guy who likes to read over boat plans & designs, it was pretty fascinating.

There are all kinds of boats in here, sailboats, powerboats, rowboats, you name it. It's a fun read if you like reading about different types and qualities of boats. This is not a catalog of plans, there are actual plans in there. You'd need a magnifying glass to get some of the specifics. If I picked one of these boats I would seek out a higher quality printout of the plans with more details.

Boat Design

Lately I've been having trouble finding the "right" design for my next boat build. Been looking for plans for a 17'-19' sailboat with maybe a sloop rig or different mainsail. But everything that length has a cabin and isn't just an open bench plan. I want a sailboat that can seat about 6 -8 people so that I can carry my whole family and maybe another one on the water for an afternoon on a windy lake. So I thought maybe I would have to design it myself. Enter the $5 book from Amazon How to Design A Boat

Turns out, there is a lot of math in boat design! It looks like drawing would be the main focus but it's mostly covering calculations to ensure a goal for the boat. There are some outstanding descriptions and sample drawings for different hull types, lots of different boats from 10' up to 67' long.

I'm kind of a math geek to begin with, I make a living as a software engineer so it's all math all day anyway for me. This book took water physics to a new level. The displacement effects from different hull shapes is fascinating. It's a great read if you're into that kind of thing.

I was looking for more specifics. Like with a 6' beam and a round bottom, how deep should the hull be? Baseline displacement weights how deep below the waterline is required to stay balanced? How deep/long do you need to go before adding a water ballast? I guess I was looking for more general guidelines than calculations.

So the bottom line is that - thumbs up - I really enjoyed this book. But I still don't feel quite confident enough to design my own sailboat. I could probably come up with something on paper with absolutely no confidence in how much sail was needed for that size boat, or how deep it should sit at the waterline. This is an older edition of the book. It's totally worth the $5, if you want the updated versions you will pay more but the facts are still pretty much the same. Check it out if you want too, I'm really glad I read this one. It still gives me a really different approach to reading other plans.