Blocks and Boat Hooks

Today, I finished doing the parceling on the main halyards and started to seize a block into a grommet.
Student Shipbuilder,
Brandon

We have been planning oars and other things. We just completed a boat hook and sanded it down.
Student Shipbuilder,
Colby

Snowy First Day of Spring

Orman returned the shallop Jane Stevens from the Maine Boat Builders Show in Portland, to the garage at the school this morning. The Rigging class all helped lift it off the trailer and place it back on the blocks for storage. It had a fair amount of snow in it from the storm last night and yesterday. It is beautiful snow and will melt quickly.

Today we finished two of the shrouds, which are the pieces of rope that hold up the mast. There are three of them. The next class the rigging group is switching to wood working and the woodworking crew is going to be doing rigging. All of the grommets are done. Now they just need to be wormed and served.
Shipbuilder student,
Jon Brooks

Making a Square Oar Round and Grommet Movie

Animated Movie
Today, I worked more on the step-by-step video on how to make a grommet. I’ve been taking lots of picture as I make the grommet. The line was three different colors so it will be easier to see what exactly I am doing. The way we are making the videos is not with actual film, it’s just pictures. To learn how to make a grommet is very easy. The only hard thing about what I’m doing is taking good pictures. Patti Irish is very helpful to the process of making the videos. The other people that are working on rope stuff, are still worming, serving, and parceling. It’s takes a long time to do that. It’s nice though because as they do it, they talk a lot!
Student Shipwright,
Kelsey Brick

Rounding an Oar
Right now we are trying to turn a square oar into a round oar. There are many things that our group has to do to get the oar round:
1. At first, we have to 8- side the oar. We use a compass and draw circles. Then we use a 45 degree angle and where the line touches the oar that's were we put our mark. We do that on all the sides. Then we use a straight edge and connect them together. After that we plane down to the lines. We then have 8 sides.
2. After that we use the same method to 16-side it. We draw all the circles and connect the lines again. Then we plane it all down.
3. After all that is done we sand it all round and smooth. That is how you round out a oar.
Student Shipwright,
Dylan Crowell

Shrouds and Eight-Sided Oars

Check out our new Maine's First Ship brochure that will be with the shallop, videos, MFS t-shirts, hats and board members that are at the 2011 Maine Boatbuilders Show.

Today we continued worming the shrouds that will be used on the shallop. We are also parceling, and serving the shrouds to make them tougher and water proof, so they don’t rot.
The shrouds come down port and starboard to support the mast. Making these shrouds has been really repetitive. however they are very important to the shallop to keep the mast steady. There needs to be two shrouds to keep the mast steady one on port and one on starboard, which are called stays.
Student Shipwright,
Jared Gilliam

Today in boat building we finished cutting out our oars and started making them eight-sided by marking lines on every side of the oar. I feel that this project is helping us learn to work together more and learn at the same time. I have had some experience with woodworking from the Maine Maritime Museum and I hope that it will help me work better. Hopefully, next week we can try to start the planning and get as much done as possible.
Student Shipwright,
Justin MacNeil

Oar Shaping and the Line Stays

We are finally back in force after a mixed up week of weather and other school activities. The oars are starting to look like oars. Students shaped the oars with the bandsaw as much as possible, while others started to shape the handles with hand planes.

The line or rope stays, which are going to hold up the mast, are being wormed, serviced and parceled and are moving along quickly.

Rainy Day

We had a very rainy day and were minus the shipwright due to large puddles that shut down cars. Therefore, we looked at the websites, watched videos on the class and Popham colony. Orman shared some information on George Popham and the colony.
Here is great overview of the rope grommets that Shelby made and by the way she is really, really cool.

Setting Up Lines

We started the class as a group and everyone was here today. Our group is still working on oars. Two of the kids are setting up the lines for the oars . Setting up the lines means to make the lines so the people can cut the excess wood off. This has taken all of our time today.

Student Shipwright,
Cody Dickson

Today rigging continued on worming, serving, and parceling. I was searching on the internet for pictures of grommets and worming and found some of our own pictures!
Student Shipwright,
Shelby Martel