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

Edutopia Video

One of the goals of this project is to share it with others both locally, nationally and internationally. To share our project, we have made the following video for Edutopia, the George Lucas Foundation, which supports project based learning.

" Project learning, also known as project-based learning, is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.

Because project-based learning is filled with active and engaged learning, it inspires students to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying. Research also indicates that students are more likely to retain the knowledge gained through this approach far more readily than through traditional textbook-centered learning. In addition, students develop confidence and self-direction as they move through both team-based and independent work.

In the process of completing their projects, students also hone their organizational and research skills, develop better communication with their peers and adults, and often work within their community while seeing the positive effect of their work." more from Edutopia. . .

Finishing the Body Mold

Today, we finished putting up the body molds, which shape the skeleton of the boat. We had a support beam put on it at the wrong water line (the lines parallel to the water) so we had to make another. It was glued too high, and the beam was glued into place. We had to make the replacement beam so a strip of wood could be put through the middle, adding structural stability. Another body mold was taken down yesterday to make changes, so we had to put it up again. The remaining three body molds were put into place today.

We also began construction on the oars for the boat. It involves gluing two pieces of wood together with poly-urethane glue, which is watertight, and clamping the pieces of wood together. Traditional wood glue is only water resistant. These blocks of wood will be cut into the shape of an oar. Because we have to use most of the clamps to hold the long strips together, we can only do one oar at a time.

The wood for the keel arrived today!

Shallop Ship Building Student,
Peter Kosakowski

Body Mold Steps

Today we worked on the body molds. To create these molds, you start out with two pieces of wood, that when placed together, create part of the boat's hull shape.

Next, you create another copy of these pieces. Once you have the copies of the shape cut out, you put the shape together and create a new piece that joins the two parts of the body molds together.

Next, you create two corners that will fill in the rest of the shape of the mold. To create the rest of the molds' pieces, make another copy of the center and corner parts of the mold. Now that you have all of your pieces you should screw them together. Once you have your mold put together, you shape them with either a spokeshave, block plane, or chisel.

Lastly, you sand down the edges of the body mold.

Amy Franklin
Maine's First Ship Student
**Just added to the Friday, July 16th blog is a video made by Amy. Check it out here.

More Half Models and Workshop Materials

The weather cooled today and there was a nice breeze in the boat building shop. Today was filled with the cutting and planing of the water line on the half models. When students were finished with their work and others were still working, Cody and Amy took video of their fellow boat builders. When Matt, Max and Aaron were finished, they began working on projects to improve the shop floor such as building rail posts for a barrier to separate the guest area and the work area of the shop.

Volunteers were busy setting up displays and cutting wood for shop improvement projects. Check out the boat builders in the following video.

Safety and Half Models

This day began with a talk on the making of half models by shipwright, Will West. The students then cut out shape patterns for their half models.

Around 9:00 Laura Mathison, Director of Environmental, Health and Safety at BIW , explained the proper use of the equipment that BIW donated to the project for the safety of the students building the shallop. We had many visitors today from the press, BIW, Superintendent Shuttleworth from RSU1, a rowing crew that came off the Kennebec to see how the program was progressing, along with many other special guests and board members of the Maine's First Ship.

After the safety talk, the students went back to making their half models of the Shallop. First, they made other copies of the patterns, then traced around the patterns on wood in preparation for cutting the 5 wood pieces of the half model. Some even got started cutting out the slices of the half model. Enjoy a video summary of the day filmed by Cody Seekins, Amy Franklin and Patti Irish