ER PLAN

Why Clinker Part 2 The Pox

I build wooden boats for pleasure. I cant find words to describe the pride I feel when I look at my last build. In some religions it would be a sin.
It would have cost less to buy a plastic canoe and Id have been on the water sooner. But I wanted to build a boat. So if Im doing this for pleasure what did I enjoy? Almost every aspect. I enjoyed choosing the plans, poring over the templates, cutting the moulds, ordering the wood, setting up the strongback, planking (now were building) and even sanding fair had its pleasures.
But then came the epoxy and fibreglass. The boat looks wooden, smelled wooden, has bits of wood you can actually touch but the wonderful scent of cedar and the sound of the plane and saw are buried in my memory by the hideousness that was the sheathing.
I spent more time wearing a mask (with a range of filters) than I did working wood.
The mess was astonishing. Im sure with practise I could get neater but Id rather practise something else.
When I was 12 my Dad, brother and I built a small plywood sharpie using fibreglass tape and epoxy. Theres no doubt that it planted the seed of my obsession but I remember the construction as a carefully planned series of dangerous events. A spinning wheel of finger death to cut the sheets, a dangerous chemical reaction to put them back together. When we sat back to admire our construction it was with pride and some relief.
So if boatbuilding is to be a pleasure for me it must:

• Be quiet (or at least not be full of the scream of power tools)
• Generate as little dust as possible
• Allow a conversation unimpeded by masks
• Not be a danger to wildlife or small children
• Be mostly about wood