Finishing Out the Interior (Part Three)

Here's a better look at that quarter knee

The building phase is just about complete. This week, Tom added the trim and the sunburst design to the bow seat. We had ordered three sets of brackets (they were chrome as bronze was not available). Each would hold a flexed piece of wood which would then "tent" the cover so that water would not pool on it. But, it just didn't feel right putting those metal brackets on this beautiful wooden boat, so we didn't. Tom fabricated brackets out of mahogany and they blend in much nicer and look far better than the metal ones. He also built the oarlock chocks, rounded the edges of the gunwhales, drilled the stem for the bronze bow eye, applied two coats of penetrating epoxy and the first coat of varnish.

Presently, Tom is building the stern seat. The slats will be cut to match the sunburst design on the bow seat. Also, he is laminating the knees for the fore and aft center thwarts out of Phillipine Mahogany.

The oars arrived from Shaw and Tenney (http://www.shawandtenney.com/) out of Orono, Maine and they are beautiful. They're 8' flat blade spruce with 10" sewn leathers.

Row, row, row your boat...life is but a dream.

The Wood

Okoume plywood, often called mahogany plywood, is an African hardwood. It is light brown in color, sometimes lustrous, with variable interlocked grain. Okoume panels exhibit high strength to weight ratios, ideal for boat building. Face veneers are 2.3 mm thick, A/B grade, and rotary cut. Cores and crossbands are solid jointed and panel glued with waterproof/boil proof glue. Marine grade okoume meets or exceeds British Standard 1088. Okoume panels are extensively used by race class boat builders, rowing shell builders, and in various applications where its light weight, high tensile strength, good bonding properties and ease of finishing are of value. On this Penobscot, we'll do the hull planking, bulkheads, and transom in okoume.

All of the interior wood will be either Phillipine or African mahogany. The Phillipine mahogany is a beautiful honey brown when finished and will match the okoume planking nicely. It will be used as structural lumber to build the hull, the longitudinal stringers, the stem, the bulkheads, and the keel.

African mahogany is a deep, rich, burgundy-brown which will compliment the more subtle interior tones and be a stunning contrast to the white exterior. It will be used for the seats, gunwales, breast hook, and quarter knees.

The deadwood will be of white oak which is an excellent boat building wood. It is very tough and takes fastenings well. Due to its closed cell structure, which inhibits the intrusion of water, it is ideal for the one piece of wood on the boat that will remain submerged during normal use.

The combination of okoume, Phillipine mahogany, and African mahogany on this scale will be beautiful.

Our local lumber supplier quoted a four week delivery time for the okoume, so we contacted a well known boat lumber supplier in the Northwest--Edensaw Lumber in Port Townsend, Washington (www.edensaw.com). They did have some on hand and it should arrive within three to four days. In the meantime, we purchased the mahogany and the white oak as well as some pine for the frames and the building jig from High Desert Hardwood in Eagle, Idaho.

Row, row, row your boat...life is but a dream.