From Cabinetry to Curves: How Boatbuilding Enhances Joinery Skills
At a certain point in my career as a joiner I made the decision to train up on the job as a boatbuilder, I’ve always sailed and have a passion for boats but the real reason for me wanting to make this transition was to give myself a challenge that I was able to learn from and that would develop my skills as a wood worker.
I started off working at Star Yachts, where Win and the team gave me the time to develop a whole new catalogue of skills to add to my existing knowledge of woodworking. I went on to work at Spirit Yachts and then Oyster Yachts where I was able to hone these skills to a very high standard working the more technical elements on large wooden yachts in build.
Now that a large part of my work is in joinery again it is possible to reflect on how spending years working on wooden yachts has greatly developed my skills and knowledge when it comes to designing and constructing architectural joinery and cabinetry, especially when dealing with older and less regular buildings.
Sculptural working
It is very common in our work to come across difficult shapes - they may be arch top windows, bow fronted doors, challenging curves on bannisters or simply difficult scribes along bumpy walls. The measuring and marking can be a challenge in these instances, but knowing how to make a piece of timber take on a complex shape or tight curve is something that is commonplace in the boat building world. Having spent so long as a boatbuilder i’ve become confident in producing a replicating even the most difficult of shapes using some of the following methods:
Laminating - gluing together thin layers of timber which are clamped or fixed around a curve
Steam bending - heating and steaming timber increases it’s elasticity and allows wood to be set around shapes that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to bend around without splitting
Tooling - Using tools such as a compass plane, a spoke shave, or a rasp in order to slice and nibble small amounts of material off your stock to make a very accurate finished shape.
However, learning to ‘sculpt’ wood through boat building didn’t just improve my catalogue of techniques, but it developed my eye and feel for a smooth or ’fair’ curve.
Jigs and Machines
I tend to see curved pieces in two categories:
Simple curves - whereby the piece is curved on one plane (as is common on arch top windows)
Complex or compound curves - whereby the piece is curved on two planes (as is common on handrails and many parts of a wooden vessel)
Using modern machinery is essential to produce both types of curved pieces for the sake of efficiency and to help aid in replication (even if final finishing is achieved with hand tools), this usually requires the making of a jig or a template to be used in conjunction with a machine or power tool such as a router, spindle moulder or bandsaw.
Because almost every element on a boat is curved, I have picked up numerous techniques from fellow employees as well as from books that allow me to create complex and often repeatable curved pieces with relative ease.
Measuring and marking
As previously mentioned, when doing curved work it is not only the sculpting that is challenging but also the measuring of corresponding shapes and the marking up of the piece. It may be the case that an arched fan light window needs to be made to fit a gap in the masonry above a doorway and this will require both the measuring of the gap that is present and the marking out of the workpiece. There are many instances where this is the case whilst working on older buildings, not only where there is a curved piece as part of the design, but where the building has moved out of true and requires shaped parts to fit cleanly into its fabric.
Whilst working as a boatbuilder I learned that every curve on a vessel is based off of straight lines, be it the centre line, the various water lines, or just off of level or plumb. When you’ve got your head around the principles of this you can work off of straight lines when building a piece and also work back to straight lines when taking measurement.
Some of the techniques that cross between boatbuilding and joinery are listed below:
Spiling - using a block of a fixed width or compass to follow around a shape to transfer a mark to an adjacent board
Templating - most commonly done by using short strips of wood and joining them with a glue gun or stapler to mimic a shape, sometimes this shape is then spiled onto
Using a fairing batten - the use of a thin strip of wood, bent to intersect points on material below to create an even or ‘fair’ curve that can be traced around
Tick stick method - A complex but highly effective method of transferring intricate internal curved or irregular shapes
Restoration
It’s not uncommon for us to undertake repairs, especially on external joinery where replacement isn’t required - this is a point that has a crossover with boatbuilding whereby replacement isn’t possible and repairs are annual. Because repairing woodwork on classic vessels is so common, the industry has developed thousands of techniques that I have picked up on whilst working on boats such as scarfing and dutchman joints.
I have also gained the skill in being sensitive to the fabric of woodwork and in the careful dissection of components without damaging the piece more than necessary.
Joinery in harsh environments
A boat is subject to the harshest conditions that any woodwork would be expected to withstand and thus many considerations must be taken into account by the boatbuilder and the naval architect in order to prevent rot from forming, and warping from happening. Steps are taken to design ways for water to fall off the woodwork rather than to sit stagnant, and for the structure and makeup of the pieces to be incredibly dimensionally stable.
Although joinery on terra firma doesn’t generally have to withstand quite as destructive conditions as those experienced at sea, I generally put a higher emphasis on protection from the environment into the joinery I design and make than some might. Some of the methods we use are as follows:
Sloping mouldings and drip rails
High quality glues and sealants, often using cascamite or epoxy on external joinery
Suitable timber species for their use
High quality coatings and finishes
When it comes to working on older buildings and in woodwork in general, I believe it is advantageous to have worked on wooden boats, in a way it is enough of a challenge to make the right angle joinery we do seem more simple and the curved joinery more achievable. Between the members of our team we have a lot of experience working on boats in yards and training colleges across the UK.
