Wooden Boat People
By McKenzieDriftBoat.com
Lawrence Long's Beautiful Peapod
If you have been around Wooden Boat People for awhile you have seen posts from Lawrence Long. In my mind I have considered Lawrence's posts as the voice of years of experience. He always has well considered, thoughful comments. I had never seen any of Lawrence's boats but I knew that he has built a driftboat, a canoe if I remember correctly and most recently a Peapod. while a Peapod might not be a driftboat I think it still might be of interest to many of the members of Wooden Boat People.
I have been offering to help Lawrence post photo's for a while and finally got a chance to connect with him over the last few days. He has always mentioned that when he went to school they didn't use a calculator, let alone a computer, just slide rules. I told him I still had my first slide rule so maybe we are fairly close in age. We compared notes and discovered I wasn't as close as I thought. After he reviewed my tutorial on posting pictures he better understood the process and sent me some pictures. Once he gets his photos into files and folders I'm sure he will be posting his own pictures. However today I will post the ones he sent me. I really enjoyed speaking to him and would really like to catchup to him when he delivers the Peapod you will see here. He has some lucky kids as he has built boats for most of them.
I have read about Peapods and read a few of Lawrence's posts about his boat and the finishing work he had been doing on it. If you aren't familiar with Peapods they are an old time design. As I understand it Maine lobstermen and others on the East Coast used the boats for a multitude of tasks. Hauling lobster traps, working in the surf and whatever else was required. While Lawrence's boat has the common two rowing stations at 13 feet it is smaller than most of the traditional working Peapods which are 15 to 16 feet long. I am hoping that Lawrence will chime in here and provide a commentary on his boat. I'll let the pictures do the talking as far as the beauty and his craftsmanship.
Enjoy,
Rick Newman
Views: 548
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on
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Rick,
Thanks for posting the photo's. It's a beautiful finished boat! I'd like to hear from Lawrence soon on this forum. I have a couple of questions on how the inwales are connected to the Fore Deck and Aft Deck. I especially like the Mahogany Blocks that hold the Oar Locks.
Looking forward for more,
phil w.
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Permalink Reply by Lawrence E. Long on
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Dorf: Thanks for the kind words about the peapod. One other chore these boats had was delivering mail to light house keepers. What would the US Postal Service say today if you requested delivery 2-3 miles off shore? As to the gunwales: First the short blocks of mahogany are epoxied to the shearstrakes after the brest hooks have been installed with screws and epoxy. There are no fastenings in the spacer blocks. The outwales are old growth DF with 20-30 rings to the inch and almost no grain runout They are glued with the exception of a few screws into the brest hooks. You need lots of clamps, a helper is nice and lots of swearing is required.
The inwale (also DF) is cut oversize for length. Using a small bevel gage the thickness of the inwale is scribed on the brest hooks as well as the fore and aft angle. Its a "compound" cut. The notches are cut with a fine cut Japanese pull saw and cleaned up with a chisel. A batten and clamps at each spacer block measue the inwale- and add an inch or so. Cut and fit one end into the brest hook notch. Clamp the whole thing into place at each block and do the final cut on the opposite end of the inwale. It takes me several passes- have to "sneak up" to get a good tight fit. If you don't clamp at each block you will always end up with a short inwale. The fit is tight- tap it in with a small mallet. Glue each block and the whole inside of the inwale. Then its back to the clamps, helper and cursing. One screw in each end of the inwale into the brest hook.
The oarlock blocks are glued and bronze machine bolts are used to bolt the bronze oarlock socket to the block through the inwale.
Hope this helps
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Lawrence,
Thanks for the quick reply. I am a few days (weeks?) away from adding them to my drift boat. I appreciate your instructions. a nice feature of this forum & computers, you can cut and paste information to M/S Word and print out a hard copy for future use. It's already in my notebook & I'll refer to it when the time comes.
BTW where did you come upon "old growth" DF? I'd think it's hard to come by and not in-expensive either. Not too many years ago a family legally recovered old growth lumber from the depths of Lake Superior that had been there from the middle of the 19 th. century. I saw a couple of items made from it, was Oak with 50-60 rings to the inch. Was beautiful!
Thanks,
phil w.
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Phil: Not too far from me is a local 1 man sawmill. This family has been working here for more than 3 generations. At one time they had a tidal sawmill. At a narrow spot into a back bay the "doors" under the mill were opened on an incoming tide,bay filled up, doors closed,water wheel powered the mill. Shifts at the mill operated from the tides. The mill is long gone. The curret guy dosen't waste anything and had a few beams of DF (might have been an old mill) that needed to be cut down by an inch or so. I got the 2 "scraps" 5"x16' and strapped them alongside the truck. The oars were also DF. He found them in his grandfathers barn( this guy is in his mid 60's) They are 2" dia and 17'long . I bought both of the pieces. They have close to 80 rings. The only thing we can guess is that they were used to make harpoons for tuna fishing. This is just luck in getting these pieces. I paid $2 a running foot for them!
Sorry for this long winded tale.
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Lawrence,
Very interesting! sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time, eh. Thanks for sharing your story.
phil w
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Rick,
Just to put things into perspective from Lawrences point of view reguarding calculators/computers. The Mackinac Bridge (five miles long) between Michigan's Upper and Lower Pennsula was designed with Slide rules as were many other significant structures like Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, etc. I think of it every time I cross that bridge.
I was many times in the late 50's on site of the construction of "Big Mac". was a real thrill for a youngster.
Calculators didn't come on-scene until the early seventies. They weren't cheap and very limited in capability.
Just some insignificant trivia.... (Lot's more where that came from)
phil w.
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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on
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Phil, in regards to Lawrence's slide rule, I think slide rules are a great tools and I highly respect the people that used them. I too remember the advent of calculators. When I started using a slide rule during my first years of college we studied tubes and transistors in my electronics classes. Large Scale Integration was being discussed and IC's were just starting to be talked about. I can remember a friend of mine saying that personal computers would be big in the future. My first computer class used punch cards and the revolutionary idea of a phone line to transmit data from Seattle to Denver and back. We could turn in our assignment of 15 to 20 bytes on Monday and get a response back on Wednesday. If a period was out of place you had to wait another two days to get a response. A far cry from today's computing.
I had assumed that Lawrence was closer in age to me because we both used slide rules. Actually Lawrence was just starting college about the time I was born!
I also follow the WoodenBoat Forum and enjoy learning about "traditional" style boats and really enjoythe skills required to build watercraft like your canoe and Lawrence's Peapod. I have never seen the "Big Mac" I'll bet it is impressive. In out neck of the woods we have losts of big dams on the Columbia River. I never gave it a thought, but I would bet that they too were built with slide rules too. Phil, remember how much calculating power got the astronauts to the moon and back?
Rick Newman
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Permalink Reply by John Greenleaf on
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Beautiful work Lawrence - Thanks for sharing and thanks for helping out Rick. This kind of stuff is meant to be shared! John G.
p.s. I have engineering students who have never even heard of a slide rule (it would probably seem like black magic to them), whereas the old textbooks for introduction to engineering were always filled with learning about logarithms and slide rules. And if you want to talk scary - some students don't even use email anymore...
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John, I agree. Not only is the boat beautiful, the knowledge and experience it takes to do it priceless as well. However when I talked to Lawrence he sure didn't seem like the kind of guy that knew any swear words! He is a very pleasant, outgoing warm and wonderful to converse with! I feel honored to speak with him.
So if your students aren't using email what are they using? Typewriters and the postal service? Are they picking up the landline and talking with each other? Or do they actually meet and speak face to face?
I'm sure my kids have never seen my slide rule, perhaps I should show them how it works!
Rick Newman
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Rick - From what I've seen, it's all going to stuff like Facebook; only reason they have an email address is because the college gives them one and their weirdo professors make them check it because they don't want to deal with them on Facebook . And fyi - engineers in certainly don't talk face-to-face - it's more like face-to-shoes when they talk. ;) J.G
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