Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/08/18

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Subject: [Leica] Wooden boat's
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:11:43 -0400

"Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy,
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be,
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be,
Talking' 'bout very free and easy.."

I bought a book on wooden boat making and maintenance in 1990 because I had
to rebuild my darkroom sink which I'd not built right the first time when I
first moved in I had deadlines. I wanted to get it right the second time. I
did.
Partly it was I had the time and the money. And I had matured slowly like
slow drying resin.
There was this marine supplier place in Portland Oregon which had all kinds
of epoxy and fillers and fibers. A & B. I had discovered the WEST SYSTEM
line of products I could get at the  West marine store in Jantzen Beach.
The A & B epoxy system I'm putting the thing together with is also what its
coated with on the outside. An exoskeleton. The only glues I ever trusted
was A&B.
Slow medium or fast setting resins. Or extra slow they have now I wish they
had then.
And if you mix too much stuff up it burst into flames its very exciting.
Fiberglass Cloth
#807 Dispensing Syringes
#406 Colloidal Silica
You can put WEST SYSTEM 423 Graphite Powder - 12 OZ in the mix and turn your
darkroom sink into a huge golf club. Or high tech car like the kind Frank
makes.

A darkroom sink is the opposite of a wooden boat.
A boat you keep the water out. A sink you keep the water in.
So just turn the instructions up side down. But you use the same book.

My sink was 18 feet long. I could lay out 20x24 inch trays in a row.





--------------------
Mark William Rabiner
Photography
mark at rabinergroup.com


> From: "Richard S. Taylor" <r.s.taylor at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:33:48 -0400
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Wooden boat lifespan
> 
> Yes, absolutely.  They have to be constantly renewed.  The "Constitution" 
> here
> in Boston, has but a few slivers of the original wood and yet if even they
> went away, she would still be the "Constitution."
> 
> I read in the New York Times yesterday about a new project to bring the
> "Charles Morgan" at Mystic Seaport back to sailing condition, too.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/science/17ship.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=charles%20
> morgan&st=cse
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/2a5fvy6
> 
> It's the same thing - restore, renew, use new techniques, even, but it's 
> still
> the same boat.  
> 
> It makes them a bit human, I think.  I read somewhere, and one of the 
> doctors
> on the list can correct me if I'm wrong, that none of us have the cells in 
> our
> bodies we were born with, in fact none of the cells we had even a few years
> ago, yet we're still us.
> 
> It's too bad wooden boats can't renew themselves the way we can.  Then we'd
> have a lot more pretty boats sailing around rather than the proliferation 
> of
> fiberglas "Clorox bottles" we have on the water today.*
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Dick
> 
> *Then again, maybe not, maybe all the ugly wood boats ended up as landfill.
> 
> On Aug 18, 2010, at 12:30 AM, Michiel Fokkema wrote:
> 
>> I regularly sail traditional oak wooden boats from the North of Holland.
>> Some of them are close to 100 years. But they get  totally overhauled and
>> restored around every 10 years.
>> The oldest ones hardly have an original part on it.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Michiel Fokkema
>> 
>> On 17 August 2010 23:37, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Dick writes:
>>> 
>>> A friend just asked me offline if "Freedom" was really that old.  She is,
>>> and was recently restored, viz:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://www.woodenyachts.com/media/PDFs/EBrochure.pdf
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://www.woodenyachts.com/Media/PressLibrary/IYRS_RQ_SUM09.pdf
>>> 
>>> 
>>> - - - - -
>>> 
>>> Wooden boats CAN last a long time if they are properly maintained. The
>>> Charles Morgan, the whaler on display at Mystic Seaport is 100 years old
>>> and
>>> the Constitution, on display in Boston is over 200 years old. Of course
>>> both
>>> have had a ton of money poured into them. Typically, though, most wooden
>>> boats live only 30 years or so before the cost of keeping them seaworthy
>>> adds up to more than the boat is worth. Most of the great clipper ships 
>>> of
>>> the 1800s lasted only about ten years. They were sailed hard to make as
>>> much
>>> profit as possible then were scrapped or converted into barges. The lower
>>> portion of New York's Manhattan had its waterfront extended by grounding
>>> these old hulks, filling them with rocks and sand. Occasionally
>>> construction
>>> projects along the waterfront dig into the remains of these old ships 
>>> while
>>> excavating the basements. My old wooden boat, Cognac, was 30 years old 
>>> when
>>> we bought her and it lasted another ten years before the man we sold her 
>>> to
>>> let her smash on the rocks in a bad storm. It probably would have lived
>>> another 20 years, not as long as the Morgan or the Freedom, but as long 
>>> as
>>> my Leica M3.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/9_+Cognac+just+after+launch.jpg.htm>>>
l
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Larry Z
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> --------------------------------------------
>> Fokkema Fotografie
>> www.michielfokkema.com
>> michiel.fokkema at gmail.com
>> GSM:+31 (0) 615569576
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information




In reply to: Message from r.s.taylor at comcast.net (Richard Taylor) ([Leica] Wooden boat lifespan)