Sternpost
This difference in method is reflected in the quality of the work and the way it is perceived. Machined work is consistent to the point of dullness with every deviation considered a flaw. Work from hand tools bears the distinctive marks of the tools and subtle irregularities unique to an individual’s handiwork, all of which build character. This carries extra significance with old boats. A restoration is scrutinised for how closely form and fabric match the original but it is the methods used to build the boat which tell the more touching human story. By using tools the designer had in mind when the boat was conceived the boatbuilding process itself rings true. Old wooden tools are ingrained with history. Working with them illuminates the past and earns a kind of kinship with their previous owners. When I heft a brace and bit with its simple crank of hand-worn beech I am aware of someone looking over my shoulder with a kindly yet critical eye. Their name is stamped into it and, I feel, their personality too. Having evolved to fit the hands through centuries of use, the brace handles beautifully and as the bit begins to bite I sense in my muscles, ears and nose the characteristics of the wood as they must have been sensed for generations. Wooden tools which are themselves marked out in flecks of ray and annual rings seem to magnify the pleasures of working with wood. With a power drill the job is done in a squirt of revs but as a trade for empathy with the old time shipwright this unwieldy plastic-bodied electric motor seems a dubious bargain.
Craftsmanship unplugged P
Robin Gates on the benefits of working with hand tools
ower tools and machinery are essential in today’s yard, building new wooden boats to order. Poetic reflection on days spent ripping boards by hand is unlikely to soothe the customer whose boat stands weeks behind schedule. But for the amateur working for insight into the process as much as completion of the project, hand tools provide a direct link with the humble origins of the craft.
The hand tool’s interaction with wood actually enhances communication with it - you not only see a change in grain but hear and feel it too. Proceeding push by push with a jack plane is labour intensive but you remain alive to every nuance of the parting shaving. Contrast this with a worker wrapped in respirator, ear defenders and goggles clinging anxiously to a power planer – it doesn’t exactly nurture feeling for the medium when the only sensations felt are those generated by the vibration, dust and noise of the machine itself. In some yards joinery is barely touched by hand, being entirely shaped by computer numerical controlled (CNC) machinery.
98 CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2011
“Hand tools have an ergonomic perfection all their own”
In deciding against a one kilowatt machine to bore an inch of timber you will not be cooking the planet while building your boat, although it may also mean you will not be launching any time soon. The old qualification ‘time-served’ implied
skills acquired diligently from similarly time-served instructors. When wooden planes, augers and adzes were in common use it took seven years to qualify as a journeyman shipwright. Today it may take longer to reach an equivalent standard as old techniques have grown obsolete and mentors are few.
Still, while I wrestle unskilfully with squaring a board one shaving at a time I also glory in the difficulty and exertion of it. The repetitive physical effort demanded by hand-powered tools is better suited to our biomechanics than the frozen postures dictated by power tools. Hand tools have an ergonomic perfection all their own; at their human pace they provide the ultimate in constructive links with our past, honing skills and toning muscles that otherwise lie dormant in the modern workplace while also educating our senses to the intrinsic qualities of wood. Even when it all goes wrong there is something to be gained from the waste. Each type of edge creates a distinctive chip or shaving revealing some previously hidden feature of the wood – in stark contrast to the anonymous dust blasted out by machinery.
ROBIN GATES
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