Jack and Willey broke out the hand planes to joint a long stringer of Sitka spruce The boats are shaping up and the students are getting fired up for our journey next month. Here’s a little gallery from the past two weeks of Micro-Expedition, the Atelier Studio I am teaching this semester at CCA as […]
Tag Archives: boat building
Micro-Expedition, Session 7
Jack and Willey made a lightweight building jig for their shallow kayaks We’re at our half-way point in the semester and the majority of the class are on track to complete their projects with time to spare before we make our voyage just before the winter solstice. Everyone was fully focused and hard at work […]
Micro-Expedition, Session 6
Estero Americano meanders westward towards Bodega Bay from Valley Ford. I’m proud of the progress the students have made in constructing their craft in anticipation of our voyage on Estero Americano. They’ve been working like a true Atelier, dutifully helping each other cut, mill and shape their stock, and the little boats are nearly ready […]
Micro-Expedition, Session 5
In reverse of the cliche, I brought my students a peck of our own freshly picked apples and pears today, fuel for the challenging work at hand as they begin to construct their boats at full scale. It’s been a bad year for apples along the Sonoma Coast, after an unusually cold and damp spring […]
Micro-Expedition, Session 4
Willey, Jack, Luke and Sean work together to loft full scale contours During session 4 of Micro-Expedition, my Atelier class at CCA, most of the students began to loft to full scale, lifting lines from their 1/4 scale models, which they had cut into sections at structural stations. They made battens from thin strips of […]
Micro-Expedition, Session 3
Jack and Willey did a float test of their matching, 1/4 scale hull models I feel lucky to have such a congenial and productive crew for my Atelier class this semester. The students presented their 1/4 scale models the morning of our third session and have clearly divided into four teams, each collaboratively pursuing a […]
Micro-Expedition, Session 2
I made a 1/4 scale model of the ‘surfboat’ I’ve been studying to use as inspiration for the class. The design represents a type of hull that performs well and is easy to build, requiring no ‘building jig’. The frame for the boat is built off of the main ‘deck batten’, laid upside down on […]