Tag: woodworking

BBA lays on an extra woodworking skills course during August

BBA woodworking image

The Boat Building Academy tells me that their five-day basic woodworking skills course has been so popular this year, they have decided to squeeze an extra course into their Lyme Regis workshops this summer, from the 19th to the 23rd August.

The course is suitable for beginners and sets solid foundations in tool selection, sharpening and maintenance, wood selection and preparation. Students produce a range of basic joints including dovetails and framing joints, lengthening and widening joints. The fee is £625.00.

Contact the BBA via its website.

Marcus Lewis restores a Troy, and plans to make clinker dinghy drawings available

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Troy class yacht Ruby restoration

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Taking the lines from a 1947 9ft dinghy

Down in Fowey in Cornwall, boatbuilder Marcus Lewis has been as busy as a bee, and a few days ago wrote to tell us what he’s been doing, and about some of his plans. Here’s what he has to say:

‘I have been busy building another Fowey River class dinghy, which is due for launching in a couple of weeks and I’m also part way through a serious restoration of Ruby, a  Troy class yacht built in 1930. She has needed 75 per cent of her planking replaced; lots of new parts including new horn timber, transom, transom knee, stem and stem knee, and gunwales, steamed oak timbers and keelbolts; and new  ply deck. Hopefully they will be enough to see her through the next 80 years!

‘I have attached some photos of a 1947 9ft rowing dinghy that is past repair. I am taking the lines off her in order to make some moulds and to make up plans that I intend to make available.

‘Also, have cleared out the internal bits of the Percy Mitchell-built tosher and will also be taking lines off her in the near future. If there are a couple of interested people who wanted to spend the weekend helping to take off the lines, and then have a copy themselves, I would be glad of the help – and it would galvanise me into getting it done!

‘Marcus’

Thanks Marcus. That dinghy is a nice shape – I will be delighted to help you promote the plans when you have them ready. I’d have thought there would be someone out there to help you take those lines, not least because it would be an opportunity to practice something we normally only read about in books.

If you’d like to help Marcus take the lines from the tosher in his yard, contact him at Fowey, Cornwall on tel 07973 420568, email marcus@fowey9.freeserve.co.uk . His website is at www.woodenboatbuilder.co.uk.

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Light Trow Mk 2 – drawings for making a model


Light Trow model package plywood boat Gavin Atkin boat plan

Here’s a jolly little project for Easter – making a model of the Light Trow Mk 2. The drawings are here: Light Trow Mk 2 model, and they’re in the form of a zip file containing no less than 18 pdfs.

Almost all you need to do is print out each pdf in the zip package on the same-sized paper, stick it to card, model-maker’s plastic sheet or balsa, and cut it out and assemble as shown in the drawings… However, you’ll need some extra bits of balsa and nice white paper or cloth to make a sail and – Hey Presto! – you’ll have your own table-top Light Trow to play with. Have fun everyone! (Drawings now corrected to include the hole on the aft deck for the mizzen mast!)

For more on the Light Trow and trows generally, click here.

POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’reinterested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!