How do I know it is pitch pine, and other questions...

JonnieFlamingo

JonnieFlamingo

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I've just bought a new to me, but 84 year old Gaff Cutter built by Berthons and now in need of some TLC. I am reliably informed she is Pitch Pine planked on Oak frames so I've been scouting around t'internet to find pitch pine. Lots of hits but how do I know the wood advertised is actually Pitch Pine and not just an old bit of Pine? Top tips for identifying gratefully received.
I have, of course, a host of other queries as I am entirely new to the old boat game but perhaps I shouldn't bore you all with them now. One other thing I want to start looking for though is a compass. What sort? Where did it go? There is no pedestal, or obvious mounting place, where would a traditional 1930s yacht have had her compass. Take a look at www.justflamingo.com my blog, which will track her progress from dilapidated old maid to stunning temptress (in my dreams) there lots of pictures. An interesting fact for old boat enthusiasts is she is the sister ship to Wylo, the original boat of Nick Skeates of Wylo II fame. Wylo was sunk on a reef in the pacific so Flamingo is now literally one of a kind. Any help and advice, most welcome.
Jonnie
 
Pitch pine is mainly obtained from reclaimed flooring these days but beware!!Pitch pine can be difficult to identify but it it is usually more close grained with fewer knots than white pine and has a more yellow colour with deeper colouration in the grain. It is also a bit harder (test with a knife point). If it has lasted for 84 years without rot and looks like pine then its probably pitch pine.
Here is a description:http://www.timbergardenbuild.co.uk/faq-s/timber-used-in-construction/about-pitch-pine/
Sounds like a great boat ...best of luck.
 
I thought that pitch pine was the very slow-grown timber from tundral coniferous forests, with a high resin content. That means close growth rings and small medullary rays.

I think you are on to a winner; not easy by any means, but certainly not as big a job as many people have undertaken with success.


As for a compass, it was probably mounted on a small binnacle, and looked something like this:-
View attachment 45201

Non-polished versions come out around £80 on ebay.
 
Nice looking boat and looks like its going to be an enjoyable restoration.

Great to see you've got the family involved. Making it a team project sometimes helps to justify "unplanned" costs.

Re power, if you don't have access to mains electricity I would invest in a small petrol generator. It really helps to have a little mechanical help from time to time. I know its not all about how quickly you can get a job done, but sometimes it helps motivation if you can rip through a job in 1/10th of the time just by using hand held power tools.

Remember the biggest risk to your project is you losing heart. Anything that helps you over the "bumps" should be embraced.
 
I have just cut some old pine beams in a house, very strong smell of resin and the saw teeth gummed up. Very heavy too, so I was thinking pitch pine too.
 
Hi JonnieFlamingo.
Welcome to the world of the gaffers your work is only just beginning she won't set the world on fire with shear speed but has the looks of a very safe little boat that will look after you and your family in heavy weather or a lumpy sea state.
One thing that is worth considering is a set of proper legs to support her now and if you wish to dry out on a beach very much the way of older boats.
As said pitch pine has a very distinctive smell of resin when cut.
A generator will be a very useful item to have taking care of the hard hand work.
If you get one with a 110v outlet it is worth considering 110v kit it is cheaper than 240v and you will find a lot on ebay.
 
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Pitch Pine ( Pinus rigida) is a native tree to New England. It was quite popular for boat building prior to WW2 as there was a reasonable supply of naturally grown, old growth trees about. Its high resin content made it very rot resistant and some people ranked it second only to teak in its desirability for boat building. Being lighter than teak, it was also felt to be more desirable for small boat construction. However there was a 'geographical' bias to opinions with north Atlantic countries being typically the only place you found it used.

Since the war, the quality of pitch pine has dwindled. That's why recycling old floorboards etc is advocated. However proving quality and provenance is not easy.
 
Good pitch pine will knock you out with the aroma when planed and will stick up all yor saws with resin. Really great material, very durable and will clear all sinuses within 20 feet!!!.

Jon
 
Thank you all for your replies, sound advice re power I think, having this forum as sounding board makes the project feel less daunting. I think the pitch pine question will only be resolved by taking a small plane and checking it out in person and using your tips re smell and appearance. Thanks again and I'll keep you posted. Jonnie
 
Nice to have pitch pine planking and hopefully you will not need to replace any. Larch would be a good alternative. another source of old pitch pine is from old mills and factories where it was commonly used for floor timbers, often in large clear baulks. Remember seeing them 40 years ago when mills were being demolished in Lancashire. If you have the gear to machine timber then reclamation yards are potential sources of old timber.
 
I'm also restoring a gaffer of similar vintage. You might already have done this, but something I have found useful is having a few books about boats that were written more-or-less at the time, as they have "hints and tips" that are not there in books about GRP hulls with modern rigging, and they have pictures of things that broadly don't exist any more. Three that I've found particularly useful are:

Francis B Cooke, "Cruising Hints". I bought a modern compendium edition (this one: http://www.lodestarbooks.com/?wpsc-product=cruising-hints) though you can probably pick up originals if you look around. He's got lots of info about rigging etc that, when he wrote it, was current for the sort of boat you have.

Hiscock's "Cruising Under Sail". This is a 60's book so gaffers were out of date by then, but there were still loads of them around and this book has an enormous number of photos covering all sorts of things that, if all you have is a fairly bare boat, is incredibly useful. Amazon currently have one for £1.35 plus postage and you won't get much else that will help you so much for so little.

Slightly more oddly: Johnstone's "Building a Little Ship". This is long out of print but I've looked and there is one on Amazon at

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-li...ap_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used&sr=&qid=

I bought the latter because it describes (in a very dated way) having a boat built for a pleasure yacht in about 1932, and the boat in question was built by the same builder as my own. That obviously wouldn't apply to you, but it's actually quite interesting to read about how Johnstone solved various problems on a very limited budget, on what to him was a new boat, so he's not precious about "restorations". This one is really not as useful as the other 2 but it does give an interesting perspective and, if nothing else, it's fun reading about how much he paid for things at the time: as someone is asking you for hundreds of pounds for some bit of kit, it might or might not be consoling to know that in 1932 you could buy 6 of them for half a crown :)
 
I've probably got those too, and I find them useful for things like working on the hull, etc. Don't know which gaff rig book you've got but most of us probably have John Leather's which again I have found useful and interesting. The ones I mentioned were more useful, to me at least, when it got down to the nitty gritty of how best to rig the boat, eg Leather gives several different ways to run sheets/halyards/etc but in the form of line drawings with a "whatever works is ok" sort of comment, whereas Cooke and Hiscock have advice and pictures about how to do it on a small boat. I'm not saying that's essential but I found it very useful. You'll find other people quoting Cooke in this forum I think - more so than Hiscock, but for a few quid his wealth of photos is brilliant.

My boat is not dissimilar to yours. I've started the usual website though have not done much with it - you can have a look at http://www.yachtchal.org.uk/
 
In the yard today I was looking at the underside of a 100ft Fife in bare wood, new copper bottom going on, I noticed the very strong smell of turpentine, never noticed it before, I guess that's pitch pine then.

Lovely smell.
 
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