Proper boatbuilding !

I

itchenseadog

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Chandlers Ford
www.hopeandaiddirect.org.uk
http://m.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=uyuZAQJZ7Jc
A terrific film about boatbuilding before "elf n safety". The boats are, I believe, 110ft HDML's (harbour defence motor launches). The harbour in the opening shots is Polperro and I believe they are being fitted out in Looe. I cant make out where the boatyard is.
It takes me back to when I started as an apprentice boatbuilder in 1961, the machinery in the sawmill in particular is identical to that at Howards timber yard in Southampton with unguarded blades everywhere! Many of the methods shown were similar to what we used to do, but we did get a better finish!
 
nostalgia...


And every handsaw would have its teeth re-set and then sharpened by hand. None of this business of a new induction hardened saws costing less than half an hour's pay :(
 
itchenseadog said:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=uyuZAQJZ7Jc
A terrific film about boatbuilding before "elf n safety". The boats are, I believe, 110ft HDML's (harbour defence motor launches). The harbour in the opening shots is Polperro and I believe they are being fitted out in Looe. I cant make out where the boatyard is.
It takes me back to when I started as an apprentice boatbuilder in 1961, the machinery in the sawmill in particular is identical to that at Howards timber yard in Southampton with unguarded blades everywhere! Many of the methods shown were similar to what we used to do, but we did get a better finish!
Click to expand...

Here's a picture from memory lane for you, Howards Timber Yard 1951, I started my life of earning money across the main road in Ted Holden's boat yard repairing steel river barges. small world innit?:D

2-1-0_zpsc87morni.jpg
 
epervier said:
Here's a picture from memory lane for you, Howards Timber Yard 1951, I started my life of earning money across the main road in Ted Holden's boat yard repairing steel river barges. small world innit?:D

2-1-0_zpsc87morni.jpg
Click to expand...

I somewhere have old cine footage of logs being cut at Howards. We used to choose a log in the round and because we bought all our timber there the manager Mr Wyatt used to allow the first cut through the log before accepting or rejecting the log.
The photo even shows my old school, Bitterne Manor Junior !
 
itchenseadog said:
I somewhere have old cine footage of logs being cut at Howards. We used to choose a log in the round and because we bought all our timber there the manager Mr Wyatt used to allow the first cut through the log before accepting or rejecting the log.
The photo even shows my old school, Bitterne Manor Junior !
Click to expand...

Remember it well, wooden pens and ink wells, third of a pint of milk every morning, Miss Adams was my teacher, the school and sport field long gone, my parents first house purchase, 1, Quayside road, 1940's
 
You are right, brings back memories of old days.
We used white lead and linseed as a skin between the double diagonal on steam bent ribs, all clenched copper nailed.H&S???
We made planes to deal with reverse curves near the garboard out of Beech.
My best mate lived in Chafen Road and worked at Ramparts..
Kept his Itchen Ferry on the moorings there.
Many happy memories of the area.
I worked at Berthon in Lymington at that time.
I once worked for 3 months in the mill machining stacking and sticking Iroko to get the moisture content low enough to laminate frames for a 70 ft Motor Yacht.
We had to use a crane to get the slabs of wood onto the trucks to go to the saw, on which you changed the individual teeth.
Belt driven 3 ft diam.. Wedges to stop it jamming up... No extraction..
Those were the days..
 
itchenseadog said:
HDML's were a jack of all trades and were often used for inshore minesweeping as well as other duties.
Click to expand...

True, but HDMLs had twin engines and the boats being built in the film have them boring the sterntube on the centre line. And the HDMLs were double diagonal planked not single skin caulked, and the one in the film is having a funnel fitted and the hull shape is all wrong . . .
 
TimBennet said:
True, but HDMLs had twin engines and the boats being built in the film have them boring the sterntube on the centre line. And the HDMLs were double diagonal planked not single skin caulked, and the one in the film is having a funnel fitted and the hull shape is all wrong . . .
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Having looked at the film in more detail, I can now see that there are a number of different types of vessel shown. The craft in build, as you rightly say, are not HDML's and at the moment I can't identify them. However I can identify the vessels fitting out and at sea as the 112ft Fairmile B of which approx. 650 were built. My father used to collect Fairmiles as they came off the slip from Risdon Beasley's yard at Bitterne Manor and tow them to Portsmouth for final fitting out.
 
itchenseadog said:
"My best mate lived in Chafen Road and worked at Ramparts"

Dave Selmes?
Click to expand...

We share an excellent taste in mates...

I am due to see him in April after the Beer and Natter in Wales..

Hopefully he will have already booked a table at the Feathers in Aberaeron, where he now lives.

Both his son Glyn and my son Adrian have jobs in Marine Engineering..

They probably realized how hard the work is being a boat builder..

There was very little mechanization, few power tools, but brilliant job..

I worked at Palace Quay Boatyard in Beaulieu, building West Solent Scows for 15/- a day.

When I joined Berthon, it was for almost £1 a day..

You could get rich quick in boat building in those days...
 
Anyone in Torbay can sail on a converted Fairmile, the Western Ladies ferries were Fairmiles, and one of the originals is still in use.
 
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