Readers Tips For Wooden Boat owners

This is a collection of readers tips sent in by visitors to this site.
Wooden boaters are a canny lot.
Every day people are working out new or easier ways to do something.
Every day new products become available, some from totally unrelated fields but which are useful to the wooden boater. 

click here If you have any tips to offer or comments to make we would love to hear from you.
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How to prevent paint from skinning over in the can.

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Tool Box

What is it that is missing from every list of tools given by any builder, book, plan supplier etc?

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The beginning of wisdom is a firm grasp of the obvious...

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How to  Cut Straight and Squarea using a Hand Saw.

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How to Remove Blood Stains from Sails

And keep your blood pressure down.
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How to fight Dry Rot, using "Impel Rods" 

a great tip form Susan

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Use the new tool Roto Rasp with your angle grinder and you will cut the stripping and sanding time and effort needed, by several times.

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A great link for Carver Mariner 28' enthusiasts

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Composite nails are fantastic.

Fantastic plastic

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How to stop water from splashing up the centerboard trunk of a dinghy.

It may involve stealing from your children/grandchildren.
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Boat Building for free using recycled found stuff.

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What to consider when buying a boat

Balance your dreams with the practicalities, don’t let either your head or your heart rule the other.
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Drilling a clean hole
I find that when drilling into wood with either an auger or a spade bit, if you run it in reverse till the cutters score the wood it helps in making a clean cut hole.

 I like the scrap wood idea but sometimes I have trouble with the alignment


From William in Boston, MA.

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Letting go a mooring, for the Single hander.

An easy cat hitch.

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Make your own Varnish.

A recipe for sucess?



Sometime even the most simple idea is the perfect solution to a problem.

But all too often the simple idea is the one that gets overlooked.

This is especially true in this era of so called ‘hi tec’ solutions to everything and highly advertised solutions to problems that we previously didn't know we had.

Over the centuries wooden boat builders have developed many simple ingenious solutions to the craft of building wooden boats, unfortunately many of these have been lost or overlooked.

And there are others that the craftsman takes for granted but which aren’t known to or so obvious to the amateur builder.

So, if you have anything at all that you think is worth passing on to others this is the place to post it.

And on behalf of future readers I thank you for taking the time to pass on your readers tips.

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What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see the Tips contributed by other visitors to this page...

Tool Box  I just want to say that something is missing from every list of tools given by any builder, book, plan supplier etc.

I have asked friends and associates ...

The beginning of wisdom is a firm grasp of the obvious...  Over the years, I've boiled it down to just a few lines.

They come from production engineering, but they apply widely...

Preventing troublesome ...

Borates to fight Dry Rot  Ahoy,

Living on the Edge Those of you with older boats that have a few soft spots-

We had very good luck with using borates as a preservative ...

Prevent Paint Skinning Over in a Can  Paint will skin in a can from moisture vapor in the air, so you must isolate the paint from the air.

Inert gases, such as nitrogen and argon are great,...

How to Remove Blood Stains from Sails  I was once crewing in a race for a skipper who was proud of his new main sail.

It did look splendidly white and crisp, however it didn't ensure us a ...

Forget long and painstaking sanding using sanders  Use a new tool Roto rasp with your angle grinder and your will cut time and effort needed several times.

It will never burn your surface and it can ...

28' Carver Yacht Website  This link is for 28' Carvers only.

But there is a lot of great info for any boat.

Paul Mitchell, from the province of Quebec, Canada shares ...

Composite nails are fantastic  I just strip planked a 16' cedar canoe with RAPTOR composite nails.

The nails did not have to be removed; they sanded smooth and help the strips better ...

Water Splashing up the Centerboard Trunk of Dinghy 
IF you have water splashing up your centerboard trunk cut a length of Swim Noodle split it tie a small string around the center and shove in the ...

Boat Building for Free   I'm building a boat for free as I'm using thing I have found discarded.

This is true and as a skilled rigger and engineer I must add that anyone can ...

Test  Test