Customer Reviews

The New Cold-Molded Boatbuilding: From Lofting to Launching

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a 66 y.o. retiree, working solo, in my second year of building a 34' schooner. I've never built a boat. There is only good news: it's a step-by-step process, the steps are small but many, the harder ones will yield to thinking. DO IT! - you won't regret it. Mr. Parker's book is invaluable, and densely packed with good advice on every page. Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding also highly recommended (for attitude adjustment), and the west system/Gougeon brothers' one also. A sailboat may be the most beautiful object that ordinary men have ever achieved. Or extraordinary ones, for that matter. Good luck! The big Festool "Rotex" sander, a makita battery-powered impact driver, epoxy and a bosch power hand planer will be your friends for life - money well spent.
stephen sittler

Excellent technical information.
Well illustrated with photographs and drawings.
Analytical in organization, construction topics with invaluable index.
Directed at a slightly larger construction than average.
Terminology only slightly salty, but a good sailing vocabulary (or dictionary) will help.

The idea of cold-molding a boat (using thinner woods laminated with epoxy or polyester and a glass or synthetic cloth) has intrigued me for more than 30 years now. A lot has changed for the better in that time.

The method allows someone with average woodworking skills and a nominal disdain for the dangers of chemical coatings to create a boat that can provide generations of pleasure without the continuing demands a wooden boat makes on time and wallet. This is not to say that such cold molded boats are maintenance free, nor inexpensive however!

While much of Mr. Parker's book is related to the construction of a large (44 feet) boat, the information is invaluable regardless of boat size. It seems likely he would recommend something a bit smaller for your first attempt, but I got the feeling (I'm fighting the urge still) that even I could build that cruiser and head for the Caribbean.

The technical information alone, replete with careful practical and experiential considerations, makes the volume well worth adding to your bookshelf if you are planning on making, rather than buying, a boat, or if you just enjoy the pleasures of fleshing out your dreams with a significant bit of knowledge and an understanding of craftsmanship.

If you are serious about wooden boats, whether to dream of or build, I would put this on the shelf together with titles by John Gardner, Samuel Devlin, Iain Oughtred and John Brooks & Ruth Ann Hill.

If you want to build your own sailboat, this is the BEST - bar none - book you can get.

There are TONS of books out there (I know, I've read them all, or just about), but this one is the best.

I am building a 52' schooner with this book - even though it gives more information for building a 44' sloop - and it's going VERY well.

The author helps you avoid trial-and-error mistakes, and that alone is worth a hundred (a thousand?) times the price of the book.

Also, he doesn't lie or cajole you into thinking that building a sailboat is a quick easy thing to do. It is NOT.

The boat I'm building, with the author's advice, and according to his reckoning, should take between 6,000 and 7,000 hours of work. The materials are not that expensive - depending on where you live, I'm guessing anywhere between $30,000 and $60,000 - but of COURSE the time you spend cannot be counted... This has GOT to be a labor of love.

In any case, when I'm done building my boat, it will be worth half a million (EASY) on the open market.

This is a terrific book. Don't waste your time reading a lot of other books: buy this one.

Ten years of my life's worth of advice...

If you plan to build a big boat, such as the live-aboard sailing boat pictured on the cover, this is absolutely your book- 5 stars! It is thorough and comprehensive. If you are looking to build a smaller boat, such as the cold-molded, mahogany speed boats offered by the popular internet plan seller we all know and love, this book would need to be supplemented and/or substituted in different areas by another publication. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the book would prove useful for any size of boat. Because of emphasis on larger craft, however, I would give it 4 stars for smaller boats. 5 stars + 4 stars = 4.5 stars, which rounded off = 5 stars.

I was been in the boat building industry for many years, read many books on the subject, and have been building a few myself since then, but Reuel B. Parkers's The New Cold-Molded Boatbuilding covered details and considerations I had never seen before. The say we learn from our mistakes, but you can learn a lot from Mr. Parker's experiences without the costs of making them yourself.

As an avid reader of boatbuilding books, I would say that this one of the better ones that I have read. It's chocked full of useful details and good photos and illustrations. Almost a five, but I've read better. Easy to follow building steps covering all aspects of building boats this particular way. I say that because there's more than one way to skin a cat. If you are interested in building a quality boat, this book is one that you should keep in your arsenal. For an inexperienced want-to-be boat builder like myself, the cold-molding process is simple to follow and should yield a boat to last a lifetime.

A very comprehensive book. Will be of interest to any boat builder, not only cold molders.

Well writen, but when trying to relate all the topics of building a boat they turn out to be treated very quickly. Even so a very good boock for a general picture.

The topic of the book is interest to a select few of us who like to build boats. The author like to build boats, seems to like to write but is not a writer. His descriptions of the steps are long winded and not descriptive. The photos that are refered to ar too small and lack teh requried detial to emphasize the points and tasks being desribed. Th ephots are about 2 x 2 inches, black and white and of low printed resolution. I am sorry that purchased this book.

This is the first book to read for anyone wanting to build a boat. It adds new technology to past proven methods, a must for anyone wanting to build a realiable and seaworthy boat. Even top designers refer to Reul's knowledge and expierence.

Jim Kessler