Customer Reviews

Planking & Fastening (The WoodenBoat Series)

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

 

 

I don't know why the other reviewer bought this book. This is a collection of articles by different authors from Woodenboat magazine regarding ... planking and fastening. It's not really a fun book like some boat design books but more of a manual on how to complete a boat. If you're building a tradional(non-plywood)wood boat, you'll find at least one and probably several articles in here that will more than pay for the book in time and money saved. I gave it 4 stars because it could be a bit better organized.

I found this book very informative and interesting. I highly suggest reading it entirely before you begin your project in order that you have as good an understanding of these concepts as possible. It is a collection of articles from Woodenboat Magazine specifically about planking and fastening issues. Some of the information may seem esoteric but that's what wooden boat building is. I see that one of the reviewers has had difficulty understanding its terms and I concur that this book is not for the novice- or for that matter the uncommitted. If you are a novice, as I was before I began the repairs, I suggest getting out a dictionary and making the commitment to figure out what these folks are writing about. This book paid dividends for us and was like having a professional boat builder there beside us- what could be better than that? When we were done with our repairs the sailboat didn't take on a single teaspoon of water- good luck with yours.

Well, my criticism is not so much about the book, as it is about the lack of detail available about actual contents. There was no way to search inside the book on-line. Googling the book gave little more info than the brief bit on Amazon.

I was looking for a book that not only told you how to put a plank on, but to finish the job... pound cotton in the seams and pay them with sealant. This was the only book in the Wooden Boat series that would seem to possible address this, but no. There seems to be a real lack of info about this, and what sealants to use, etc. Oh, there is info. on line in forums, but bring up the subject and within a couple hours folks are insulting each other and slinging mud, etc. There is apparently a lot of controversy, and little real info.

Good book about actual construction, but it to the point of a hull sitting there with open seams. I will keep looking.

On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being written for the novice and 10 being written for the professional, I definitely have to rate this book a 10 for it's technical difficulty. The author apparently feels it's more important to impress the reader with how much he knows and all the fancy words that a "real" professional would use rather than write an easy to follow how-to book that most novices can follow. This is not to say that this is the only marine how-to author who is guilty of this. However, this guy pushes it way over board (no pun intended). After spending 15 minutes with this book, I had to pack it up and send it back to whence it came. Even the pictures were difficult to follow. Sorry, Pete. Maybe I'll come across one of your other books that I can understand a little more easily. But this one had me baffled from the word go.