I began my experience as a woodworker years ago in the fishing village of San Pedro, California working for a small boat company that built Yawl boats. I knew nothing about woodworking then, but evidently they liked my penmanship in my application. The boats had glass hulls, but thwarts, rails, rudders, tillers, spars etc., were all fitted teak, mahogany and spruce. The shop would also do repairs on other boats. It was a good and satisfying experience and I can say I didn’t cut a lot of right angles.
Wooden Boat Magazine, Fine Woodworking, The Shipping News and the drool-worthy, Nautical Quarterly Magazine were ever present in the shop. A favorite task was crafting mahogany rudders with teak cheeks and hand riveted, bronze fittings. It was satisfying work and I once got caught up and did a run of 10, which I think upset the owner a bit, as we typically did no more than 5 boats a year.
The boat shop was a great experience. I was proud to see “boatwright” on my tax returns and I was able to work with two excellent craftsmen, Brad Harris and Will Beaumont. Some Fridays after work we would head out into the harbor’s “hurricane gulch” as it was called, to sail and enjoy the California evening. Sometimes we would get “knocked down” which could be quite a cold dunking in the winter. It was a great life.
Forty years later i found myself tearing out and replacing an old redwood deck around my house. Although no longer sound enough for its original use, I could’t imagine just trashing all of that redwood, so I decided to use it for furniture and once again found myself with plane in hand working wood.
It was at least 30 year old stock. This is Southern California, so it was dry, and although a bit delicate, even crumbly in parts, was stable and had a beautiful color once finished. The two pieces on my home page were built using this stock, as were several other pieces in the gallery.
