The Boatbuilder's Apprentice: The Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boa

Additional The Boatbuilder's Apprentice: The Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boa Information

Learn the Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boats

Whether you are contemplating your first-ever boatbuilding project or trying to decide what design you'd like to build next, Greg Rössel can help. Here's just a glimpse of what's inside this complete overview of wooden boatbuilding:

Greg Rössel writes with warmth, wit, and an engaging style. The Boatbuilder's Apprentice is a must guide for anyone planning or even dreaming about building a wooden boat.

“Greg Rössel is a Renaissance man. While there are many talented boatbuilders in the world, only a handful are also good teachers. Even fewer can write or illustrate effectively. Yet this author is highly skilled in each of these areas. . . . The Boatbuilder's Apprentice is a successful blend of technique and wisdom, and is, I believe, destined to become a classic.”-Karen Wales, WoodenBoat Review

What Customers Say About The Boatbuilder's Apprentice: The Ins and Outs of Building Lapstrake, Carvel, Stitch-and-Glue, Strip-Planked, and Other Wooden Boa:

You can pretty much find everything that is in this book for free on the net. Well written and a nice coffe table book but definitely not the lexicon of traditional methods I was hoping for. Provides a concise overview of the basic construction methods but does not provide any detail on practical low-tech historical methods like I was hoping for.

At that point, they may find that they've bitten off more than they're willing to chew and just chuck it, or they may actually begin building the boat before reaching that conclusion and ending up chucking considerably more in terms of time and money. What do they require in the way of special tools, time, skills, money, maintenance. But that's OK, since that's not the purpose of this book, and he covers step-by-step procedures very well indeed in his other book, "Building Small Boats" (WoodenBoat Books). All too often, first-time boat builders select a design mainly because they like the looks of it (often making their decision based on a small-scale profile plan or photo that they see on a magazine or online), order the plans, and then start trying to figure out how to build the thing. That said, there is plenty of red meat here for even relatively experienced builders. How difficult are they. Anyone who has built, say, a stitch-and-glue boat will find much useful advice in his discussion of techniques for the other construction methods (and vice versa), and his discussions of lofting and lines-taking are superbly clear and of value to anyone who is intimidated by these often confusing subjects.So my recommendation is: buy this one if you need help deciding where to start, and then go on to "Building Small Boats" or one of dozens of other books for specific how-to advice when you're ready to build.

It assumes very little knowledge on the reader's part and proceeds to explain just about everything that the first time boatbuilder should know before he spends money on plans or planks. He covers just about everything you should know before you buy your first set of plans.What Rossel doesn't cover here are many of the step-by-step procedures needed to actually build a boat. He recommends specific boat types as good projects for beginners. Like: how to figure out what kind of boat is suitable to your needs. He explains how to set up a good, cheap, workable, *portable* boatshed.

Then they discover that the design is intended for a certain method of construction (lapstrake, cold-molding, whatever) and they buy a book that explains how to do it. Once you know the answers to these questions, *then* you'll be ready to decide what boat to build and how to build it.Author Rossel gives the ins and outs of tools and materials. Like: what are the differences between carvel, lapstrake, cold-molding, strip-building (etc). Maybe they even finish the boat, and then find out that, while it looks nice, it doesn't really suit their needs.This is the book that every aspiring boatbuilder should read first -- before choosing the design, before deciding what construction method to use. Like: how to assess the performance characteristics any given boat design and determine whether they will satisfy said needs.

I refer to it, and Rossel's earlier book, frequently. This book is perfect for that.It is equally well suited to the beginner.

It really is the next best thing to being a real life apprentice to a master boatbuilder. I wish it had been around when I first started messing around with wooden boats.

Although it's not too old, my copy of Rossel's book is dog-eared and stained. Because many of those only come up infrequently, it's easy for even the relatively experienced amateur builder to need a little help remembering how it's done.

If you can't build a boat with the help of this book, maybe you should consider taking up golf, or some other hobby. That's because it lives not on a shelf but on the work bench in my shop.

Building a boat involves hundreds of small tasks, some of them a bit tricky.