Tips from a Shipwright

[Tynyyn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C22Crc7XHoI

Sometimes you come across a fellow on YouTube who just grabs your attention.  Louis Sauzedde is a shipwright in Rhode Island and has been building wooden boats since he was 14 years old.  Over a half century of boat building has been boiled down into  a couple of dozen videos in which he shows how he builds a skiff.  From going out to the backyard and looking for the right wood to cutting the wood and then putting it together.  His knowledge is second to none and the terminology he uses seems to be a dying art.  I love watching this man and looking at the tools which hang on the wall around his shop.

Currently he has posted the twenty third edition of this series.  Each episode lasts around fifteen minutes.  If you've got some time on your hands and want to learn how to make a sea worthy skiff, just hit the link and enjoy.  His explanations are very good and simple to understand.  He uses both power tools and hand tools and tells you how and why he uses them.

Enjoy.

[Skip J.]

Thanks Dayle!  His description of sawing his logs to certain purposes is great!
Glad to have you on board;

[BrokenOlMarine]

Very interesting

[Guest]

Louis is a great guy to watch.

Every woodworker should build at least one boat in their lifetime. There are many lessons that can be applied to other non-boat woodworking projects.

[Robert Adams]

Yup great videos from him. I aam planning to build a riviera one of here days after we get moved and in our last house.

[s9plus20]

I realized you started old Harleys via kick start, just didnt realize old bandsaws were like that too!!
 

That is a great series! I like his style of giving explanations.
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[frigator]

"Every woodworker should build at least one boat in their lifetime"

Yep, it was my first real build, back in 1996 when all I had was handtools. Built a 14ft row boat with a rockered bottom from plans purchased from the classifieds in Wooden Boat. Local boatbuilding place sold me the Honduran Mahogany and ripped it for me on their TS. They also cut the stem on their bandsaw. They got a kick out of guy with no experience building his first boat. . Learned a lot on that build and collected a lot of C clamps.  I still have lots of silicon bronze fasterners left over from that project. 

[Admiral]

Abut halfway through, this guy is really pleasant to watch and would do well to make a few push sticks....  But when hanging the frames, I liked his use of a metric tape to simplify the layout; its a lot easier to compute in metric than imperial....

Edit:  just watched up to episode 23, last one.  He is an artist with the circular saw, using full size ones and a PC trim saw for many different tasks; I wouldn't necessarily attempt many of the tasks he performs perfectly, too easy to screw up, but he can accomplish these tasks with ease.  Also, use of a power planer was widespread, but he discusses how he modified his for fine adjustment, and it works for him, and he notes that you can easily make a mess of using one if you're not careful, but I'd be a bigger user of handplanes as that's my comfort zone.  He uses a #5 quite liberally, as well as a block plane. I think the power planer is just more efficient for production work.

[Tynyyn]

Louis reminds me of older gentlemen who have a wealth of knowledge and are able to express those ideas in a sensible manner. I bet if you were to set him down over a beer he'd be able to tell a tall tale and make you laugh. What dedication it must be to stay focused on one occupation for your entire life and still love it. He has a career which he will never get tired of, while I have a 27 year job. Wish I had his dedication.

I bet it is a great feeling to build a boat and know it will be a good vessel for twenty five years due to the craftsmanship you instilled in it. Sure, eventually it will rot away, but nothing is permanent, but with careful attention that life expectancy should rise to forty or fifty years. We need more craftsmen like Louis to make youtube videos so our younger generation know how great American Made was. As a country we need to get away from Made in China.

[Stwood_]

I've watched most of his videos. I gotta build a boat someday.