After 3 months work May 12th was scheduled launch day for our replica bronze age boat. We had been working flat out just to get the thing together in time and had no time to test if it was waterproof and make adjustments as planned. We had a relaxed start for the first time in 2 weeks, if 8.30 after…
Having knocked off at 4am last Thursday night we were back at work at 8am Friday am with 30 hours to go to boat launch and lots of work ahead. All we need to do is fix the 4 top planks in place. Pete Clark the organiser of the whole project spent the day pacing outside like an expectant dad…
As far as I can remember this is the longest day I have ever worked. Many years ago I did run two jobs working a seafood restaurant and burger bar in Cocoa Beach Florida but that was just 16 hour days and this was much more fun. This post follows on from the last but must now be around 10pm…
I am back from my Dover boat building project and have a bunch more pics to share over the next few blog posts. It has been quite a ride and folk that have been following the UK news may already know the outcome. I’ll start where I left off with the four main base timbers in place, that is as…
Now I have been working with bronze axes and adzes every day for 2 months and have answered many questions about how to set up the edges and haft them efficiently. There are lots more questions I would love to explore but shall not have the time about the metallurgy of bronze. We did get into this a little when…
Another update on the progress of the bronze age Dover boat. Ancient woodworking specialist Damian Goodburn visited last week and declared this the most complex example of prehistoric woodworking ever reconstructed. Well there is a lot of headscratching and thinking involved and I have to say my understanding of the bronze age has been transformed. The Dover boat is very…
The beauty of building a replica of the Bronze Age boat in Dover is that we are just 100 yards away from the 3,500 year old original. Whilst it has been studied and drawn in great detail there is no way every detail can be recorded but we can go and check fine details on the original boat as we…
So our Dover Bronze Age boat project has got to the stage for steaming the planks. These are heavy oak timbers 20 feet long an inch and a half thick and the first ones we need to bend are also curved cross section so thus increasing their rigidity and acting like a girder. The principle of bending wood is you…
Part of any craftsman’s work is tool maintenance and most serious craftspeople also want to make or adjust their own tools.We have the bronze heads cast for us from moulds made from original heads. One of the difficulties of this is that the originals were cast then hammered or “peened” to shape, work harden and sharpen them. This means they…
We are now about 6 weeks into our build and over the last 3 weeks we have been carving steaming and bending timbers. I have masses of photos so the next few posts will be pretty picture heavy, hope you enjoy, feel free to ask questions in the comments box. This is the upper part of the marquee with Trevor…
