Steam puffs from the end of the pipe. Inside 12 strips of prime, straight-grain ash take on a darker hue and emit a woodland scent as they soak up the moisture. With gloved hands six hot strips are whisked out and in choreographed movements carried to the mould. Now comes the tension as the wood is bent to meet the curve, its damp fibres straining as they stretch into their new shape. A second pair of hands swiftly adds clamps along the length and in 90 seconds the process is complete and we breathe a sigh of relief.
Making Stems
Like many wooden boats the prospector has curved stems rising up from the keel to join the planks at the bow and stern. To form this shape strips of ash are steam bent and laminated together with epoxy. Steaming gives the wood the best chance of bending without splitting. As this was our first steam bending project we rehearsed the procedure a number of times, and soaked the wood briefly beforehand. Our steam box was lent to us by a fellow maker, extended with some offcut drainpipe to fit the 4’ lengths. Fed by a wallpaper stripper, after 30 minutes the strips were wet, , and ready for bending. In the end the whole thing worked beautifully.
Steam puffs from the steam box
A week later once the pieces had mostly dried on the moulds we removed them and hung them to continue drying. Despite tying the ends together there was some spring-back after un-clamping, though this was largely corrected during laminating as the strips were re-clamped on the mould whilst being glued together.
The hardest part of laminating was keeping the strips laterally aligned. There’s probably around 1/32" of variation where the strips slipped during clamping. Not perfect, but part of the learning curve and this will get cleaned up when the stems are shaped.
Once the epoxy had cured, the lamination was complete and we were left with four finished stems, two inners and two outers, ready for planking. Next, the moulds will be mounted on the strong back and the stems shaped to receive the planks. It’s the first time the boat has existed as something more than timber and drawings and feels like the build is properly under way.
