Bits and Pieces

Anyone who has built a boat knows that once the hull is finished there is far more work to be done to finally finish the boat.  And its time-consuming.  Japanese boats are remarkably straightforward in many ways, but nevertheless things still take time.

Takumi spent a couple of days fitting beams and floorboards.  We left them rough sawn for traction and arranged them in the traditional way, though we got creative at the stern where the hull narrows.

I installed the rubrails (koberi) and caprails.  We used clench nails for the koberi, or properly I should say we clenched the nails that we had.  In my experience clenched nails in Japan are copper, made of flat stock like the steel nails.  We were given some small steel nails and so I decided to treat them the same way.  

They are set in a shallow mortise on the outside that gets a copper cover later.  Inside the hull I cut another mortise for the nail to lay in so it would stay flush to the inside face of the planking.  If we had copper nails I would have bent the tip and sent it back into the planking, but the steel nails were pretty stiff so I omitted this step.  

Also forward I built a steeply sloping foredeck called a kappa.  In this part of Japan there are commonly seen on small boats.  I need to get an explanation for this arrangement, which is pretty unique.