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 Fantastic ResourceApr 08, 2008
Great book for a beginner. There are a lot of details that require more research, but it's a great jumping off point.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Good one to add to the shelfJun 11, 2006
I bought this for my husband and to help me understand the process of building. It succeeded for me, and James said it gives a good over-view of boat building and answered a lot of questions, but needs to be backed up with Details of Classic Boat Building if someone is actually building their first wooden boat.
10 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 A poor guide for beginnersNov 16, 2004
Mr. McIntosh is quite obviously a master of his craft. Sadly, though, he's an exceedingly poor teacher, and one would need to be both in order to write this book well. Needlessly (sometimes infuriatingly) verbose, the author buries critical theses in an avalanche of lyrical verbiage that achieves nothing other than obscuration of the point. Illustrations that accompany the text rarely help to clarify the written instruction. An application or two of the K.I.S.S. principle would have worked wonders here. Recommended only for those who already know how to build a wooden boat.
17 of 18 found the following review helpful:
Build it Bud's Way!!Mar 25, 2003
The day I first met the late New England boat builder Bud McIntosh he was down in the hold of a schooner's hull setting keel bolts--and singing Homer's Iliad in ancient Greek. He stopped when he saw me peaking through a gap in the planks (probably amused by my mouth hanging open in wonder and awe) and asked: "You like boats?" Well I did, and I was there to ask him a question about planking a skiff I was building for my family. Bud not only answered that question, but he answered many more boat and woodworking-related questions over the ensuing years. When I began to combine writing with my woodworking, Bud gave me the most valuable and fundamental piece of advice I needed to hear: "Write what you know--and if you enjoy doing what you know, people will enjoy reading what you have to say about it." He should know, because that is exactly what he did in his own book. Not only does How to Build a Wooden Boat offer us one of the clearest explanations of building a traditional wooden boat ever presented, it does so in a way filled with humor and lively anecdotes. (Don't miss the one about what happened when a bunch of tipsy boatbuilders volunteered to build their late buddy's coffin). Though I never went on to build boats of this scale myself, I continue to consult Bud's book whenever I want a definitive answer on how to lay out curved components, or design joints to shed water, or find an answer to any number of questions where the technology of traditional wooden boats can give us proven answers.
12 of 12 found the following review helpful:
One of the Best of Its KindDec 01, 2002
First written as a series of articles for the Wooden Boat magazine, this is a standard textbook for those who want to embark on the grand pastime of wooden boatbuilding. "Boatbuilding" by Howard Chapelle is, of course, the all time classic in this arena, but the pre-WWII tome does not have modern powertools in mind and the maritime language is a cypher to the modern reader. McIntosh, by comparison, uses easily understood expressions and jargon commonly found in any maritime dictionary. But if you are really about to build a boat, DO NOT let any one book be your guide. Buy as extensive a collection of books as you can get your hands on. Books are cheap, and reading them much less of a labor, than the money you will poor into your dream boat in the garage, and the back-breaking man-hours you will put in.
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based on 12 reviews
