Monday, July 23, 2012

Virginia's Mast


Students and staff stand beside "Virginia's" mast, donated by Orman Hines (in cap).

Determining the radius and taper of the spar.

Wesley and Kelsey squaring up the spar.

It takes a lot of muscle to remove all the wood that isn't part of the spar!

Wesley and teacher Eric Varney working on the day's blog entry.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Making Spars

Vocabulary word of the day-
Spar: Horizontal or vertical piece of wood that holds up the sails.

This summer at MFS we will be making spars; our goals are to make two spars and at least one frame. We will do some rigging as well. Today we cut down the sides of one spar. We also found the measurements of the radius at each of the four quarters so we could see how it will taper. Some of us worked outside in the sun for most of the day while others worked in the shed. If you would like to see what’s going on with the building of Virginia, you can come see in the freight shed. It is the big brown building in downtown Bath at the foot of Lombard Street on the Kennebec River. We hope to see you soon!
Blog entry composed by,

Kelsey Brick
Bianca D’Arcangelo

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Opening day for the 2012 Summer


 How to square the mainmast spar.  Shipwright Rob Stevens sketches of squaring the pine log into a spar are shown with return student Bianca D'Arcangelo and Kelsey Brick, a two year return and Bianca's sister

Preparing to square the spar.  Return student Caleb Burgess and  two year students Charles Mills, Wesley Blum are measuring cuts that will be made across the log grain that will allow rapid removal of large pieces using a chisel, or an an ax or adz.

Squaring the mainmast spar.  Bianca D'Arcangelo, Charles Mills are hand planing the spar, Teacher Eric Varney, Shipwright George Sprague applying an adz to the top the spar along with Caleb Burgess and Master Shipwright Rob Stevens