Questions & Answers

Q: Some of the measurements are off a little in Featherweight Boatbuilding, what are the correct measurements?

A: Here are the measurement corrections for the Wee Lassie Drawings:

The length of building board as shown should be Ten foot Seven and one quarter inches. Actually it can be any length, the mold spacings are the only important item here. I often set up a wee lassie on a building board originally made for a much longer canoe. The overhang on each end makes it a little easier in placing the outer stem.

A: Here are the measurement corrections for the Wee Lassie 2 Drawings:

Stem mold. Change the hight measurement from 15 5/8" to 15 3/8"
The Thirteen inch measurement should be 12 3/4"

Mold number two- at Nine inches should be 13 3/8"

Mold number five- at Thirteen inches should be 3"

Mold number six- at Eight inches should be 3 7/8"

The main thing is to fair your points, we use very close spacings on the measurements for just that reason. In a normal table of offsets your points would be three or four inches apart, and mistakes might not be obvious.

Q: Just how thick should the stem be?

A: Five or six 1/8" (more or less-whatever will bend comfortably) thick strips compose the inner stem.  This of course is mounted to the stem mold with masking tape in between otherwise the boat will never come off the mold!  

Q: How long should the building board be?

A: It is really not significant exactly how long or short it is (how far out it sticks beyond the boat.) It is good to have it stick out as far as the stem to put a clamp on it to hold the end of the strips "down".  Later when you are sanding you may wish it was a bit shorter... Featherweight Boatbuilding shows a reasonable length.   To lay up my molds start in the middle and work out both ways using the station locations from the plans.   

Q: I ordered the plans for the Wee Lassie 2 from you and I have a question about the spacing on the forms. For the bow section the spacing is clearly 13" but the stern section is 12" on the plans. I'm not clear what the exact measurement is. Can you please enlighten me what spacing you use. I'm setting the forms on the strongback and want to get it right.

A: The Wee Lassie 2 is not symetrical. The dimensions shown (and described in the email question) are correct. To our knowledge there are no errors in the fullsized plans.

Q: I started to make full-size patterns for the Wee Lassie 2, but it seems that some of the demensions for the profile/keel may not be correct as shown. Do you have any corrections for those demensions?

A: This may be one of the discrepancies taken care of in question 1 above. Perhaps the spaces between the molds do not add up to the overall length due to the fact that the mold thickness is not factored in on the plans or not being factored by the reader. In any case, if the molds are set up as specified, no one should be overly concerned about the overall length of the boat being one inch one way or the other. In fact, when stripping, how the ends are cut off will cause a variance at each end that is negligible. moving a mold 1/2 inch or so in any direction would have no measureable effect. Using the full sized plans should help! Also - not worrying about the overall length will help. Lay out the molds according to the spacing and it is ready to go. No need to measure the overall length and try to compare it to anything.