How to Determine a Waterline Without a Laser and Caulking the Stem. S2-E31
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- In this episode of the Art of Boat Building Bob Emser tells us how to determine a waterline on the small sailboat, the Haven 12 1/2. In addition he give us a follow up on caulking the stem of the boat with cotton caulk. After an introduction for waterline terms a demonstration of how to locate and scribe the waterline and the boot stripe without a laser are shown.
“If you’re going to make it, make it beautiful.”
Bob Emser
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Carvel Planking Playlist:
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Haven 12 1/2 Playlist:
• Season 2 - Haven 12 1/2
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It’s amazing how fast 22 minutes flies by. Thanks for the longer episode. Love it. She’s going to be a beautiful boat!
Thanks
FANTASTIC!
Thank you Bob for demonstrating this technique. I was expecting to hear you say "Now we'll scribe in the water line, but first we need to make a scribe knife to do it." followed by another of your fantastic tool making videos. The hacksaw blade was a neat trick. Thanks again, take care and stay well.
As an educator with an interest in boats, always keen to see a good instructional video like this. Many thanks Bob!
So cool how you did that! And so important to the appearance of the final product.
You are a natural teacher, I love your explanations of all these techniques. Thank you!
Thanks Billy!!
DYI laser level old school - brilliant. At first I was like why do you have the support beam so dang why and then it became so obvious as you rotated the string around the entire hull. Another great video Bob. Thanks for sharing!
It takes a lot of patience to build a wooden boat. Watching you work on yours Bob is very relaxing.
Once again, a master class in small boat construction.
Thanks so much, I glad you're enjoying the videos!
You are a terrific teacher.
Really enjoyed this one, thanks Bob. I dig the quiet methodical nature of these videos
Thanks for your kind comment and for watching along with the build.
You did a good job explaining the job and showing us how you went about laying out the line.
Thanks Richard!
Thank you so much. I find your explanation of the waterline interesting. Always thought the painted waterline is painted higher as a visual upper limit where anti-fouling is to be applied. This I assumed on account of the seawater contacting the hull above the designed wateline or loaded waterline when the boat heels in a seaway. But I have always wondered about the significance of the LWL. Is this a safety feature where one should not load a boat over and beyond it? I think LWL accounts not only boat weight and crew, but also half or two-third of provisions. So it would be prudent not to load above and beyond LWL? Hope you can share your thoughts on this.
I'm 29 from italy and i love your videos, the way you explain things and how you do the things you do. It also seems pretty clear that you can handle the economic and management side in a competent way and the general order of your shop and the mindset in which things are set up is all the more proof of that. I would love to find someone like you to mentor me trough all of it and get the help and the passion in return. Keep up the great job!
Thank you very much! I'd like to encourage you to schedule a call with me. I've got some ideas I think you'll like.
You can use this link to schedule a call.
calendly.com/artofboatbuilding/boat-building-conversation
I'll look forward to speaking with you.
@@TheArtofBoatBuilding can't wait!
Я теж думаю про це, переглядаючи його відео 😊 Але я старий 😢
I totally agree, the optical illusion that the varying distance between the L.W.L. and B.S.L. defeats, totally makes it look like a congruent parallel line from the side on that complex multi-curvature side of the boat. Fascinating!
😮
Wow, you need a lot of room to strike the water line. He is right though, the increase in width of the boot strap looks right. Nice vid Bob.
Excellent video and a painstaking process. I can only begin to imagine how expected weight distribution plays into the architect’s determination if the waterline. I don’t remember, but you must have ensured that the strong back was level, planning for this moment. And the hacksaw scribe against the batten! Ingenious - and a trick non-boatbuilders can add to their repertoire. Thanks again.
Sajones, están locos midiendo en fracciones de pulgadas !!! Muy lindo video
😂😂
Super helpful and well explained. I need to adjust the waterline on my peapod and was wondering how to do it, now I know!
😊
so prosaic, neat and accurate as usual.
Another excellent video. The title of your channel could not be better. You truly are demonstrating the art of boat building. Thank you for taking us along!
Thanks Scott!
Very good explanation of boot stripes and water lines, really enjoy watching.
I really enjoyed learning about the waterline. Thank you!
My Pleasure, thanks for watching and your kind comment!
A great instructional video Bob. I really enjoy watching your channel. Thanks, Dave
Hello,Bob!Your Art is always perfect!
Beautiful work, Bob! The boat is looking better and better! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Very enjoyable watching you use your God given skills to build this beautiful boat.
Enjoyed watching you work on Acorn to Arabella too. They are building a beautiful boat as well.
Thank you for sharing you talents.
Jack in Missouri
Thanks Jack!
Great work Bob, keep going strong
Wonderfully explained, the lines.
Love the music, and the artistry!
So glad your enjoying the music. Thanks!
Another great video Bob. Thanks
Always a pleasure watching...cheers...rr Normandy, Fra.
Thank you Bob! I really like your channel as the boat is small compared to Arabella or Tally Ho and you can explain many processes and construction details in every chapter. Thank you! You are making me think when I can start building my own one
Thanks! That's great that your thinking of building a boat. You may be aware of this Kenneth Grahame quote from the Wind and the Willows
"Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely noting - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats"
Look forward to hearing what you will build!
Cheers
@@TheArtofBoatBuilding I would like to start by building a mediterranean traditional boat called "llaut" here in Catalonia and in the balearic islands and set it with a lateen rigg. For sure I'll let you know if I ever start.
I did not know the quote. Totally true! Many thanks again Bob! 😁
Thanks. I always wondered about how that was done.
In the video you mentioned that red lead primer is not available to you. Curious why not as it seems to be readily available. Really enjoying the build of your Haven and looking forward to the next episode!
Perfection as always sir. ,,,,,,,,,,,/),,,,,,,,,,,,fair winds my good man.
Very informative , and relaxing to watch, although I guess there is a lot of internal tension to doing this . One question , when you establish t he first side , why can you not use large dividers to strike the second side from the center of the keel at equal distances,
And no, I have no boat building experience so feel free to use this as teaching moment .
Thanks for your patience
Hi Mark,
This is very close to what I did. All will be shown in the next video.
Thanks for your question and watching.
Cheers
Wow!
Beautiful work!!
Where is your woodshop?
Thank you for sharing your amazing skills!
Thanks you’re so kind.
Located in Eureka, Illinois, USA
Thanks for watching!
Cheers
Отакої! Так це Великі Озера?! Затишно там у вас.
@@hanssiceberg8837 cant read your language...
@@ladraode9dedos409 , i am sorry 😔
great video
Great episode. I was curious whether it might could make sense to use the laser level, but then raise the boat the requisite dimensions and then shoot the lwl and boot stripe.
In any case, the batten and string method was fascinating in its simplicity and good result.
Thanks Mark. Many boat builders use laser levels. Without a lot of lifting and moving the boat it seemed impractical. I'm also interested in demonstrating traditional methods.
Thanks for watching.
This is very cool and a great video. Watching it, I wondered if a laser level might work to set the lines.
😊 Це справжня стара школа
Brilliant!👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Hi Bob. Did you consider putting a bright light at the correct level as far from the boat as possible and using the shadow cast to define the water line? I used this technique as an engineer, underground, when I wanted an near horizontal line on a curved and very uneven surface. The boat looks very elegant!
Great video, as alway, Bob. I’m curious if a laser level would have been faster, easier and more accurate for marking those water lines?
Michael Haas maybe after lifting the whole strongback to enable using the level
Thanks for watching Michael. Without a lot of lifting and moving the boat it seemed impractical. I'm also interested in demonstrating traditional methods and using them when appropriate.
Cheers,
Another great video. It's really coming along. Are you going to be doing any video on your visit to Steve at A2A? Or is that all on his channel? It's really cool to see independent content creators getting together to help each other. Well done!
Nothing better than a sharp looking boot stripe. I have a question unrelated to this video. As I cut my floors, quarter sawn white oak to reduce tangential expansion, a question comes up. The frames will be riveted square to the floors. This seems to be problem, given that the frames will be installed square to the battens. Which allows them to eventually lay square to the planking. However, when you fasten the frames square to the floors you will, maybe not much, but you will be lifting the frames off the battens to square them with the floors. Which is going to leave you frames less then square to at least the garboard plank and maybe the next plank up. Is this an important matter and if so, is there a correction for it?
Great video as always, I thought you would have to scribe the water line from the bow and the stern not just the stern. Because of the height different of the bottom of the lines, Have I got that whole thing wrong?
Terrific!
Sorry to be so late to the party, I'm watching from the beginning of the series, but I have a quick question. I know your in IL and built this craft for use on fresh water. I'm on cape cod so if I ever end up building a boat it will be a seafaring vessel. I know that salt water provides more buoyancy, so would that affect the location of the various water lines?
Great question! You're correct a boat is more buoyant in saltwater, it floats about 3% higher. The Haven 12 1/2 is designed as a saltwater craft. The Haven has a 18" draft ( The distance between the waterline and the keel ) Therefore, it will ride 1/2" lower in freshwater. This is one of the purposes of the boot strip. Regardless of water type the actual waterline should fall on the boot strip. It's also there to take up the differences in the amount of equipment and number of crew members aboard at a given time.
Thanks for watching.
Cheers,
Bob
@@TheArtofBoatBuilding Hey Bob, thanks for the reply. Great info. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. All your content will be indispensable if I ever build a boat. Thanks again. Cheers! -Matt
Would it be possible to elevate one end of your construction frame so that the projected water line would be parallel to the floor? Then a relatively simple scribe could constructed to mark the line.
Hello Bob, At frame 6:04 you are holding a model boat with it's waterline in green and it looks like the waterline is going up at each end and the curvature in the middle is down from the gunwales (like a smile). At frame 17:27 where you have nailed that piece of wood the curvature is the opposite, it's going up towards the gunwales and down from the keel (upside down smile). Am I seeing this wrong?
The model is just a general reference. when I painted it I did not measure where it would be just did it by eye. So don’t go by that. You are most likely seeing it right. The line on the boat is correct that’s what’s important.
Is there any reason to use a caulking mallet other than tradition? Most any hammer will do right?
Right on thanks
Very interesting, but a few questions.
Could a laser be used to lay out the waterline?
What keeps the cotton caulking from rotting?
Did the designer establish the waterline by the longitudinal trim in relation to the center of buoyancy and CG? What I heard was set by eye appeal.
Thanks for the detailed tutorial
Yes, many boat builder enlist the help of a laser level. Without a lot of lifting and moving my boat it seemed impractical. I'm also interested in demonstrating traditional methods and using them when appropriate. The cotton will be sealed which I cover in the next episode. The designer sets the waterline by getting the weight of the boat and the density of the displaced hull to equal. (the L.W.L. Loaded WaterLine)You're correct the painted waterline is raised up for aesthetic and practical reasons.
Cheers,
Couldn’t you have rotated the construction platform 90 degrees to allow the laser level to sit farther away, and then shim the construction platform 5” on one side? 🤔 Beautiful and fascinating stuff.
If you raised the stern the near 5" then wouldn't the laser line work just fine? I owned a commercially made GRP sailboat that was about 3" down at the stern. Never could figure out why the actual and designed w.l. never lined up, maybe they used way more resin aft, but for a 22' boat it must have been way off.
Maybe its too late but since they're symmetrical, can't you just use paper to copy the measurements you just did on the starboard side of the boat then transfer them to the port side. This way you don't have to move stuff around?
For the life of me, I really can't see how the Corking malet is easier or better than a normal hammer.
It isn't in the seeing, it is in the feeling. The balance is far different, more even than regular hammer which is (and needs to be) head heavy. "Caulking mallet".
The face of the caulking mallet is wood instead of metal like a hammer. There is a difference in the character of the strike. Wood absorbs some of the force of the blow, so there is less bounce-back. Less bounce-back means less fatigue over the course of a day's work. The metal on metal contact from using a hammer would mushroom the end of your tool over time, too. All of that aside, the difference in sound alone between a caulking mallet and a pinging hammer would make it worth using the mallet, imo.
The tool is much more balanced than a hammer. Spend 8 hours pounding cotton into a boat seam and you will appreciate the balance. The old shipwrights had a good reason for making the tool. Besides, it is just cool. Sort of like tying a sharp looking nautical knot when a couple have hitches would also work. Me, I like honoring all the wooden boat and sailing traditions.
Tradition. and better strike control. Just bumping the cotton in place, doesn't tear the cotton beneith the seam.
I know it's been asked but I still don't know, why is the caulking hammer so long?
I am a fan of Leo & Sampson Boat Co and Steve and Alix of Acorn to Arabella. With that said, I have started watching your channel and I am more inspired by you to build my own boat (from kit).
I am somewhat disappointed in one aspect of your channel. Leo has Pancho & Steve has Akiva, I think you need a pet monkey to liven things up.
Arrg, or a parrot.
Could have turned off the lights, then turned one on parallel to the height of the string and scribed the shadow directly?
Або використовувати лазерний рівень 😅
A clear hose, open ended, with water in it. Attach one end of the hose to the horisontal beam. Take the other end of the hose, raise it or lower it so the water surface in the attached end is level with the beam, then the water surface in the other end of the hose will be on the same level and then you make a mark on the hull. The water surfaces will always be communicting and level with each other (the law of communicating vessels).
This is a reasonable way to move the waterline to the other side, but the heights are different fore and aft, so you'd have to keep changing the amount of water or the diameter of the hose as you moved along. The strong method ends up taking about the same amount of time and effort, when accounting for moving material in a crowded shop.
if your laser level hs trouble to be not-level, why not tilt the boat somewhat?
That seems like lots of work! The boat as built is likely nearly a ton of wood, and the ballast keel isn't even attached!
It seems to me that there are critical dimensions left out of this discussion. In the stern there is 14 1/2" and 1' 4 5/8", in the bow there is 20 5/8" and 2' 3 5/8". All of these numbers seem important to the discussion specifically because the waterline is not parallel to the strongback. I think the paint lines are ultimately off as designed because these are not calculated. For proof look at how the batten doesn't match the level line at 17:17 minutes into the video.
really nice Bob. she is lovely. Do you have a name for her yet?
Thanks Chuck! Got a short list of names I'm waiting to see how she speaks to me.
@@TheArtofBoatBuilding I love that answer! My wife names everything. She has a golf cart named Leo, a willow tree named Grace. She keeps asking me if I've named my new truck and I have to tell her, no, he hasn't told me what his name is yet
Couldn't you have just shimmed up and raised the the low WL to the high WL and used your laser level?
So why not jack up the bow section of the strong back 5" and use the laser level? Would that not have worked?
Hi Lee, the answer is in the title.
Thanks for watching!
Bob,
Is here a reason you can't measure the distance from the newly established waterline to the center line of the keel at intervals and then transfer to the measurements to the opposite side, rather than having to do a repeat setup and start again ?
The waterline is after all an arbitrary indication of the level the vessel will float at, and will change with loads, weight distribution etc.
Cheers Eric
Why not jack up one end of the strongback as needed to make the waterline level and then use the laser level?
👍👍🙂
Why don't you copy the waterlines from starboard to port using a tube (hose) filled with water or other liquid? You need help of course but it will speed up the process?
wouldn't it be much easier to put straight metal or wooden plank \ bar on top of the measurement frame, paint its lower edge with some marking paint and then let it touch the boat rotating the plank / bar?
Deflection of the material over the span is more difficult to manage than with a string.
Why not wait to scribe the water lines until you float the boat? Mark it with a pencil and even paint it but wait to scribe until the first re-paint. When you do your first repaint you will be able to adjust your painted lines to the permanent positions.
Lazer ?
Laser. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Почему не используете для отбивки ватерлинии ? Что такое лазер представление имею ... Спасибо .. С уважением .
"Pretty good". Yep.
Thanks
One word: Laser
Can't you use a laser level?
The effort to apply the water line is very time consuming and exacting, but why? The actual water line when in the water will vary with the weight each crew member, and their position in the boat, and probably never be a match. Even the design water line will vary from actual if the density of the wood used varies slightly from the designers averaged weight by volume chart.
Other than appearance, why go through this procedure?
Umm laser?