Blog
Dec 20, 2005 - Atka Baidarkas
Andrew Snigaroff of Atka with his baidarka frame ca. 1946.
Andrew Snigaroff, Baidarka builder
A picture of Andrew Snigaroff standing behind his baidarka frame appears in Ethel Ross Oliver's book Journal of an Aleutian Year. I had picked up this book a number of years ago, but just recently looked at it again. When I looked at the picture before, I thought it looked more or less like the baidarka in the Phoebe Hearst museum. But now I see a few differences. For one thing, the boat shows a considerable amount of rocker. This may be due in part to how it is supported. The deck ridge is essentially straight. Total number of ribs is 26. My guess is that they are spaced roughly 6 inches on center. They look like they are about 1/2 inch in diameter. They also appear centered on the deck beams. They are also rather more round than the Hearst baidarka ribs.
The ribs of the Atka boat in the Hearst museum appear to be more flat than those of Andrew Snigaroff's boat.
Dec 19, 2005 - Spruce
The view of the third level of lumber shed number 3 at Van Arsdale-Harris. Stacks of VG clear spruce in the foreground. Further on down, red cedar, yellow cedar and doug fir, all vertical grain.
Spruce oddysey
I am glueing up a paddle blank for one of the local paddlers. I was low on sitka spruce so I headed over to Van Arsdale-Harris lumber in Brisbane which is just south of San Francisco on a landfill just back of the garbage dump. The place is something amazing for anyone interested in wood. For one thing, they've been in business since 1896, that's since before the big earthquake and fire of 1906. The last time I went there about 6 months ago, they were taking credit cards for the first time and the guy waiting on me did his first credit card transaction on me. The place is also totally un-home-depot. There are no rentacops double checking the cashiers to make sure you aren't walking off with something extra. You come in, pick your lumber, which in my case, spruce was up on the third level of the warehouse. You climb twenty feet up this vertical ladder to where the stacks of spruce are and start picking through it. When you're done, the guy with the forklift comes over and takes your boards. You hitch a ride on the forklift back to your car or truck, the guy deposits the lumber on your truck and writes up a ticket and disappears. You are then on the honor system to go into the office and pay for the lumber. In the office, there is a cat sitting on the counter and a bunch of guys in plaid shirts doing stuff with paper. The place is strictly pre WWII.
The view across the shed to the third level. Clearly, no personal injury lawyer has ever set foot in this place.
Anyway, the other thing that struck me that these people haven't got the safety paranoia thing down. For one thing there's that twenty foot ladder you have to climb to get to the lumber. For another, there's the guy offering you a ride on the forklift. You get treated like a grownup rather than like a guy who could potentially file a lawsuit. Contrast once again Home Depot. While picking through lumber, you have to listen to safety annoncements over their intercom. And when someone is doing something with a forklift, they put up barriers so nobody can get in the aisle.
But that old-timey experience comes at a price. The spruce was $4.25 a linear foot for a 1X8. I did a bunch of grade school level math with a pencil and came to the conclusion that I could make 2.3 paddles for $83 worth of lumber. I suspect I may be laminating a little bit of Home Depot mystery wood to the spruce to squeeze three full paddles out of that $83 worth of lumber.
Dec 18, 2005 - Shop Re-org and Paddles
The shop re-org
Our neigbors in the shop, the industrial x-ray guys are moving to a bigger building. They are taking over one of the old hangars on the air base all for themselves. While in this building, they were using these big concrete lego blocks to shield the rest of us from the x-rays. Now that they're moving, they're taking their blocks with them, one at a time using a big fork lift to pull them off the wall and load them on a truck. In another week, I think I will have to move some of my stuff so they can get to the blocks that border my shop space. Good time to re-organinze my area.
My neighbor the blacksmith's stash of steel. Looking a lot like a Braque painting.
Paddles
I'm working on 3 paddles right now, an Aleut grooved paddle, a replica of a 103 inch Bristol Bay ridged paddle and a blank for another Aleut paddle.
The grooved paddle, ready for sanding.
As per usual, shaping a paddle involves lots of shavings.