A master workman meant brains then, though the workmanship was rough and the beginnings rude. Even in this first rudest form of building, accuracy, by a person of genius, could be obtained. If they made one side of the vessel fuller than the other, it was the result of negligence, not of necessity, by suffering their shores to slip, or not proving their work by a plumb line.
Mr. Foss was one of those rude beginners. He built vessels on the same general principle as the May Flower. Charlie was another; but having received the instructions of Mr. Foss, listened to the remarks of seamen, the result of experience in the actual management of vessels, and with greater genius than his master, he had already, and even in this rude craft, made improvements. What is more, they were improvements that he had originated, and the principles of which were first suggested to his mind by taking the model from the fish.
We have seen how perfectly prepared the scientific draughtsman is to go with his moulds into the forest, and mould his timber. Let us now ascertain how our young ship-builder, alone on Elm Island, went to work from the scanty data he had to make moulds to cut timber by. All his three lines told him was the shape of the floor timbers, the proportional length of them, the shape and sheer of the top; and his pole, with a nail in it, the sweep of the side.
He made moulds from his rising line of the floor timbers, of the stem and stern-post from their shape on the board; his shortening line gave him a water line along the heads of his floor timbers, the rising-line the shape of the bottom.
But now his lines fail him. He has not, like the scientific draughtsman, a line for every timber, from which to make his moulds. Well, he don’t make any more, except five or six, of what he calls “scattering frames.” His third line has given him the length of the vessel, and general shape on top, and the sweep on the sand of the way in which her side will round; and he goes to work, and makes by his eye, and what aid he can derive from these moulds futtocks, naval, and top timbers, which, put together, form the side, cuts and alters them till they suit his eye; and that is all there is about it. When he gets them done, he calls them the moulds of the scattering frames. He makes five or six of them, perhaps more—one amidships, one at the forward and one at the after floor timber. They are called scattering frames because they are scattered along the keel for guides. By and by we shall see what he will do with them. Instead of making, as is now done, a mould for every timber, amounting to hundreds, and occupying weeks, he makes no more. His moulds are all made, and he is ready to cut his timber. He will, however, lose four times the amount of time, fussing, guessing, and moulding his vessel as he goes along, and doing work over two or three times, than he would if he had known the present method.
In cutting timber there is a great deal of work to be done with the narrow axe, and a great deal of digging out roots for knees, for which it is not necessary to employ skilled labor. There were also, in this new country, many men who had been used all their lives to handling a broadaxe, hewing ton timber for exportation to Europe, and ranging timber for the frames of buildings. The saw-mills, in those days, especially in new places, where there were not means to purchase machinery, were in a very imperfect state, possessed but little power, could not saw greater length than twenty feet, while the carriage, instead of being run back by touching a lever, and by the power of the water-wheel, as at the present day, was slowly and laboriously pushed back by turning a wheel with the foot. Mill-cranks were all imported from England, and people, under the pressure of necessity, made cranks of a crooked root, sometimes hunting for weeks in the woods to find one that had the right turn, and was of tough wood. This was the case with the mill in Charlie’s vicinity, which, however, was six miles off.
In this state of things there was a great deal of sawing done with a whip-saw. It was cheaper, in many cases, to do this than to haul the timber a great distance to a mill. There was no other way when plank and boards were required longer than the mills; but with the whip-saw you could have it whatever length you wished. In ship-building it is especially desirable to have the stuff as long as can be worked, as there will be fewer joints to calk, less danger of leaks, and greater strength. Even now a great deal of long stuff is sawed with a whip-saw.
This species of labor then being so much in vogue, plenty of men could be found, who, from youth, had been accustomed to the use of the broadaxe and whip-saw. They were not carpenters, could not edge planks, fay knees, make scarfs in keels, as Joe Griffin, Uncle Isaac, and Yelf could; but for cutting timber in the woods, beating it out, with a master workman to boss them, and for two thirds of the work in the ship-yard, they were just as good, and would work for a great deal less wages.
John Rhines, who would not have any blacksmith work to occupy him till they began to put the timber together, was equally useful with the narrow axe in cutting, and as a teamster in hauling the timber. Charlie, who was keenly alive to all these matters, sat down, pencil in hand, to calculate.
“My plank,” he said, “and wales must be sawed with a whip-saw. My deck plank, I need about nine thousand five hundred feet; wales, three thousand three hundred; outboard and ceiling plank, two thousand four hundred feet.”