Mikhail's truck was perfect for the longer pieces, some of which were 18-20 feet long. The load was cinched down tight with a lot of straps. We didn't want this load to shift on us on the way home.

The half finished log home makes a nice backdrop. These homes are pretty much all destined for Japan. Somebody will soon be living in a pretty snazzy house, that's for sure.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Kris took some of the shorter pieces in his pickup.

It was all very nice lumber; clear and straight grained with no checking or warping because Chris had made sure everything was stored in the shade until we could come and get it.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Finally, here they are piled up on-site at the Scandinavian Centre ready to be covered up.

We used scrap sheets of plywood and some tarp pieces to keep the pile out of the sun. The trees helped provide shade, too.

This worked fine, because we found no warping or checking to worry about when we unpacked the planks to take them to the planer.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

"Hey Nels! We're here!"

It's Saturday morning and we're ready to start feeding the planer at Nels' shop, Oscar Grann's Furniture in North Vancouver. Let's go!

Good thing it's Saturday with little traffic. That 5 ton truck is taking up rather a lot of room backed up in the front like that.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

OK, we're moving. Chris has a load ready on our new friend Dolly the dolly.

Chris brought along his chain saw and trimmed some of the ends off to make sure we didn't run any gravel through the planer. This was important because some of the planks had been stored standing on end along a shed.

Replacing a chipped planer blade on an industrial planer is an expensive proposition. The blade is just fine, in case you wondered where this was going.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Now we're really in business. Kris is overseeing the planing and directing how much to take off and where to take the cuts.

This may need some explaining. What we want from hull planking is clear (i.e., knot free) and straight grained planks. As much as possible we don't want edge grained planks.

An edge grained plank is one where the growth rings are perpendicular (i.e., right angle) to the plank. This makes for a brittle plank with a tendency to crack if stressed.

What we want is grain that runs the full width of the plank. A reality check tells us that this is, of course, nearly impossible until someone produces a tree that grows a square trunk. We sure didn't have any of those, no siree.

We obviously had to settle for a compromise here. Here's where Kris came into the equation. Having built some 170-180 boats in his time, he's planed more than his share of boat lumber.

By looking critically at each plank's grain and general condition, he could quickly tell whether to plane off the top or the bottom of the plank and so on.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Please say hi to Kikukawa, our Japanese team member...

Kiku ate planks all morning. The contraption on top of the planer is the blower for the shavings which ended up in a giant hopper outside.

We produced rather a lot of shavings and Nels was getting worried that it would run full.

So he drafted the Digital Norseman for a reconnaissance mission. Didn't seem so bad at first until he showed me where it was. His shop is on a hillside. This meant that the hopper which is about at street level from the front is more that two stories up in the back. (How do I get myself into these situations!)

So armed with a broom I boldly climbed up and surveyed the situation. Not too bad for now. I sneezed and leveled it out as far as I could reach from the doorway. I wasn't about to climb in there.

There was not a whole lot of room left in there when we were done, though.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Here is Nels, the owner operator, himself. He is working a lever to ease the plank through.

We had set the cuts to about 1/8 inch. However, the planks weren't all equally thick at both ends. This meant that they sometimes had to get a little help until the first couple of cuts had levelled the whole thing off.

That thing on his head is not a walkman, it's for his cordless phone which lets him work in the shop and take customer calls. Even wood workers are wired in this day and age.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

This shot shows how much we typically had to take of a rough plank (top) to produce a finished one (bottom).

The bottom one is not as uneven as it looks. Partly the light is playing a trick on us and partly the planer chewed off a corner. It's just hard to support a 16 foot plank for a level cut the last 1/4 inch.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

What happened here? That load looks a lot smaller than what we started out with!

Sure was a lot easier to load the finished planks compared to what we brought in that morning.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen

Well, here they are at long last in their rightful resting place: the hull planks all planed to size and piled up nice, ready to go. Every layer is separated with thin strips of wood to ensure proper air circulation.

Sitting inside the boat shed like this will keep them out of the rain. The temperature will be cool through fall and spring, so we shouldn't have any problems with undue checking or warping.

In the background, Arne and Kris are at work shaping the two keelson pieces.

© Copyright 2001 Preben Ormen