Nigel Gray
Nigel belongs to: The Coble and Keelboat Society
Nigel was born near Hexham. He has always been interested in traditional boats and has operated a variety of wooden boats for commercial and recreational purposes. He has recently built his own boat in his garage using traditional tools and techniques.
Nigel was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 13 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 34 minutes and 25 seconds.
Sound of a jack plane
"The tool I’m using next is a traditional wooden jack plane, used by joiners, shipwrights, carpenters throughout time "
The tool I’m using next is a traditional wooden jack plane, used by joiners, shipwrights, carpenters throughout time really. The plane I’m using, and this should appear in the pictures, is probably about 140 years old and it’s still in good nick. It was given to me by a fellow who helped us with the purchase of my shipwright’s tools. The man that owned it was a shipwright and it was his father’s plane before him, so I feel quite honoured to have the benefit of using a tool like this.
It’s made all of wood, and when the planes were new they were actually dipped in linseed oil for a month. So when they come out the plane’s always oily texture about it, and the benefit of that is when you’re cutting larch in particular the plane doesn’t actually... it makes the plane easier to drive across the wood and cut easily.
So the first cuts that I’m taking off this piece of larch, which is larch planking, is to take off the high spots and then I’ll follow on from that with some smoothing cuts as the plank gets straighter.
(Cutting sounds)
At that point we’ve just got the plank edge nice and straight and the high spots off it. What I’ll do now is just knock an eight of an inch off the plank to get it nice and straight, nice and smooth.
(Cutting sounds)
And although you can’t see it there, what’s happening is, I know the plank’s straight and it’s smooth without looking at it because the shavings that are coming off the plane are actually continuous for the length of the cut, which is a testimony to the wood and it’s also an indicator that you’re cutting a fair line with humps or bumps in it.
I’ll just take another couple of …
(Cutting sounds)
And that’s it done, straight as a die!
Nigel has 22 memories in the memorynet:
Nigel's memories with a The North East theme:
Nigel's other memories:
Process of building a wooden boat- Sourcing traditional boat building tools
- The adze and caulking irons
- Superstitions
- What does the sea mean to you?
- Sound of the adze
- Sound of the augur
- Sound of caulking
- Sound of a jack plane
The adze- Caulking irons
- Cotton
- Hand brace and augurs
- Wooden caulking mallet
- Jack plane
- Half model and plans
- Nigel at work in his workshop
- Maiden voyage of the Trevisky
This memory has these themes:
Skills | Sounds and Smells | Traditions
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