MFV BF494 'Pansy', an old Motor Fifie Conversion

Started to attack one of the new beams today, but.... is it just me or has any one else ever found themselves looking lovingly at a piece of timber and though it too nice to cut up, and had a few pangs of guilt??

hey ho though, hope my woodworking skill are good enough to do it justice I suppose

Now, here's the thing, me and power tools, we've not been getting on as well as we might of late - the chabble saw eating my finger was a bit unpleasant, but its ok now as I've grown another one. Actually, The bairn asked me this morning why, if you get fish fingers which are made from bits of fish, are sausages, which are made from bits of pig, not called pig fingers??
but I digress....

So, back to oak. Traditional boats and traditional materials, must surely call for traditional tools, so out from the back of the shed came the adze, was my great grandad's, who built a boat or three by all accounts, so it should know what its doing and be able to tame my hamfistedness. and sure enough, a few hours later the first deck beam is taking shape and I've still got 10 fingers, although I haven't taken my shoes off yet so I'm not certain on having the full compliment of toes still

quite chuffed with me bitself, balanced on top of big bit of tree hacking away at a bit of 100 year old oak, from the same place the original oak that made the panser 70 years ago came from. bit of fine tuning with a big chisel, then a bit of planing and I think it looks ok so far... and not a power tool in sight, the sweep of the deck curving gracefully across the beam...

had a few passers by stop and stare for a while today at the nutter with the adze. I'd like to think they were marvelling at the traditional skills being kept alive, more likely just laughing at the strange creature trying to chop his toes off whilst wearing a beret

decided I'm gonna buy myself a clay pipe to smoke whilst swinging the adze from now on so as to look like I really know what I'm doing