Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 6/2/2005, you wrote:
> Then I was reading about how
> the Norse made those marvelous overlap constructed ships.  How did they get
> the planks?

They built in the clinker style with lashed planks.  The hull was left 
unfinished and water would swell the planks to make them water 
tight.  Later boatbuilding styles used copper rivets to hold the planks 
together.

> The answer was that they rived them.  Split them with froes from
> the log.

I believe they used wedges to split the logs then used an adz to bring the 
planks to finished size.  One major advantage of the clinker built style is 
that plank thickness is not important.  They also used a ribless 
construction so there was no concern for interior surface.  The only place 
they had to be accurate was on the overlap.  Clinker built is very common 
in early metal age cultures.

For another example of split plank construction look at the northwest coast 
natives.  Houses used very wide planks split from logs with wedges.  The 
planks were then lashed to poles.  In summer the houses near hunting and 
gathering grounds but in summer the planks were transported to shore side 
villages.  Before metal the planks were left as split from the log.  The 
time between the introduction of metal and the first sawmills was very 
short so the cultures never developed a smooth board technique.


Don Bowen                          Awl Knotted Up

My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

My present location is the star on the map in the link below
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=33.506083&longitude=-117.099019