The other day I was thinking about the stumbling blocks to being able to build or rebuild a boat and I surmised that most of them begin with the words "fear of"...
As in fear of spars or rigging... Lots of folks have a phobia of building spars or doing rigging work. I know a guy who is a real artist when it comes to making cabinets in a boat but when confronted with the idea of building a mast, which is a lot easier than cabinets, he goes all pale and trembly.
Another friend has certain issues with anything electrical, while someone else I know breaks out in a cold sweat whenever anything mechanical is called for on his boat. Then there's another guy who built a steel boat because he was was afraid of epoxy.
The funny thing is that all of these folks are actually smart and handy but so many people have told them that some stuff on boats is just too difficult to attempt for mere mortals so that irrational fear takes hold and rather simple skills and tasks take on nightmarish qualities that makes even strong, smart, and talented people go weak at the knees...
As it happens, having built a lot of wood boats myself and, since I tend to run with folks of a like mind, I've come across a lot of people with an irrational fear of scarfing pieces of wood together. Like most irrational fears it really doesn't make any sense but it's still problematic. Made worse because most of the people who do not have a fear of scarfing tend to make it all sound more difficult than it is and 99% of the time they're piss poor at teaching...
Which is why I'm more than happy that Russel Brown has put together "Scarfing Basics" which is a clear, concise, and simple booklet about scarfing that anyone with an IQ of room temperature or above should have no problem digesting the content and putting it into practice.
All I can say is it makes it easy and how cool is that? Better yet, there's some good stuff on how to make better scarfs so there's something for everyone whether phobic beginner or more advanced wood butcher.
Definitely a must read.
Listening to Grass Child
So it goes...
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