http://www.northendhardwoods.com/2010/11/supplying-materials-for-wooden-boats/

Finding quality hardwood lumber and plywood is pretty tough up here in Northern New Hampshire.  Unless you cut and process your own, the options at the local yards are pretty lean.  They have great stocks of white pine and may have some oak once in a while.  Try to find some mahogany or black walnut!  Good luck.  Luckily I have a great resource just an hour away in Lyndoville, VT.

I heard about Northend Hardwoods from a guy at work.  They’re used by local contractors because, in addition to lumber, they also mill a lot of custom moldings and other pieces themselves.  While their main retail showroom is in Williston, VT, they have the mill and a small retail store at their Lyndoville location.

One great thing about these guys: if they don’t have what you’re looking for in stock they can order it.

Graham approached me in October about writing this piece…

Environmental Statement

“Our commitment to the environment is reflected throughout our business.”

Our business is based on one of the most valuable natural resources on our Earth – trees. While trees are the most renewable resource used in manufacturing,  huge demands are being placed on our forests.  Sound stewardship practices are critical for maintaining healthy forests and the environment in general.   That is why it is our intent for all the wood used to be native from North America, from local sources if possible.  We are committed to sustainability, both internally and externally. No lumber from virgin old-growth forests are exploited.  The forests from which this lumber is cut is FAR more valuable to our environment than any boat or piece of furniture we could build.

We know that rare tropical hardwoods sometimes have special characteristics which make them desirable for certain projects.   There are virtually no native wood species that can replace the ebony fingerboard on a guitar.  So in acknowledge of this, any tropical hardwoods, such as Honduras mahogany, Spanish cedar and ebony, come from certified plantations.  No rain forest woods are utilized.  Ever.

Currently, every project includes at least one piece of wood personally harvested from the family property.  In the next few years to hope to start harvest all of our own lumber from the Sweeney Farm, our Millsfield, NH property that has been in my wife’s family since 1917.   Nearly two-thirds of the 300 acres is forested.  We are looking to purchase our own bandsaw mill and will air dry all of our wood on site.  Modern kiln drying, which greatly speeds up the drying process for commercial lumber operations, is very energy intensive.  It’s one small step to protect our environment and use less fossil fuels.

Since we are a small scale shop, we can take the time and pick our boards to reduce waste.  What little scrap wood we do produce will continue to supply supplemental heat and our new chickens now help compost our wood shavings.  There is very little that we dispose of in landfills.

In a further effort to help the environment, we will continue to implement the use of low- and no-VOC finishes.  We are still looking to find a replacement for the high-VOC marine urethanes we use to finish for our boats.  When we find a water-borne finish that duplicates the performance we will switch.  We are also waiting for the non-oil-based epoxies to arrive commercially.

Effective Earth Day 2010 we are also implementing a new planting program.  For every major boat or furniture projects, we will hand-plant saplings of native tree species at the Sweeney Farm.  Customers will get to pick the tree species they wish us to plant for their project.   That fall we will plant them in a special area of the property.  Call it being “carbon-neutral” (whatever…),  it’s simply our little way to give homage to the trees which provided the lumber for past projects.  There will be more information about this program on a separate page.

We are proud of the furniture and boats that we build, and proud our Earth-friendly policies. We want to what we can so that our girls, Lena and Danielle, will be able to enjoy the environment as we have.  We’re doing it for them.  We hope you understand.

Earth Day 4/22/2010

Anyway,  this is just a quick note to say that “Elsie”, the semi-historical rendering of the LC-148 specimen at the Danish National Museum collected from East Greenland, now has her own page in the portfolio.  There’s some project information, construction pictures and computer renderings.  Looking back on it, I really wish I had the time last winter for a “proper” build log like I had been done in the past.  “Elsie” ended up being so unique she deserved one.  I’ll definitely be doing them for future projects.

Our Connecticut-18 sea kayak (CT-18 for short), of which “Elsie” was the prototype, isn’t quite final yet.  The person who commissioned her had his interpretation of the design.  As built it’s a striking boat and very capable.   I just think it’s too West Greenland-ish personally.  I’d like to take it back to it’s East Greenland roots and make it a little more versatile.  I’ll  modify the deck slightly and return some of the sheer that was taken away.   It’ll give more freeboard and room in the cockpit.   I also want to spend some time optimizing the hull.  In the end it’ll be more faithful to the original from the 1850′s.  When I’m done tinkering with it I’ll post full design details for it and my other designs.

I also transferred over John from N.C.’s  2007 “White” Black Pearl to the new Portfolio.

Until then, enjoy the pictures.

Dan

=D