Bandsaws
Dear Editors,
I am a big fan of bandsaws, and your four-page article in WB No. 298 covered the basics well. Jan Adkins’s well-done illustrations, however, show the guide blocks either swallowing the teeth of the blade or very close to the teeth of the blade. The guide blocks should be placed a little behind the teeth of the blade. One other point that could be mentioned is the mystery of drift. Drift occurs when you must change the direction of infeed in order to cut a straight line. Drift occurs only when the saw blade is dull or the saw is not set up properly. Proper setup includes: the blade being in the center of the upper wheel, the guides and thrust bearing being properly set, the blade being tensioned correctly, the blade guard being placed just above the piece being cut, and the tabletop being in alignment with the blade. With a sharp blade and proper setup, there is no drift.
Ken Koscik
Madison, Wisconsin
Remembering Iain Oughtred
Hi Matt,
As a longtime subscriber and a builder of a dinghy designed by Iain Oughtred, I had to share her story with you. ’TEER is a Feather Pram, Iain’s design No. 51. After a few years towing an inflatable behind my Dolphin 24, MARIONETTE, and enduring comments such as “pretty boat, but why don’t you get a decent dinghy?” I did some research and settled on this boat, which I built and then showed at the 2009 WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport. I met Iain himself at the following year’s show. Among other things, we talked about the towing-eye location on this dinghy, and I showed him a copy of the ’TEER project booklet prepared for the 2009 show. (The story is told here: www.dolphin24.org/teer.html.)
Ron Breault
Essex, Connecticut
To the editor:
I’d not heard of Iain Oughtred’s death until reading Nic Compton’s great article in your May/June issue (WB No. 298). What a fascinating man Iain was. The aura of his intellect, taciturn demeanor, and design skills make him quite suitable for a long-lasting friend in the nautical world.
Davies Allan
Westport Island, Maine
Thanks to Ben Fuller for spotting a mistake in my remembrance of Iain Oughtred (WB No. 298). It was John Gardner, and not William Gardner, whose books opened Iain’s eyes to the breadth of documentation of American small craft. My apologies for the error.
Nic Compton
Updating Classic Deck Structures
Dear Editors,
I love the introduction to the great article on updating TALLY HO’s classic deck structures in WB No. 298—especially the discussion of how one can replace any part of a boat. My 1936 hull was designed by William LaFontaine of Sandusky, Ohio, but everything else on the boat was built in 1986 to my design (photo above). I have long believed that the joy and pleasure of an old wooden boat is that you eventually end up with a new wooden boat.
Michael Vollmer
via email
Uffa Fox: Non-Woke Bloke
Dear Editors,
As a longtime reader of your fine magazine, I was disappointed to see that the “woke mind- virus” has infected the Book Review section. In Nic Compton’s review of Uffa Fox: Eccentric Genius in WB No. 296, Compton spends the majority of the review criticizing Fox’s marital life and personal and business habits, with little mention of his many innovations in dinghy and yacht design.
The WB slogan is “The Magazine for Wooden Boat Owners, Builders, and Designers.” We read the magazine for information and stories on those topics, not for marital advice or lessons on morality! However, Compton devoted a total of only 12 lines in his review to a listing of Uffa’s revolutionary innovations of the planing dinghy, boom vang, trapeze, tiller extension, and more. Surely it would have been of interest to WoodenBoat readers to hear more about those—rather than his adultery, ex-wives, attitude to employees, etc.?
As Compton says in a moment of insight, “…Fox wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the age of #MeToo.” That is a sad reflection on our age, and if another Uffa Fox is out there and not allowed to flourish because of his “non-woke” eccentricities, then it counts as a great loss to boat design and sailing.
David Shteinman
Castlecrag, New South Wales, Australia
We counsel our writers to review the book they read, and not the book they wish they read. Compton states in his review: “Turner doesn’t go into great detail about boatbuilding techniques or even the many smaller classes Fox designed during his career, preferring to focus on his royal connections and his…escapades. (Compton’s four-part series about Fox in WB Nos. 221-224 covers the designs themselves.) —Eds
