Skills 101 – Boat Fastenings

Even a small wooden boat can require thousands of fastenings. In this episode, boatbuilding instructor Greg Rössel shares his knowledge of how to select the most appropriate fastening for the job at hand. The viewer will quickly learn that fastenings aren’t intended to draw components together; you’ll do that with clamps, and use fastenings to keep the pieces together.

Greg describes screws, rivets, and clench nails and how they are used to fasten planking. He also demonstrates how to properly bore a hole for a wood screw, using the popular Fuller-brand adjustable tapered drill and countersink-counterbore combination bit. He then examines the advantages of rivets, their components, and the steps for their successful installation. Copper clench nails come next in the discussion, and Greg shows how to become proficient in their use. He also discusses drift pins, ring nails, galvanized boat nails, carriage bolts, and machine screws.

An entire chapter in Episode 5 is devoted to the various metals from which small-boat fastenings are made; these include silicon bronze, copper, hot-dipped galvanized carbon steel, yellow brass, stainless steel, and Monel. An in-depth look at the causes and prevention of electrolytic decay in hulls, due to the presence of dissimilar metals, will be included in this chapter.