Nailing

Boat nails are used to fasten all planking to the ribs. These nails are available from a number of sources, Pleasants Hardware in Richmond and Hamilton Marine are both used by many previous batteaux builders. We drilled two separate holes for each nail, a pilot hole is drilled through the planking into the rib which will be at least the depth of the nail. The diameter of this bit will vary depending on the nails used but it should basically be the same as the width of the nail at the pointed end, measuring the smaller way. The second hole is just smaller than the diameter of the nail by the head and is only drilled the depth of the planking and shouldn’t go into the rib. This drilling concept puts the holding power of the nail in the rib not the plank and this is what is desired. Drilling the larger hole into the planking also reduces the chances of splitting the planking which is a significant problem, particularly on the ends. We used 3 nails per board on all boards which were 6" or wider, 2 nails on several boards which ended up being less than 6".

The length of the nails changed depending on whether we were nailing the bottom of the boat or up on the rib arms. The nails we used on the bottom of the boat were 4" and the nails on the rib arms were 3" and 2 ¾ at the tops of the ribs. Common sense dictates exactly where to change nail sizes, we changed when we got to the lap joint of the base rib and rib arm. The 4" nails were new to this batteau as we used 3 inch nails on everything on earlier boats. When the boats were constructed the nails had incredible holding power and when a mistake was made and nails needed to be pulled, it was essentially impossible. We would often end up grinding off the head or cutting the nail off with a sawzall. On the first 2 boats we used 2 ¾ nails for all boards including the bottom boards after several years of swelling and contracting, we noticed many nails which were loose and could be pulled out with your fingers. These boats were allowed to dry during the off season and the radical swelling and shrinking probably was the cause of the nails being loosened. This caused us to have to re-nail boards, a situation I hope we have avoided on this boat by using the larger nails and by leaving the boats in the water during the offseason.

When nailing, there is potential to do damage to the ribs, particularly the rib arms. A number of boats including previous Ruckers have ended up with broken rib arms as a result of pounding with 2 pound hammers etc. Although the boat is very strong, the rib arms have some potential for being broken as they are cut on a curve and therefore the grain runs across the arm to some degree. Care should be taken and ribs constantly inspected during nailing. When nailing at the top of the ribs we would have someone inside the boat holding a sledge hammer against the rib in an effort to protect it.