Core Skills : Setting up the Building Jig

This is a six-day course ending Saturday

Often overlooked in the construction of a small boat, setting up the building jig (consisting of the molds, transom, keel, and stem) is critical to the overall success of the project. With the proliferation of CNC kit boats containing precut molds and puzzle-joint jigs, the art of setting up a proper building jig is once again in danger of extinction. The Core Skills: Setting Up the Building Jig course will teach you how to take patterns and dimensions off your finished lofting to create molds and a backbone consisting of a keel, transom, and stem. Most importantly, you will learn how to set up all those parts to create an accurate building jig, ready for planking.

Core Skills is a curriculum designed to complement and expand on our Fundamentals of Boatbuilding class. Each class in the Core Skills curriculum is focused on one core element of traditional small-boat construction. Our inaugural offering includes topics such as planking, setting up a building jig, and fitting out a boat. While these topics are covered as a portion of Fundamentals of Boatbuilding, Core Skills offers dedicated, weeklong exploration of each of them. Core Skills classes also offer hands-on learning of many of the topics introduced in our Mastering Skills video series. Students may take any or all of these classes in whatever order best suits them.