I started working at Nelson-Hanson Marineways on a Monday morning. First order of business was to go to the union Hall and pay dues, get a dispatch slip and get my locker. The locker was for storage of tools between jobs. The contract had some pretty old clauses in it. They went back to the 1920's or earlier.
When a shipwright got laid off, the yard had to transport his tools back to the union hall. That was the reason for the locker. By the time all this had been done it was about 9:AM when I got back to N-H.
My tools were in a Kennedy machinists type tool chest that I had lined with Mahog

ony. Now I had spent a sum of money acquiring those tools and they were the best I could find at that time and I was really proud of them. Les comes over to the pickup and says 'mind if I look over your tools?'. As I said I was proud of them so I pulled open each drawer and showed them off all shiny and compartmentalized. He looked them over and stroked his chin and drawled,'not too bad for a house carpenter but I see we

will have to get you some real boatuilding tools'. My chin I am sure hit the ground. Here I had agonized over each and every purchase, poured over the available catalogues and even pinched the budget to order some special items. And here is my new boss telling me that I don't have the right tools!
Les must have seen the disappointment in my eyes for he quickly added that Saturday he would take me to look for some 'boatbuilding tools'. I replied that was all well and good but how was I to pay for them.

He said, hmm, we'll worry about that later. What could I say but, OK.                                                        The yard at N-H was several wooden buildings, sheds really and a marine railway all overgrown with black berry bushes.
The main building, the building shed was about the length of 2 basketball courts and some 60 feet wide and close to 40 feet high. Down the center of the dirt floored building area was a line of wooden blocks.
These blocks were about 16 inches in cross section and about 36 inches long. Along one long wall was several stacks of well stickered lumber all separated according to thickness. On the other long wall was a platform or raised plank floor and this is where the machinery was situated. Not much in the way of floor mounted machinery

is needed to build  a conventional wooden boat. There was a 36 inch tilting frame ships bandsaw,20 inch bandsaw, 36 inch planer, 12 inch jointer, 12 inch tablesaw with tilting table no less and a drill press of unknown capacity. These tools were powered by a line shaft that ran in a trough or woodlined trench set in the plank floor lined with Irish felt. Irish felt has many uses in boatbuilding including as an underlayment in between various structures or

timbers. In the trough it prevented the dirt of the building floor from penetrating into the bearings of the line shaft.
The line shaft was run by a big open cage 50 horsepower 3 phase electric motor that sat in a wooden box at the rear of the machinery platform. When there was need to use one of the machines a person would have to go down to the motor box open it and flip a big knife type switch that looked like it belonged on the set of the 'Frankenstein' movie. When the switch was flipped it gave off big blue and yellow sparks. The first time I was sent to turn on the motor and flipped that switch and the sparks jumped across the contacts I thought I had blown up the shop!
When you start at a new yard all is strange and it takes some time to acclimate. The pace at N-H was slower that at Anderson & Christofani and in looking back that was a good thing. It enabled me to focus on more of the how it was done and why aspect and not be as concerned with the clock all the time.
Les was a patient teacher/boss and I looked forward to meeting Alf, the Hanson of N-H. Alf was on his vacation down in San Diego and would be back in about a week or so.

Did I mention that Les was 68 and Alf was 72!