There is no hurry.
Campbell has more than 400 hours in his current project - a wood-hull 16-foot electric inboard motor launch. Before he is finished more than 600 hours will be invested in the undertaking.
Campbell said he will christen the craft Victor Slocum when it’s ready for launch sometime in early spring 2009. Slocum was the son of Joshua Slocum who made history as the first person to circumnavigate the globe solo in 1895.
A father-son team, naval architects William and John Atkins, drew the plans for the Victor Slocum in 1952. It employs a clinker hull design making it stable in choppy water.
Campbell said the boat was designed to use a six-horsepower gasoline marine engine that is no longer available. He will fit it with an electric motor and four to six 6-volt batteries that will give it a cruising time of 492 minutes - about eight hours.
“The batteries will have gauges so I can tell how much juice is left in them,” Campbell said. “I’ll have a Honda gas-powered generator on board to recharge them when I get low. When they’re recharged, I will cut the generator off.”
Campbell said the hull is crafted from Okoume African mahogany marine plywood. The trim is Honduran mahogany. Both woods are exceedingly light and strong but also very expensive, he said.
He plans to build a seat in the front of the boat for his lady friend, Barbara Caffrey of Belton, in the style of an Adirondack chair.
“It will give it a very New England look,” said Campbell chuckling. “I’ll install a CD player and speakers built into the side of the boat.”
He said he first began building wood boat models at age 19. Later while working as a telephone installer in Sitka, Alaska, Campbell took to building models and full-scale boats as a way to pass the time during the long, Arctic winters.
“You start by drawing the boat to full scale by plotting it on a drawing board,” he said. “A process called lofting is making up three views - looking down from the top, the boat’s profile and its ends. All three views must agree with one another.”
Once the drawings are complete a jig is built to describe the contours of the hull and keel. Then the boat is constructed over the jig.
“It’s kind of like building two boats,” Campbell said.
He mixes hardeners with epoxy resins to join the pieces together. The boat contains very few screws. They are placed at crucial points.
Campbell said he learns new techniques by reading Wood Boat Magazine. He also goes online for information on materials.
The process of building a wood boat takes patience. It involves exacting measurements with extremely high tolerances. But following a set of plans exactly is not enough, Campbell said.
“A good boat builder uses the ‘eye sweet’ concept,” he said. “If it looks good, it is good.”
Campbell said he only works on a boat when he really feels like it.
“When you don’t feel like it, you will only make mistakes,” he said. “I try to relax when I’m building it. I don’t get in a big hurry. If I don’t feel up to it on a certain day, I don’t work on it.”
In addition to full-size boats, Campbell has crafted many models over the years. A John Hacker runabout took 672 hours to build.
Hacker designed the expensive wood-hulled speedboats of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s purchased by the rich and famous. Today the factory at Silver Bay on Lake George, N.Y., sells new versions of the 60-year-old classics.
The Hacker Co. gave Campbell a set of full-sized drawings to make his 28-inch-long model.
“I made it for a client who gave it as a business gift to an investment banker who owned a full-sized Hacker of the same design,” Campbell said.
“The name of the prototype was Endless. There may have been some irony in that considering the number of hours it took to build the model,” Campbell said with a grin.
Campbell said he went to a jeweler in Salado to make the lost wax castings in sterling silver for the many fittings on the boat. When the hull was completed he shipped it to a woman in Indiana who made the upholstery. Then the transom went to an artist in Queensbury, N.Y., for the hand lettering of the name.
“He used a brush with four hairs,” Campbell said. “It took one hour for each letter.”
A boat model named Dixie - a replica of a 1908 unlimited hydroplane - was sold to a restaurant in Washington, D.C., where it is on display.
A model project under way now is Diana - a steamboat model that has a miniature working steam engine generating 1½ horsepower.
The hobby of wood boat building started in a home Campbell built in 1994 in the verdant rolling countryside at Summer Mill on Salado Creek. As the number of projects grew, Campbell made an addition in 2006. Then a second shop was added in recent times.
In the second shop are two boats he built for granddaughters.
“They are sailing craft built on the design of a Norwegian Pram,” Campbell said. “They each have dagger board, keel and tiller and you step the mast here in the front. They are broad in the beam so they won’t be tipsy.”
A pink one is for his 12-year-old granddaughter and a green one is for Barbara’s 14-year-old granddaughter.
Campbell said his nature is infinite patience. He said he loves the exacting work that takes hundreds of hours.
“You know, I like building them more than sailing them,” he said. “It’s that Japanese philosophy that the destination is not as important as the journey getting there.”
