Ok, well I'll give it a shot.
I can build you anything that can be built out of metal, it will be square, straight and plumb if that's a requirement. I can machine parts to a .0001 tolerance and integrate that easily. Mechanisms, no problem!! Wood on the other hand has always been a challenge. If I weld a joint, it stays where I welded it. Wood on the other hand, not so much, so I always shied away and had others make me things out of wood that I needed. Not that I can't do it, but there was always those things that others wouldn't see, but I knew about thing that bothered me, being a hyper critical anal retentive SOB. I guess that's what you get with a degree in Mechanical Engineering where perfection and absolutes are drummed into your head for 4 long years.. Halfway into the class, Brad grabbed me and said, "Take it easy, we're not building a Steinway piano here, Let the boat "fair" itself and work with that"... Truer words were never spoken, as we all started to work with what the boat had become, not what was drawn on the lofting table so much.
The dory, well it really scared me at first. Nothing, and I mean nothing at all was straight, square or even measurable for that matter, I looked at it and thought, well it's impossible to duplicate, there's not even a blueprint to go off of, just this thing called the table of offsets, think Excel spreadsheet with numbers on it. Feet, inches and eights, and you transferred those measurements to a 20 x 4 foot piece of paper on the lofting table. Now get this, it's ALL in half breadths, only half of the boat do you have measurements for. Of course, the other side of the center-line was exactly the same, but you're only looking at half of the picture. Couple this with the transom, replete with rolling bevels and diminishing angles, wow. I thought it a machining nightmare to make with AL, but wood you can shape with a plane and such, whereas metal needs to be machined.
Back to the lofting
Connect all the dots using ice picks driven into the table at the marks you made, and wrap a wooden batten around them, draw the line, and viola! Seemed easy enough, but at first It took a lot of time for me to dismiss all the nagging things that I'd consider were I building from a blueprint. I just let it happen, and after listening to Brad, who is a very good teacher, and in and of that I mean he taught so everyone in the class understood what he was saying, if not immediately, shortly into the process. Many teachers teach to either the highest, or the lowest common denominator, not Brad.
I'd be interested in hearing about your progress and process, the Eddyline aluminum boats were built off of Bears Ears lofting, the boat was built as a prototype for Eddyline to build for the commercial company AZRA. There's a you tube video floating around out there of Eddyline's shop building them. No real detail, but shows the process in sort of time lapse. Interesting to watch. Having spent many many hours GTAW welding, I felt for them watching it go together. Not a fast process considering how fast AL conducts heat, and warps. Alumaweld, who used to make McKenzie hulls used strongbacks to make their hulls, but I never saw one at the Eddyline shop in the video.
Finally, the wooden boat love affiar came about after my 16 foot McKenzie, which was based on the alumaweld hull, and fully decked / self bailing. 3 issues i had with that boat, some may not agree with my feelings, but here they are. First, they are cold. Cold feeling, I got hit in a snowstorm on Deso, and by the time we managed to get to camp, I was bordering on hypothermia, secondly the inside of the hatches, while AL ones can be made to seal very well vs wood, gathered tons of condensation despite opening them, mopping them out with a sponge, and airing out every night, everything was always damp, if not wet in the hatches.
Lastly, they are impossible to repair on the river, which with a can or 4 of epoxy and a 3 pound hammer might not seem that daunting of a task, but after the AL corrodes a little, the epoxy doesn't stick, and the moisture from the condensation keeps it from curing properly. I nailed a rock running left at Lava, not a huge hit to the chine, but a hit none the less. I tried in vain, for hours at each camp to staunch the flow of water, and despite $200 bucks of "poxy quick" marine epoxy the best I could do was to staunch the flow a little bit.
2 years later, a friend let me row his wooden Briggs design Canonita dory down Westwater and I was in love. They IMHO handled WAY better than the McKenzies in big water, the warmth and feel of the wood was astounding, they rode UP on the waves as opposed to slicing thru like the McKenzie's do, at the end of the day, I knew a big ol wooden boat was in my future, and after taking the class ( I want to take it again IF he holds one again) I felt confident in my abilities to build one, and one day I will, but running Bears Ears will likely take up a LOT of my time in the near future >grin<
Any Dorymen got a 2019 grand permit and need another gaily painted eggshell to round out the trip (HINT HINT) I've already been down this year, so I can't go again :-(
Hope this satisfies your curiosity, ask anything you'd like, I'll do my best to fill in the gaps.