The ironwork in the composite construction was such that some of the older yards could reasonably tackle it. The only flat plates of any size or awkward shape were the floor plates. The angle irons were bent and bevelled to shape without the necessity of any heavy machinery, and the tie plates, sheerstrakes etc. could be fitted almost as supplied by the iron foundry, leaving only the floor plates with shaped contours to present any difficulty, especially if the edges were curved convex or concave. One way this was done in a poorly equipped yard was to punch or drill a series of overlapping holes to perforate the edge almost like a postage stamp.

  The beam knees were smithed out as part of the beam plate itself, this being done by anew style of craftsman known as the anglesmith, who was rightly as proud of his work as the master shipwright. The best of them could smith an angle bar into complicated bends so that it could cross another angle bar at right angles and fit tight and snug around it, needing only alight caulking to become watertight. Both the anglesmiths and platers developed high degrees of skill and started a tradition as good as that of the old-time shipwrights, each of them having his distinctive clothing as suited his trade; the shipwrights with their short collarless jackets and rough blue serge trousers with long rule pocket, and the ironworkers with their moleskin trousers, often pipeclayed for Monda y mornings and covered with a thick moleskin or leather apron, to handle plates against their thighs, and with the inevitable sweat-rag of thick red flannel or cotton tow hanging from aback pocket.

  Excepting the few instances where a composite ship was produced at an owner's request in an established ironworking shipyard, the finish of the ironwork on the composite ships was not quite up to the standards of the yards with better equipment. But the finish of the timber was of the highest class. Teak, oak and elm were chiefly used. The former wood, introduced from the East earlier in the century, was a great boon to British shipbuilders given the perpetual scarcity of good home-grown woods. English oak was always the superior wood, although it did have, a bad effect on iron fastenings, but the best elm, used where it would remain continuously wet, was North American.

  American clippers were often described as being built of softwood, which was not true, although their timbers were softer by comparison to the best British ships. American oak, rock maple, hackmatack (a type of larch), locust, hard pine and other native American woods were used in their construction, and although not classed by Lloyd's for the same number of years as the teak or English oak, it was chiefly by reason of their tendency for incipient rot from insufficient seasoning. The softwood (yellow pine) ships from the Canadian Maritime Provinces were produced later in the century to satisfy a growing demand for such timber in domestic building in England, many of the ships themselves being rather hastily constructed with the intention of their being dismantled and sold along with their deck cargoes of wood on arrival in England.