Bottom Rebuild (prev. 'At a cross road')

[thegammas]

I spoke too soon! The boat has been in the hot garage for a week now and the hook is back. I wish I had taken a picture of the 'no hook' so I could convince myself that it truly was mostly gone last weekend.....

Back to prepping for the shim job

So Verne, what's this job you have for me?

[W Guy]

I sent you an email.

Verne

[Robert]

I need to update my post with pictures. But what i did is cut out backbone and stringers, all of which was hogged and in poor shape. And replaced with new straight timber. This corrected 98% of the hogg. I m now workinf on fairing the rest of the waves out of the bottom.

[thegammas]

I've started this seasons work on my Sea Lancer. Currently refastening the hull, which consists of tightening all the Silicon bronze plank bolts/nuts (not screws) and replacing all the plank to frame screws. Not sure if I will fix (via replace) the port side plank ends this season or just fill them in.

Note the car rollers that she is sitting on. Wish I thought to do this 2 years ago! Makes it incredibly easy to move the boat around. Even if you just want to move it a tad for better light, it's just an easy push. You don't even need to put your tools down.

[thegammas]

Hello again everyone - been awhile, but I have indeed been finding a few minutes here and there to work on the boat.
I'm about two thirds the way through refastening the hull. I am tightening every bolt and replacing every plank to frame and plank/garboard to transom screw with Frearson drive silicon-bronze, cut thread screws of once size up, same length (don't want to come through the frame on the other side). Frearson drive is orders-of-magnitude better than Phillips or slotted drives. Even though silicon-bronze is a much softer metal than Stainless Steel, after 300+ screws I've only stripped the heads of 2 or 3.

For the screws, I am drilling out the hole to the right size for the new screw, being careful not to go any deeper (as best I can), and resizing the countersink to the right size for the head of the screw, again trying my best not to go any deeper. The screws are tightening down nicely, indicating that the frames are in good shape. Up near the sheer they are grabbing like Hercules! I'm now into the planks at the turn of the bilge and the screws are still tightening down nicely.

I am also replacing bolts as needed. The bolts have a shallow slot and are very easy to ruin. If ruin it, I am replacing it with silicon-bronze, slotted drive, cut thread bolts of the same size. I'll have to cut them to length once she is upright.
Tightening the bolts was easier than I thought it would be. As much as I have grumbled about the guy that decided to paint the interior of the hull, that paint has served to hold the nuts so that for the vast majority of the thousands I didn't need someone on the inside capturing the nut while I tightened them. Fifty or so I needed my agile son to sit under the boat and capture the bolts. I've been able to put two or so turns into every bolt, being careful not to over tighten so as to avoid ruining the fare of the plank, as well as avoid separating the plys of plank.

When installing the new screws (or tightening the bolts) I am using a power driver to put the screw in, but tightening it down by hand only (a tip from Lou, of Tips from a Shipwright - google him up - awesome stuff). A ratcheting screw driver makes this much easier as you don't have to lift the bit off the screw/slot.
I was surprised at how deep and inconsistently all the bolt/screw heads were countersunk when she was built. Way more than I would have. Maybe they needed a deep countersink for the fillers used at the time. I suppose it matters not at all. She's held together for 55 years.

Sourced my screws/bolts from Boltdepot (.com). Great selection, fast response to questions I e-mailed to them, and fast shipping; only a few days from click to doorstep.

[thegammas]

And so it begins again....

Kept her under the deck for the winter. Had to wait for a nest of Rens to learn to fly before I could bring her around. And the kid, monologing about how there must be a better way to move the boat (I was pushing from the bow. Sorta.

[LancerBoy]

kids these days...

[thegammas]

Anybody still out here on good ol' Thompson Dockside? After a 2 year hiatus, I'm back to the boat. Pictures and horrible, but not unexpected, news coming soon.

[thegammas]

So that you dont have to read back through this long verbose thread here's a summary

Four years ago I started some repairs on the bottom at the bow and was going to rechalk some other areas so as to slow down the leaking. My plan was to use the boat one more season and sell her down the road to someone with more time to bring her up to snuff. The framing was deteriorated, especially some of the ribbing. She was hogged bad enough that I could only run at half throttle before the handling became too bad to be safe (This from being stored on the trailer with bunks that did not support the transom) .

There was much discussion on how to correct the hog without reframing. Fill it in, shim it from inside, soak it from inside with downward pressure. etc . I tried the shim approach, but the framing is too weak. The shims pushed the framing out, not the garboard panel.

Long story short, after a two year hiatus, I decided to rebuild her. Removed the first Garboard panel. The framing is toast. The good news Is so far the transom looks solid (last picture, looking straight down on where the Garboard panel attaches)

[thegammas]

The Steamer box..... When the time comes I'll switch out the PVC for metal pipe. The PVC survived the hour long test run, but just barley. Got all soft as I expected.







Pirated the side burner off the grill. Wifey hasn't noticed yet. Click to zoom if you cant see the full picture


Pins through the sides so I can have two layers steaming at once


The end cap from which the pieces can be put in and taken out

[thegammas]

Since I am going be replacing part of the Stem assembly, I made four of these patterns as a precaution so I have the shape of the first 4 feet of the hull.



Working on removing the Starboard Garboard panel

[thegammas]

Second Garboard Panel off. Much more stubborn than the port side. The original builder loved his copper nails! I spent a lot of time taking these panels off so as to cause as little damage as possible. I suppose if I was a pro I'd have been comfortable cutting it all apart in like half a day vs, the several days i spent. This Starboard is no better than the port, not that it really matters since I plan to rebuild all the framing. Good news is the transom (not shown) is solid on the Starboard side as well. I think the next step will be to build a new stem assembly.


The Panels in one piece for patterns. I briefly considered trying to reuse them. Briefly.


A cool drain assembly. Cool, but a PITA to actually use because it's not far enough aft to train the entire bilge. But if it were further back, would be hard to get to. Hence the bilge pump





Note that the stem assembly components are not made of single solid pieces of wood, but rather made up of several layers of wood bolted together. If I can find the material, I'll make the components from solid pieces so as to avoid all the work of keeping water from in between the layers.







That long shim you see crumbled in my hands.

[thegammas]

Removed the lower section of the stem assembly. Rotten...….











The upper part of the Stem, that which the planking is fasten too, is rock solid. So next steps, build a new lower stem, get that back in, then remove the lower keel board (since the boat is upside down, that's the piece on top). I dont want to remove that until I have the new stem piece in to limit the amount of movement in the framing. Then I'll be close to the only part that I am a little apprehensive about, steam bending in new frames. This I have never done before

[thegammas]

got me a big ol' piece of white oak for two sister-keelsons, lower stem assembly, and if I can be efficient. the lower keel. It's 12' X 9" X 3.25 ". Weighs a ton and man did that hurt at the check out counter. Now I have to figure out the grain orientation vs the medullary rays for the correct re-saw

[thegammas]

According to Louis (see the link below) the fasteners should go into the oak as perpendicular as possible to the medullary rays (vs the growth rings). So here is how I laid out the components to get out from this big ol' chunk of kiln dried white oak. "L keel" is the lower of the two part Keel, "S Keel" the two sister Keelson, and of course the Stem will be the stem. Not clear from this picture is that I only need half the length of the beam to get out the Stem. The remaining section will be the second part of the Lower Keel (originally the lower keel was one long piece, but I dont have material that long that has a straight enough grain. So I'll laminate one from two pieces)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzCmES_Lwrs