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

[thegammas]

Prepping the White Oak beam for getting out the sister keelsons, stem, lower keel (if all goes well). The beam is twisted, cupped, and curved. Not dramatically in any one way, but enough that i'll not be able to make a straight cut by hand or power. So step one to a square surface and edge is to flatten one side of the beam. These will be structural components under the floor, so doesn't have to be perfect, but of course I'll try anyway.

I set two benches end to end, then built a table top on that and leveled it. Beam on top of that and shimmed it to as close to level as possible down the center of the beam. Built a simple base for the router (with a fresh bit) to slide around on, and attached a large base to the router. The base has to have flat square surfaces so the router is moving on a flat level base. I Clamp the base to the beam, and then move the router back and forth on the Base. Move the base down the beam, rinse and repeat. Seems to be working really well. I coated the surfaces of the base and router base with Butcher's wax so the router slides easy.

I'll tune up the surface with a power planner afterward. I tried just using the planner to get a flat surface, vs a router, but it would have taken forrrrever. Once I got the process down, I did half the 12 foot beam in about 45 minutes.

[thegammas]

PS - I ran the top of the base and the base of the router through my surface planner to get the nice can flat

[thegammas]

Both sister keelsons removed and in the process of being replicated including the running bevel, using a simple bevel gauge and a couple of sharp Stanley hand planes.

Not sure if it is apparent in these shots just how much the bottom was hogged when you look at the bend in the keelsons vs the straight edge of the new piece. Note the rot repair with Smiths Filler. Ten years in wake wave and water and it didn't budge (I had sistered a 1 by 4 piece of PT pine on both sides of the rotted area as well).

As I go through removing components you can understand the techniques for building these boats quickly. When bending in the Frames, they would nail them to the Keel and Sister Keels with 1.5 inch copper nails and then one screw in the end of the frame where it terminated on a sister keel. Probably really fast way of laying them in and I bet an experienced worker could do it by themselves.