John, I have followed along with your posts and information with great interest and thought it would be wise to start a new thread with more condensed information. I have questions, I could call you or email but it makes more sense to me to ask in an open forum where everyone can see what you did and what you have to say.
I have seen all your photos of your boat flipped and looking like a dead fish with exposed ribs etc... lol
1) How did you keep the boat from getting racked out of shape when you removed all those boards?
2) Why didn't you remove the final lap that is right under the rubrail? Was this to help keep shape?
3) How did you remove the screws and bolts? Take the nut off and whack with a handle? Or did you strip everything first?
4) How long did it take?
5) Do you have any tips about things you may have done differently?
Thanks a LOT!
Evan
John's boat from crosby TX
Moderators: a j r, TDockside, Miles, Moderators
1. Boat was set on cinder blocks and carefully levaled. Started very slowly, and became more confident as time passed. All but the inner keel was reused, so when reassembling the new screws were put back in the old holes, making it difficult to lose shape.
2. I did not remove top lapstrake as I did not see an easy way to remove it from the under side of deck, only thing that suffered was I could not revanish the inside. The top seam to deck realy was not major a leak path.
3. I used a heat gun to strip the lapstrakes before removing screws.
4. Real time was 3 months, or should I say next time. Took almost 4 months of planning. Tried to replace inner keel from top, just did not seem right, also spent better than a month trying to strip inner varnish from lapstrakes. Removed the easiest 60% the first 30 days. Lots of time. Paint was another 2 months should take 4 months next time, paint is my weakest ability.
5. What I would do next time, disasseble first and redo 100% from start. I do own another 1960 cruiser's 202, same but with swing out windshield, it's in better shap from start, may be 9 out of 10, set in garage since 2 years old, never painted, guy died and wife held on to it. Few if any dark stains on bottom plywood. Plans for it, is a complete disasembly.
I would also like to make patterns so I could build one from scratch, with 100% new wood.
6. You did not ask about getting old glue loose. Very few spots had glue holding anything together, so disasembly was easy, the few places old caulk was still holding, required a thin hack saw blade by hand. After screws in transom were removed, a light tap with a hammer and the the boards broke apart. Min light cut with thichness planner and transom boards were clean and flat again. Had to replace one board at drain hole, added another the opposit side. Boat does not leak a drop, but makes me feel better that it is there. Realy scary part was number of broken screws (20%) and the almost complet failure of glued joints.
6. Stem had rot so I ran it thru the thichness planner till rot was gone, then lamimated new wood back to orginal thickness, was able to leave enought wood on old stem as a guild for shapping the angle.
7. Little chance of a hook, with 6" wide inner keel, hull is straigh. Boat is fast and rides very well.
8. Best tools, ice pick for pulling old nails and putty over screw and nail holes and 4" 10,000 rpm grinder with 30 grit paper for shapping and fairing. Used it on the 9 boats I've built since this reconstruction, best tool for boat building. 5 of these are 1 sheet plywood boats I help kids ages 2 to 14 build at Wheels and Keels show in Houston each year during the show. Grand daugther Emma lead the kids in building. . Her boat she built, an 8' Minimost was on display, she built it at 5 1/2 with my help, pictures can be seen at www.minimost.com . Have plans available for free if anyone needs a set.
9. When you have one completly down you can apply cpes and varnish to places that were raw wood the last 50 plus years.
2. I did not remove top lapstrake as I did not see an easy way to remove it from the under side of deck, only thing that suffered was I could not revanish the inside. The top seam to deck realy was not major a leak path.
3. I used a heat gun to strip the lapstrakes before removing screws.
4. Real time was 3 months, or should I say next time. Took almost 4 months of planning. Tried to replace inner keel from top, just did not seem right, also spent better than a month trying to strip inner varnish from lapstrakes. Removed the easiest 60% the first 30 days. Lots of time. Paint was another 2 months should take 4 months next time, paint is my weakest ability.
5. What I would do next time, disasseble first and redo 100% from start. I do own another 1960 cruiser's 202, same but with swing out windshield, it's in better shap from start, may be 9 out of 10, set in garage since 2 years old, never painted, guy died and wife held on to it. Few if any dark stains on bottom plywood. Plans for it, is a complete disasembly.
I would also like to make patterns so I could build one from scratch, with 100% new wood.
6. You did not ask about getting old glue loose. Very few spots had glue holding anything together, so disasembly was easy, the few places old caulk was still holding, required a thin hack saw blade by hand. After screws in transom were removed, a light tap with a hammer and the the boards broke apart. Min light cut with thichness planner and transom boards were clean and flat again. Had to replace one board at drain hole, added another the opposit side. Boat does not leak a drop, but makes me feel better that it is there. Realy scary part was number of broken screws (20%) and the almost complet failure of glued joints.
6. Stem had rot so I ran it thru the thichness planner till rot was gone, then lamimated new wood back to orginal thickness, was able to leave enought wood on old stem as a guild for shapping the angle.
7. Little chance of a hook, with 6" wide inner keel, hull is straigh. Boat is fast and rides very well.
8. Best tools, ice pick for pulling old nails and putty over screw and nail holes and 4" 10,000 rpm grinder with 30 grit paper for shapping and fairing. Used it on the 9 boats I've built since this reconstruction, best tool for boat building. 5 of these are 1 sheet plywood boats I help kids ages 2 to 14 build at Wheels and Keels show in Houston each year during the show. Grand daugther Emma lead the kids in building. . Her boat she built, an 8' Minimost was on display, she built it at 5 1/2 with my help, pictures can be seen at www.minimost.com . Have plans available for free if anyone needs a set.
9. When you have one completly down you can apply cpes and varnish to places that were raw wood the last 50 plus years.
Last edited by john on Thu May 13, 2010 7:30 pm, edited 8 times in total.