Sealing up the water ballast...

There were some holes in the bottom of the hull to fill the water ballast.  Eddie had sealed these up with little metal plates and tar.  They had leaked and the hull was full of water and sand.  I assume Mississippi River water and sand.  LOL  The sand was very, very fine.   I do not plan on sailing this boat, so really don't want to drag the 200-500 pounds of water around that would be in the water ballast.  

I flushed most of the sand out.  I now need to turn the boat over and flush out as much of the remaining sand and let it dry out.  Then I will finish patching up the holes. 

 

 

I am going to follow the West Systems Repair Manual guidelines which describe tapering the repait area back at a 12:1 ratio.  I used my calipers to measure the thickness of the fiberglass at the hole and determined it was .31"  At the recommended tapering, I need to go 12x.31", or 3.72"



As you can see in the picture below, I need a bigger taper area.  About 1.5" radius larger than I have ground so far.   BTW, I am using an angle grinder with a metal grinding disk to do this work.  I will try a flap disk for the next phase. 

There are also some various dings and gouges from previous uses  Around the metal keel stip.  I will fix them with epoxy filled with colloidal silica.  I am thinking I might fair the area between the hull and the keel.  I have decided to repaint the hull with some left over Awlgrip and thinking I might as well do the long board and complete job on the boat.  

This boat rows shockingly well.  I feel  guilty not making the hull as good as I possibly can. 

Next, I need to figure out how I want to make a backing plate.  I am going to try the method described in the manual where I will make a single layer fiberglass piece which I will cut out with some scissors or the Dremel, then bend it enough to get in the hole where I can fasten it while it is bonded to the inside of the hull. 

My boat has a foundation in history

This is an interesting article.  I note that my boat is the same ratios as this ancient boat.  :)

http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/22/prirority-skuldelev-ships-5-original-viking-ships-recovered-waterway-peberrenden-skuldelev-1962/

Working on the Oars... 09/13/16

Maybe they were a little more rough shape than I thought before we sanded them. LOL. 

 

This is the oar that was broken into 3 pieces. It's epoxied back together. I think one more layup of epoxy on both sides of the blade and sanding will make it ready for the layer of fiberglass.

Note the piece on the end of the oar. That piece on the other 3 oars was knocked off during usage as is shown to the right. That oar was marked because we had the piece that needed to be re-attached. 

I used some of the trim pieces from the Ash to make new ends for the other two oars. Here is one of them epoxied up. 

This one was more complex because an end was missing from the tip of the oar. 

I will fill in the gaps with some epoxy with colloidal silica in it.

This oar was in the best shape of all. 

I've got a couple of more epoxy layups to go before they can be sanded and wrapped with fiberglass. 

I have some Kevlar I will cut and try to fit onto the ends, after they are shaped.  

The Kevlar can't be sanded, so it will need an extra layer of fiberglass over it, so I can fair it.  But that will make the oars ends very, very tough! 

Started on the masthead today

I am trying to copy this painting from Waterhouse entitled "Lady of Shalott".  The painting is from a Tennyson poem of the same name and seems to fit my goals.

Waterhouse - in the Tate Gallery in London

Tennyson- 

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,

My plan is to make two pieces like this.  One to be epoxied on to both sides of a bow stem that will mount to the boat.  The bow stem will be varnished and the outer pieces painted. 

I have a scroll saw I inherited that I used as a kid making swords.  I  don't know if Dad knew about that!   

Luckily we never poked anyone's eyes out sword fighting!

I had to get some new blades which that made the process go much faster. 

Next, I cut out the "feathers" for the dragon's head.  Yes, it is a stylized dragon's head in the style of a Viking ship - only my ship is 17 feet long, not 60.

This is oak, so the sanding is not going very fast.  I hope to have everything epoxied together this weekend.











Waterhouse's painting doesn't have a stern piece.  Of course, the Viking style would be the tail of the dragon.  I'll do a similar assembly for the stern, but more elongated with long flowery feathers.

The New Gunnels are mounted.

There were multiple boards on the side for support that had to be removed along with a hundred SS sheet metal screws and caulking of some sort.  Luckily the caulking came off with WD-40, some scraping, and elbow grease.  

I was worried the Ash boards would not conform to the shape of the hull.  When I got enough clamps to hold both the inside and outside boards together, they would bend to the shape pretty well. 

The next operation was epoxying the boards togehter (and to the hull), then holding them with brass wood screws.  

As of 5/25/16 I have both the inner and outer boards glued and screwed on the outside.  I still need to get in the boat to put the set of screws in from the inside.  

I will start on the masthead and tail piece (whatever it is called).  These fixtures are not on decorative, but structural and will hold the ends together.  

The Oars need some work

I bought some different sized clamps and made some more from PVC.  This oar was crushed when I was careless with it in the back of the Hee Hauler.  :(

Broken Oar Tip

It cracked along the original glue line and in a new place at the tip.

The PVC clamp does a nice job holding part of it together.

Some of the cheap clamps came from Harbor Frieght.  I really hate that place, but when I buy stuff I only expect to use once or twice, I give in to their cheap products. Given enough clamps, I'll be able to epoxy the oar back together when it warms up and stays dry long enough for the epoxy to dry.  

The good news is that the break created it's own scarf joint.  Where it broke along an existing glue line, I need ideas about how to strengthen that.  I could put a layer of glass on both sides of the joint.  I could drill some holes and use some tiny dowels or finishing nails.  

The process is to first soak the wood with neat, or unthickened epoxy.  This will saturate the wood about 1/4 to 1/2 inch and make a chemical bond foundation with the next layer of epoxy, which will contain some colloidal silica making the epoxy stronger.  I expect the oar to be as good as new when finished.

Mock up of Oak

I have more clamps to use when I glue it, but you can get the idea from this mock up.








The tips of the oars will get some protection.  I just happened to have some Kevlar I could epoxy on them.   That ought to offer some protection!

Next, I will sand all the oars in preparation for new varnish.  This will give me a chance to inspect the glue of the laminated oars.  There are some obvious failures of the glue joints which need more epoxy work.   LOL... more clamps!  

Oar Delamination

Gunnel/Rub Rail rebuild

I neglected the boat outside without a cover. The gunnel's were ruined.  They were teak, and I really hate that.  They were 10mm boards laminated with sealant of some kind.  The middle board was too rotted to restore. 

Here is a scarf joint that failed.  The standard is 12:1 and this one was less than half that.  I don't know the glue used, but I will epoxy mine. They will be about 10 or 11:1.

I searched Nashville for some hardwood and found some Ash at a reasonable price in the size I think I want.  It may be a little thick, but we'll see how that works out in a few days.

The boards were unfinished on one side, and 4.5" to 5.25" wide and 12 feet long, ready to rip to the width I wanted.




I borrowed Jakob's table saw and started ripping.  I made a big pile of sawdust in short order.  I ended up with two boards 2" wide and six 2.25" wide.  Very observant people will notice that one of the rails is narrower than the rest, and I'll have to have make up a story about how the dog ate one of the boards, or something.  Your creative ideas are appreciated.  LOL




I started making the scarf joints with Dad's radial arm saw.  Oops, it wasn't powerful enough and I ruined the motor - amid lots of smoke from the lumber.  Maybe it needed a new blade as it seemed to be burning through the lumber more than sawing it.

No problems, Charlie Jones, a professional furniture and boat builder from the Trailer Sailor Bulletin Board showed me how to make a jig for the table saw.  

After a few tries, I got an angle I thought was acceptable and started cutting the scarf joints.

More sawdust!  The clamp made a pretty handy handle.  I was working on the ground and had a fancy work table fixed up with milk crates, a battery box and anything else I could find that fit the height requirements the jobs demanded.  

Now I have all the boards with scarf joints on both ends waiting for me to cut and glue them.  That will be a job for tomorrow.  

I'll use the little scrap left over pieces to make an inner and outer template for the gunnels, so I can cut them to length.  

After I cut them to the approximate length, I'll groove them on the bottom side to make a relief for the fiberglass hull to fit into.


Yeah the scarf joints aren't perfect.  But these are the first I've ever made, so they'll have to do.  I have plenty of sawdust to mix with epoxy to make my inadequacies disappear. Well... and varnish!  You know, I like to make my own dock lines.  They aren't perfect. They look hand made.  "Yes.  That's right Mr. Mariner.  I did make my own dock lines.  Thank you."  And so with these gunnels...   Besides, I have 2 scarfs on each board and only need one.  So I'll just choose the best one.  :)

I finally got some decent weather to glue my scarf joints.  I put some neat epoxy (unthinned) on the wood, let it soak in a few minutes, then added some colloidal silica to some epoxy for strength and clamped them together between two 2x4's.

I put wax paper between the pieces of wood to keep them from sticking together.  I have to say it worked better than I thought it would!  Just a little sanding was required to get the wax paper off the glue.  

This is the first time I've done anything like this, so I'm pretty happy with the results.  I have some saw dust I can mix with epoxy to fill in the low spots and make it prettier.  Of course I can select the prettiest side to put on the outside.

I now have 4 pieces that are 23' long.  I the outer gunnel pieces need to be 18' 4" and the inners a little shorter.