Check my repair schedule

[Anastasia]

I've finally finished doing my novice survey of my 17 foot clinker sloop and my first take on what my repair schedule might be -- you will notice that no dates are given. I'd love to get your input on how I might improve this schedule, changing the order around or adding things that I might have forgot.

Tentative Repair Schedule for Rana Rose

I. Inside Hull
- Set-up blocking to make sure boat is squarely set (hull may be twisted)
- Remove foredeck and return to original breathook design
- Check hull for squareness again.
- Repair/Replace daggerboard box
- Install garboard drain in low point of hull

II. Outside hull
- Check for squareness of hull on blocking
- Clean seams with a sharpened tang of a file.
- Repair the cracked planks were necessary
- Depending on size/depth of soft spots cut away rotten and really soft wood until reach good wood and inlay with epoxy a dutchman or decide to fill with putty later
-Replace any bad fastenings, replace screws substituted for rivets with rivets.

III. Inside Hull
- Check for squareness of hull on blocking
- Repair the cracked planks, where necessary
- Splice in new wood or replace any rotted pieces
- Repair/replace weak ribs/floors
- Repair/ Replace rails
- Make new holder or epoxy (at Thwart) for mast
- Replace any bad fastenings, especially ribs and floors
- Fix thwarts/seats
- Make new thwart knees for those that are broken
- Design, fabricate, tap for fastening finished floorboards

IV. Finishing hull, spars, boom, rudder, tiller
- Finish scaping with heat gun
- Decide to either wood above water line or not
- In seams put iunderwater seam compound
- Sand
- Prime seams
- Fix nicks, dents, fill in fixture holes with trowel cement/surfacing compound
- Glaze surface
- Sand
- Possibly ...Seal entire bilge with S1 epoxy sealer
- Undercoat
- Final coat

V. Redressing boat
Reinstall hardware
Fit mainmast
Repair sails

[Bob Smalser]

Looks thorough enuf to me...good job.

Don't forget at the end of Phase III to tighten all of the fastenings a bit before reputtying. Don't overdo it, because the hull will swell...but you'll have the feel of it by the time you get that far.

[ 10-29-2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Donn]

You also might throw in a launch phase...like a light at the end of the tunnel. :D

[Anastasia]

In checking over the major areas in need of repair, I'm thinking that I should replace planks which attach to the stem above garboard on both the star and port side .

On the port side there is a large gash on the outside and a long rather deep crack on the other side of the gash.

On the star side, at the 3rd rib the floor has pulled from the plank and on the outside I'm finding a rather large area of soft wood.

This makes me a bit nervous; however, I see it also provides me with the opportunity to go even deeped in my understanding of lapstrakes.

I figure that it will be one of the first repairs to do on the outside hull after I've made sure she is square on her blocking and cleaned her seams.

[Jack Heinlen]

Clean seams with a sharpened tang of a file. Don't, whatever else you do, DO NOT do this to a lapstrake boat.

Trust me on this. There is a lot I don't know, but you will ruin this boat if you take a sharpened tang of a file and go at the underside of those laps. DO NOT!

The sharpened tang can be a useful tool for digging out old caulking in a carvel planked boat. It has no place in lapstrake construction.

You haven't said what materials the boat is constructed of. If solid wood planked there is nothing to dig out, if ply planked, there is likely some goop in there, but the end of a file is not the way to deal with it.

[ 10-31-2003, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Bob Smalser]

It'll help a whole lot if you can take a couple pics...with a white circle drawn in chalk around the "soft" spot.

[Jack Heinlen]

But, you will agree Bob, there is no imagined circumstance for taking a sharpened file tang to the plank lands of a lapstrake boat?

[Cosmo Lengro]

Dear Lady, please do some research on your own and don't depend on the well meaning folks here for all your advice.
Our sponcers have produced several books reasonabley priced that cover most everything you have enquired about.
Spend some money on them and save a lot more money from not makeing some terrible mistakes.
Jack has hinted at one and others have hinted at others.
Take your time, the boat will be there and hopefulley you will save it to sail another season.
Not that the folks here have bad intensions or are giving poor advise and do your own research you will learn more and understand more for it.

smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif

[Bob Smalser]

Sure I agree that dinging up the wood in a plank joint or watertight faying surface is bad. But from the description, those seams were originally bedded in seam compound by the factory, and new had to be applied before tightening the rivets...if deteriorated old compound interferes with that, enuf can be removed w/o damaging the joint.

[Jack Heinlen]

But from the description, those seams were originally bedded in seam compound by the factory, I'm not reading that, but I have what my ex-wife used to call 'refrigerator brain', "Honey, where's the milk?" or some equally obvious question, whilst gazing into the refrigerator.

Where does she say there is goop between the planks? I read just the opposite. Given that she has cracked planks I assume the boat was built of solid lumber, and hence no goop.

And even if it were a ply boat, I wouldn't take a sharp tool to the seams willy nilly.

Look, I respect Bob a lot, but I'm right about this. Don't go diggin' at those laps with a sharp tool, you'll regret it. They aren't seams to be reefed like on a carvel planked boat, they are wood to wood joints.

Many questions are inherent in your post of repairs, none more important that what to do with the seams, assuming anything needs doing. If you screw them up, the boat is screwed up.

[ 11-01-2003, 10:13 AM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Bob Smalser]

I don't disagree at all with Jack....and maybe I'm wrong...but I remember those seams having goop in them, whether put in when built or gooped later when they began to leak.

Any loose goop should come out before tightening the planks, IMO...gently...not "raked" like on a carvel seam....file tang, knife blade, tweezers...I'd just pick out loose stuff w/o dinging the wood....goop that's intact should be left alone.

I'd also goop it again before retightening with a nonadhesive compound....but there's lots of better opinions than mine, so read up, collect those opinions, and make your own decisions.

[Jack Heinlen]

Bob,

I guess I missed previous posts.

The important thing, as Bob says, is to be respectful of the plank lands. The image of a sharped tang of a file brings to mind reefing ala a carvel planked boat, with a hammer banging away occasionally. And you definately don't want to do that.

And yes if there is dried up old goop between, and the boat is loose and leaking, definately, remove the old goop, carefully. Whether to re-goop or not depends on the construction and the state of the plank lands. A solid plank boat wasn't, typically, built with anything in the lands. If someone has squirted goop in there because it was leaking, the fix will likely be to tighten up the fastenings, or refasten. I have seen sika used successfully, at least in the short run, in a really old lap boat where people had done stupid things, like drive cotton into loose seams.

That cotton was 'equivilent' to reefing in a boat like this, in that it damaged the plank lands. No amount of work on the fastenings was going to make that boat tight.

It's a complex but not complicated topic, and I don't know enough of what is going on to make further recommendations.

[ 11-01-2003, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Anastasia]

Thanks for all the input, folks. I love it and also understand how difficult it is to assess this stuff without seeing and touching it. My eyes, hands and brain are still very much at a neophyte stage is describing what I see with this boat.

The boat is solid plank . My impression is that goop was put into some of the seams to stop leaking by previous owners. I have very little info on the previous owners except the fella that sold us the boat at a garage sale. In a box of stuff he gave us was a tube of marine caulking stuff. He said to use it on the boat after I swelled it, if there were any places she still leaked. I did not use the stuff, but imagine that they did. The previous owners only had the boat a couple years and felt that wooden boat ownership was a bit over his heads. I'm not sure why I felt we could take it on, but we have.

In checking the boat I found some stretchy white material in quite a few, not all of the seams. These area often had a crusty, crumbling surface quality to them and the white stretch stuff underneath.

I have been working with Simmons Repair book to try to assess what needs to be done and plan to move slowly. As soon as I finish my assessment of what needs to be done, I plan to take her to a fella in the area who has some history of wooden boat restoration and have him assess my version of what should be done this year. Then I hope to do as much of the work, with the help of my husband, as I can and if we get stuck seek someone in the area that can help.

Thanks again for your iheloand I'll get some picture of the problem areas which I think suggest I need to replace some planks.

[Jack Heinlen]

Hi,

For those places that need to have this junk cleared out, a pallet knife. It's a long, slender blade. It's available from scientific supply houses, 'cause it's used in various maneuvers.

Anyway, get a couple of those, or any long thin knife, and a torch.

If you run a hot knife along the plank land, between it and the bad rubber, it will facilitate the scraping out.