Need help & advice

[GC]

Hi guys its a pleasure to be a memeber of your forum. I am new this is my first post. I have been building canoes & Kayaks for 10 years, I have also restored a 1958 Peterborough boat. Now I am embarking on a 1961 CC Constellation, it a wonderful old boat. My imediate questions are as follows. What do I use for plank caulking?, what kind of hull paint is required (fresh water only)?
what would I use for paint in the interior bilge area, it has what appears to be a grey primer now I was hoping there is now some new state of the art product that will protect and help seal the bilge. Any help and or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Bottom planks on Constellation's are lightly cottoned, then filled with caulking. I use Interlux seam compound after a good cleanout, or a soft caulking ... 3M 4200 or equivalent for minor repairs. These boats don't leak much, or they shouldn't.

The correct bottom paint would be copper bronze. Interlux still make it. It is a hard finish bottom paint that reduces drag, but requires at least a substantive touch up every year. Your waterline color would be either red or black depending on the model of your boat. I could tell you if you give me the length.

There is always controversy over painting bilges, but the CC bilges were always painted grey. Interlux make a grey bilge paint that is almost a dead on match for color. It works just fine.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid173/pfdcf9507516ba6463291d51bab45f438/f3b62bec.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid80/p96b2f55c2faaf4b9746862931b469705/fb0b3f8a.jpg

[ 11-28-2005, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Peter Malcolm Jardine ]

[sdowney717]

Look for slick seam.
You can paint bottom paint directly on it.
Stays soft, will squeeze out as planks swell. I think west marine carries it.

I personally have never used it but many people like it.

[sdowney717]

State of the art product could it be a polyurethane rubberized coating?
Rot Doctor sells it and www.sanitred.com (http://www.sanitred.com) sells it.

If your bilge wood is clean not oily it will stick very well and is waterproof. If the bilge wood is oily, then it will form a rubber waterproof skin on top of the oily wood. It is a fairly tough robust substance.

Another thing to consider is using a glycol antifreeze and borate mixture to kill and keep rot from growing.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

I wouldn't use anything beyond paint on your bilges. The inside layer is fir plywood, and paint helps keep the surface from abrading. Like I said, the boat shouldn't leak. My boat goes in every spring and one of the bilge pumps runs every 15 minutes for about two hours, (about a gallon a time) then goes to once a hour, then once a week.

[Dave Hadfield]

Just don't use any goop that becomes hard in the open seams after the boat has dried out during the winter. If you do, then when she swells up again in the spring, the edges of the planks will crush, because they are being forced together with something hard in the way. Then you need even more goop the next year.

If the seam needs total replacement, there's nothing wrong with the traditional way -- cotton caulking put in firmly but gently with a caulking iron, priming paint, underwater seam compound, then bottom paint.

If the boat has been on the hard for a long time and is totally dried out, it would be better to swell up the planks for a while to narrow the gaps before you caulk. You can use several sprinklers washing the hull from the outside (for several days -- a lot of water), or you can use my own original method -- shop-towels!. To do this, take long lengths of shop-towel, fold them lengthwise so they fit between the frames, and set them down to run from keel to the turn of the bilge. Then spray them with water twice a day for a week. That will keep one side of each plank wet, and the wood will swell.

Each season, unless the caulking has been disturbed in some way, you don't have to do anything. If it was tight before, it'll be tight again, in time. I just use the above method to shorten the time I have to spend in the launch-sling, taking-up.

As for Slick-Seam, I use it, but it isn't caulking. It's just a sticky wax. It's soft enough so that if you squeeze it into the open seams, it'll squeeze right back out when the planks take up. But you cannot paint over it. It's wax, after all. It's wonderful stuff, and while tedious to apply with a spatula, it really does make launching drier.

[GC]

Thanks guys keep the info coming, I am taking it all in. The boat has been out of the water for five years and is very dry, I am in Southern Alberta( a very dry climate). The hull planks are all in great shape, there are however a few planks just below the deck that the previous owner changed to plywood that will be replaced with mohogany. Once again sorry for my lack of knowlege I sure appreciate all the experianced info I can get.
Thanks

[Thad Van Gilder]

wow, plywood for solid planking in a chris? That is creative!!!!

-Thad

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Two layers of planking on the bottom of a chris..at least a sixties chris... one of fir plywood in 3 foot wide strips or so, the other is philippine mahogany. Atswhy they don't leak... if they leak, they're getting rotten.. and not in a minor way.

[GC]

Your right the plywood is really quite disgusting, its the fist job on the list,replace the plywood with the proper mohogany. I am ordering new throttle controls, would anyone know if a 1961 CC used a mechanical reverse mechanism or a hydraulic system. I took delivery of the boat but the motors are still in storage 5 hours away, also the 1961 system used generators, is it common to change this system to alternators and if so is there a kit available for this procedure?

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Hmmm tell me more about the condition of the plywood. It's the first layer, then planks of mahogany over it. You can't replace the plywood without taking the boat apart.

What are your motors? Should be 283's... with paragon transmissions... which are hydraulic. You probably have 283H, which is flywheel forward.

Look around your engine room hatches... there should be a number that identifies the hull. Give me that number.

[Paul Morris]

Hi Guys, I think you are talking about two different areas on the boat where the plywood is (maybe). It sounds like GC is talking about possibly a sheer plank being replaced below thoose bloomin' window track drains that rot out the sub decking and eventually a big rotted spot in the sheer plank. Have repaired several of these myself - but not using plywood!!
Paul

[GC]

The boat must of got up against a dock and damaged
the very top mohogany plank. Rather than replacing the plank with mohogany the previous owner used plywood. The very top plank from bow to stern is plywood, then from the bow back for about four feet the second & third plank are also plywood replacements. The wood under these pieces seems in tack and OK. My plan is to change these planks back to mohogany during the strip, recaulk and repaint of the hull.

[GC]

The motors are 283 chev engines, I will get the number that is in the bilge area this evening.

gc

[Thad Van Gilder]

I have hung plenty of replacement sheerstrakes on old chris's. that spot really likes to rot!!!!
-Thad

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Yep... mostly because water sits under that rubstrip at the cap rail. Stupid design.