wedge seams

[imported_Jimmy]

I would never have dreamed of gluing wedges into my seems, but when I had a shipbuilder look at my topside seams yesterday (which are opening due to the dry weather) he told me they had wooden wedges in them. This was a surprise to me since I know that my bottom seams are caulked with cotton and seam compound.

My questions are:
1 Is it normal for a 75 year old boat to have her topside seams done with glued wedges or was this probably done later in her life?
2 is this a good thing?
3 should I replace these wedges with new ones epoxied in?
4 will it make my life miserable later on if I just fill the cracks with seam compound and put it off until next year?

[ 10-02-2002, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Jimmy ]

[imported_Spissgatter W-9]

Hi Jimmy,
Do a search for wedge seaming. I've two posts with pictures of the process. The latest issue of wooden boat magazine talks about the pros and cons of the process. Also, Gougeon Bros have a publication on restoring wooden boats that is illustrative of the process. It works well up here in the Northwest though I've read concerns about durability in lower latitudes. There is an earlier article in Wooden Boat about the process.

If asked, I would do it again. You should be able to rip out the old wedge and fit another without too much difficulty. Good luck

[imported_Spissgatter W-9]

By the way, I learned how to wedge seam last summer from Hugh Campbell owner of Winard Wood in Sidney, BC. He hung the new planks on my boat (61 yrs old) and just finished wedge seaming a runabout recently. You might want to give him a call. Email me and I'll send you his contact info.

[imported_Jimmy]

Ok, I looked at some of the old threads, but I am still confused. I'm not thinking of putting wedges in my seams, they're already there. Normally I would just repair it the same way it is built, but I don't like the idea of gluing wedges in when the planks obviously expand and contract. The original job obviously wasn't done with epoxy either. Can I take out the wedges (they aren't glued too well anymore)and caulk the seams with cotton?

[andy scheen]

I was hoping more people would chime in on this one since I have a identical situation on my boat and haven't decided how to procede. My plan at the moment is to rip the old wedges out and replace with new and hopefully do a better job than the old wedger did.

[plimsol]

Check on Ed Monk,Sr.'s Modern Boatbuilding. He has a section on wedge seam construction. My understanding of wedge seam construction is that it is works best with Red Cedar planking using cedar wedges.
The stability of the planking is the critical issue. If there is a lot of shrink and swell in the planking, then the wedges are going to be spit out or separate at the edge. One solution for this is to glue the wedge on the lower side only, leaving the the seam free on the top to move.

[Thaddeus J. Van Gilder]

Once in a while I will see a boat whose topsides have wdges glued to one side off the seam to make it possible to caulk without the caulk shooting through the seam and into the boat.

[imported_Jimmy]

I was hoping that there were more people around that had actual experience with wedge seams, preferably in a similar situation. I find you can read 4 different books and get 4 different opinions and still not know what to do. There is also a big difference between using wedge seams to build a new boat and repairing wedge seams in a 75 year old boat. So if anybody out there has had to replace or repair wedge seams, (especially with the topsides of an old boat with yellow cedar planking) I would love to hear about it.

[ford]

my boat is oregon planked and the topsides were wedge seamed, glued with resorcinol, this was done with all yachts of similar size by the yard in the early 60's. The seams started to open by the late 70's and was made worse when I had to shift her to a marina, previous to that she was on a swing mooring, the marina move meant that the sun constantly hit her on the western side and dried her more so, the remedy I was told was to go sailing more often to keep the planks moist, fine if you can do it. Every haul out I just filled the small gaps with stopping, this would last about 9 months. My final cure is sheathing her which is in process now.

[imported_Spissgatter W-9]

Well if your boat is 71 years old and you are now having to address caukling, this suggests that the wedge seaming worked pretty well. With the proper saw blade, cleaning out the seam with our without first removing the existing wedge shouldn't be a problem. I've found ripping a nice clean groove to fit the wedge relatively easy process. Some of the carvel planking on my boat is 61 yrs old. Did you vist my website at: http://home.attbi.com/~gboggs8/annamarie.html?

In talking with Hugh, the seams on the runabout he fixed this past summer were in pretty bad shape. So he had to rip one pass, reset the batten slightly and make another. I encourage to you to give him a call. Nanimo to Sidney BC, is that a local call?

If seams are failing all over the place, I don't think it advisable to try and inject more glue. Whatever hasn't failed will likely fail. Also, it would be questionable as to whether the new epoxy would hold on the unprepared surface. Seems much more attractive proposition to remove old wedges, rip a nice clean groove and then glue in some fresh red cedar wedges. Don't have much else to offer except good luck and post how you ended up solving the problem.

[imported_Jimmy]

I was under the impression the wedges were, well, wedge shaped. How do you cut them out with a saw and not end up with a rectangular groove? The glue seems to be failing on many of them so they should come out without much trouble.

I don't think I have the time and money to redo them this year anyway. The most I will probably do is squeeze some seam compound into the cracks. I'm not sure if it is really bad anyway. We have had a very dry summer and she hasn't been sailed so she has just dried up. All the seams were tight when I bought her in March and I'm sure they will be again in a few months. Maybe if I sail her a lot they won't open up again.

[Dave Fleming]

Jimmy, common practice for ripping out old tired wedges is to have the tool shop grind a blade or two with the taper to the teeth you need.
Or you get a blade with teeth ground to give that retangular groove and glue in a.....rectangular piece. The inside faces of adjoining planks should meet just as in conventional corking.
The wedge seam might be a bit deeper than a corking seam but the approximation is there.

This Wedge Seam type of construction seems to have been quiet popular in BC aka British Columbia. I recall a yard in the 1960's run bye Japanese Canadians that specialized in that technique. My faded jaded mememory says they used Doug Fir planking and Red Cedar wedges. What glue was used I have no recollection.

Alaska Yellow Cedar planking with Red Cedar wedges seems almost backwards to me. I feel that YC is softer than RC and again it was my impression that the wedges were supposed to be of the softer wood????

[ 10-08-2002, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[imported_Jimmy]

I was under the opposite impression, I thought red cedar is softer than yellow cedar. Maybe Alaskan yellow cedar is different from yellow cedar it's difficult to know with common names. It's hard to imagine something softer than red cedar