H28 "Larrikin" rebuild

[Jim Ledger]

Hi Larks.

Looking at the plans it might seem that the end of the beam shelf bolts to a pair of lodging knees, which firmly holds the ends to the transom. Herreshof wrote in "The Common Sense of Yacht Design" that it's important to secure the clamp/beam shelf to the transom and stem, as this puts the clamp in tension when the boat tries to sag.

Just a thought, carry on.

[Larks]

I see what you mean Jim, perhaps the reason the shelf was left hanging there on either side in the first place, just not finished off properly. They hadn't been attached to anything, let alone the grown knees that were bolted only to the hull and transom so perhaps its fortunate that she has held her shape quite well, (or possibly that is as Wizbang said because she is strip planked and not in need of the knees?).

Although I have now trimmed the end of the starboard shelf as shown I'll fit some decent laminated knees anyway now and bring them forward to the rear most deck beam to tie the shelf into the transom, if not completely as designed at least as best I can and still make them functional.

Carrying on........

[Larks]

I can't make any claims to great progress over this weekend with a few other projects on the house to deal with, but some progress none the less this afternoon with a few sections of sheer clamp (I'm still not sure if I can call it that) cut, shaped and glued in place. Some photos below, they are shaped to suit the deck camber, notched into the deck beams and butted up between each rib, each a nice snug fit:

[P.L.Lenihan]

I must confess this is the first time I've seen a sheer clamp installed in short lengths like this Greg. Am I missing something or did I just spend too much time as a youth gazing out the window while the teacher was teaching?

Nice progress and in the right dirrection too!


Cheers!


Peter

[Larks]

Yes, that's why I'm wondering if I should be calling it (them) that Peter. Maybe I should call it something else. Any ideas? Sheer bits? Bruces?

[Larks]

Just an update to show that there is some progress, albeit a bit slow. Despite the distractions of my lathe and playing with making caulking mallets, I have been chipping away at the fill in pieces along the sheer between the frames and have the starboard side all but completed, with just a couple at the bow to do before moving on down the port side.

Although my steaming exercise was reasonably successful, I've found that I can get a better fit by simply shaping each individual piece to the curve of the hull so have not bothered with any more steaming past the first couple of lengths that I did.

Although this photo doesn't show it clearly, there is a slight gap in the center from the curve of the hull, just enough that I wasn't overly happy with simply clamping it up to close the gap. The hull planking is the same thickness as the fill in pieces but I worry that the huon pine planking is more likely to pull in to the celery-top pine distorting the shape of the hull, than the other way around.



It doesn't need much trimmed off and I've basically just marked in the curve by hand and eye:



And used my (borrowed) sander to trim it down quickly:



checking the curve against a straight edge on the sander bed:



To give a fit that I'm much happier to glue and clamp up, here it is sitting slightly higher than the hull plank so what looks like a gap is actually the shadow line:



It's not a particularly quick job to do, with each piece shaped to the hull side and then shaped along the top to match the camber of the deck beams, then each deck beam notched out to receive the pieces, but I think it will be a worthwhile addition to the sheer framework

[Larks]

The result so far:

[Thad]

Nice!

[Duncan Gibbs]

Where's Jim Ledger with his lipstick when you need him eh?

Good going Greg!

[Larks]

Thanks guys, I can't wait to start getting some primer splashed around all of this stuff.

[Larks]

Just copying this over from similar that I posted on the Oz Politics thread, I have been given a very good deal on a load of marine ply and some bits and pieces of other stuff.

I've taken a weeks leave and plan to see if I can get a bit done on the H28 so the first priority of my first day of leave has been to sort through the ply and stack it out of the road so that I can get access to the boat again to finish off the sheer backing pieces. Here's a quick and dirty rack that I made up for it on Friday:



the right half of the stack is all marine ply, mostly 12mm, the left half is a mix of veneered chipboard, structural ply and MDF that has nothing to do with the boat:



with a few smaller pieces of gloss finished veneered ply, structural ply and veneered chipboard still looking for a home. Some will go into making a couple of tool cabinets:

[Candyfloss]

Thanks guys, I can't wait to start getting some primer splashed around all of this stuff.

If you are saying what I think you are saying here Greg, I can't agree more. I envy Kerry the Floating Kiwi's ability to see the inner beauty of his (once) derelict Folkboat. When I look at my Piedy all I see is the outer ugliness & I can't wait to get a coat of paint on it. Maybe that's why I have been divorced four times.

[Larks]

If you are saying what I think you are saying here Greg, I can't agree more. I envy Kerry the Floating Kiwi's ability to see the inner beauty of his (once) derelict Folkboat. When I look at my Piedy all I see is the outer ugliness & I can't wait to get a coat of paint on it. Maybe that's why I have been divorced four times.

Getting some primer on sort of suggests the real start to putting her back together to me, at the moment I'm just making repairs so I'm looking forward to turning the corner so to speak.

There has certainly been some outer ugliness to my little project Graeme, but I would never have bought her if I didn't see the inner beauty and I suspect despite your protestation you were much the same with the Piedy:

[Jay Greer]

I am so glad you are setting her right Larks! I can't begin to describle what happended in my gut when I saw that picture! Thank God for that beautiful hull!
Jay

[Slacko]

Unfortunately this is the image brought to mind when most yachties think H28.
The are some pictures posted here somewhere that show what they are supposed to look like with traditional cabin. Fabulous!

[Larks]

Thanks for looking in Slacko, Jay's "Bright Star" is the inspiration for what I'd like to aim for here, albeit with a few subtle differences, my cabin will stretch further forward past the mast per the existing frames and mine is a sloop rig. If you've seen LFH's Sensible Cruising Design "Bright Star" is featured in the article on H28 in that book, I'm sure Jay won't mind me posting a photo here:



and "Lark"

[P.L.Lenihan]

Happy birthday and many happy returns Greg!!!


Cheers!


Peter

[PeterSibley]

I am so glad you are setting her right Larks! I can't begin to describle what happended in my gut when I saw that picture! Thank God for that beautiful hull!
Jay

Agreed , I quite often have to mentally strip the ''upper works'' off a boat to see the beauty .Some strange things are done !

I wish some people would just go caravanning .


and another sneaky Happy Birthday Greg !

[Larks]

Thanks Peters'

[Jay Greer]

Greg, Enough of this birthday nonsensese lets get that boat in the water!
Cheers to you and congratulations!
Just had mine too albiet I am a few years down the road of life that has been decorated with bevy of women and gorgeous boats of all sizes and shapes. Now I am fixed on just one, my wife Anne and our H28 "Bright Star".
Jay

[Larks]

Thankyou Jay. I'm also now very happily fixed on the one woman for life - my wife Kate, but I may yet evolve through a few more yachts over the next half a century.

[RFNK]

Many happy returns to both of you!
Rick

[Sailor]

Greg, Enough of this birthday nonsensese lets get that boat in the water!
Cheers to you and congratulations!
Just had mine too albiet I am a few years down the road of life that has been decorated with bevy of women and gorgeous boats of all sizes and shapes. Now I am fixed on just one, my wife Anne and our H28 "Bright Star".
Jay

UM, Mr. Greer? Sir, that's TWO. Fine we won't make you choose.

[Larks]

OK, so having taken the week off to do just what I want, it was time to do just what I had been wanting to do, that being to get a bit of quality time on the H28. The first task was to finish off the sheer backing pieces and after doing the starboard side with a hand saw and chisel to notch out the deck beams, I remembered the Fein multimaster that we have at work and bought that home for a day and made much quicker work of that part of the job.

The problem with the hand saw had been the proximity of the ribs and the difficulty in swinging the hand saw without damaging the ribs:



Although with patience I could get down a bit further with very short and careful strokes, I still had to cut out the last bit with a chisel which usually resulted in a mess at the bottom of the slot, this is one of the better ones done like that:



But with the Fein and this blade:



Things were much quicker and easier, I still started the cut with the hand saw as I found it easier to get the angle and position just where I wanted it:



and ended up with a tidier cut slot at the end of it:




After working my way along the rest of the port side, it was time to tackle this mess up forward:



Which had me scratching my head as to how to deal with it without making a massive chore of it. My concern was that the planks along the sheer appeared to be loose and with multiple glue failures, making me think that perhaps I should bust the whole lot out and redo them, which was the last thing I really wanted to do.

[P.L.Lenihan]

it was time to tackle this mess up forward:

Are we to presume mess,is said in hushed tones, when no one else is around and only in her ear?

[Larks]

Are we to presume mess,is said in hushed tones, when no one else is around and only in her ear?

You've got it Peter, probably better referred to as this little challenge.

[Larks]

So this little challenge had bothered me for some time and I'd been avoiding getting too close to it and looked away whenever it caught the corner of my eye lest I must deal with it before anything else.

However in fact the loose looking top most pieces of strip plank up forward on either side were actually solid and, although peppered with nail holes, hadn't been trimmed to match the width of the ones under them for some reason, creating the illusion of a gap between the planks, so I made the decision to simply continue the sheer backing blocks and clean up any broken bits of sheer plank before fitting the rubbing strake later on.

The breasthook, although marred by a shake down the port side and quite uneven and poorly shaped, is also solid, so it was mostly just a matter of shaping a piece of celery top to suit:



Which I find easiest to do my eye, a pencil, a bit of guesswork and a liberal dose of tooing and froing:



and without the benefit of Peters' lipstick, the red lead on the breasthook served to reveal the high points:



to give me a reasonably decent fit, :



on each side:



perhaps not perfect but one that I was comfortable enough with to glue up:

[Larks]

I'm still not finished with this area yet, nor with the quarter knees at the stern, but with the sheer backing pieces in place up here I can at least consider that particular job completed:



I have used Fixtech polyurethane glue throughout this part of the job and I find it a very good and strong glue, I'm pretty stuck on it really (pun intended):



The only difficulty that I have had with it in this instance has been with the clean up. The glue cures in the presence of air and moisture and with very low humidity at the moment I tend to lightly moisten the timber prior to gluing. As it cures it expands and fills any voids and gives a nice squeeze out all around if liberally applied.

Easy enough to clean up with a sharp chisel and some sand paper in most cases, but with the underside of the sheer backing pieces being quite difficult to access I haven't been able to clean up as well as I'd like to.

Here is a typical squeeze out after curing, looking over the beam shelf and under the sheer backing piece:



My removal process has been to cut along with a knife and/or chisel and then scrape away with the end of the chisel to end up with something like this on the one next to it:



Which is about as good as it is going to get as I can't get my hams or any more suitable tools attached to them up behind there to clean or sand the area any further.

[Larks]

Interestingly, while doing this exercise I've realised that the deck frames are a mix of timbers. I thought that they were Celery Top pine, but being unfamiliar with Tasmanian timbers and having never seen celery top pine that was an assumption based solely on what might be expected for a Tassy built Huon pine hull.

It turns out (from what I was able to learn and observe at the Tassie wooden Boat show) that the framing is actually a mix of Huon pine and (I think) King Billy pine, with the only Celery Top pine being what I have now introduced:

Here is a Huon Pine deck beam where it meets one of my new Celery Top pine sheer backing pieces. The hull planking outboard of that is Huon pine:



And this is the one immediately forward of it which I believe to be King Billy pine:

[Larks]

There was one area of the sheer that was simply too knocked around for me to leave alone so I've offered that "little challenge" a slightly different approach:

This is the offending area, it's been bashed at some stage and then epoxied over:







This will end up mostly behind the rubbing strake and will also end up sheathed with dynal/epoxy extended over from the deck, as well as being backed by the new sheer backing pieces, however I just didn't like to leave it as it was, so a couple of swift saw strokes down to the first decent plank:





and I've then glued in the backing piece for this area before going any further:

[RFNK]

I reckon that's a good move Greg. Those cracked up areas are very prone to rotting and they remain a soft spot anyway if not fixed. You'll always be glad later that you put the effort into getting it right.
Rick

[Larks]

Then with all of the backing pieces in place, I've reblocked that cut out. First a rough template:



Then a few huon pine strips, cut slightly wider than the 1" planks on the hull. These strips are cut from a small length of huon pine that I had left over from my H28 model making:



which by pure good Irish luck came up to the perfect thickness at the deepest end of the cut out:



There was a bit more shaping involved than I've taken photos of, but suffice to say that I simply cut the pieces slightly larger than my rough template then used my disc sander to trim them down to the exact length and angle for the cut out.

I've then glued them in one at a time with a couple of 3/4" copper nails driven down through each one then a couple of 1 1/2" copper nails skewed back to the sides into the existing hull at each end of the top strip. Meanwhile with the whole lot glued and clamped to the new sheer backing piece:



I stick a length of plastic tape to the block that I used for the clamping piece so that it wouldn't be glued to the whole shebang, however in this piece the lettering decided that it would better stick to the glue than the tape:



Plenty of good squeeze out all around, you may also be able to see that the pieces sit slightly proud of the hull to allow some good sanding meat:

[Larks]

And the result after some liberal sanding is quite pleasing:





I'd add that as much as I like using my hand tools where they are best suited, I'm not any sort of purist that will deny using decent power tools where they are better suited to the task. In this case my Makita belt sander was a must and did the perfect job for what I wanted here.

[RFNK]

And the result after some liberal sanding is quite pleasing:

Indeed!
Rick

[Duncan Gibbs]

As it cures it expands and fills any voids and gives a nice squeeze out all around if liberally applied.

Easy enough to clean up with a sharp chisel and some sand paper in most cases, but with the underside of the sheer backing pieces being quite difficult to access I haven't been able to clean up as well as I'd like to.

...

My removal process has been to cut along with a knife and/or chisel and then scrape away with the end of the chisel to end up with something like this on the one next to it:

...

Which is about as good as it is going to get as I can't get my hams or any more suitable tools attached to them up behind there to clean or sand the area any further.

Greg, I found that dry fitting the piece first and either scribing or marking out where the end of the faying surface is, then applying a strip or three of Oldfield's blue masking, or just thin packing tape to the adjoining areas not needing glue with make life really easy in cleaning up squeeze out.

BTW I'll try and get those camphor knees to you soonish. I've put off the sawyer until the roof is up on the shed.

[WX]

Very nice bit of repair work there Greg. There's some beautiful timber in that boat.

[Candyfloss]

Would have done it the same myself mate. Dunno about the glue though.

[Duncan Gibbs]

and I've then glued in the backing piece for this area before going any further:

Reminds me of something.... Hmmmm!

[Larks]

Reminds me of something.... Hmmmm!

You've lost me on that one Duncan????

[Lucky Luke]

I'm still not finished with this area yet, nor with the quarter knees at the stern, but with the sheer backing pieces in place up here I can at least consider that particular job completed:

The temporary repair that seems to have been done there before you looks specially ugly to me!
This broken breasthook should be repaired good and proper, period. IMHO, the best way - by far - is a lamination. This has to be with multiple thin plies in order to keep a tight radius, and with a "triangular" piece in front to "complete" the job.

About the blocking you have done in-between the frames:



I would not call this a clamp of any sort but just a blocking. I favor very much doing that on old boats, actually, as the top of the planking not only has got damaged by all the fastening of the (sometimes multiple) previous decking, but anyway also adds a good bearing surface for the new deck. Would the old boys have had the glues we have today, they would surely have done the same, and this way avoid the leaks at the deck junction that plague so many boats.

Then, if your new deck is to be of plywood - which I hope! - hence glued all round, that is a much needed additional gluing area.

While a proper breasthook is necessary at the stem to help fighting the compression by the forestay, this even if you have a plywood deck, the aft lodging knees are not really necessary then, unless you want to keep them for tradition sake, but if you go for traditional solid wood decking, they are absolutely needed, of course.

Keep up the good job!

[PeterSibley]

The temporary repair that seems to have been done there before you looks specially ugly to me!
This broken breasthook should be repaired good and proper, period. IMHO, the best way - by far - is a lamination. This has to be with multiple thin plies in order to keep a tight radius, and with a "triangular" piece in front to "complete" the job.

Or a nice grown knee , we do have them you know .They grow on trees .

[Candyfloss]

Or, with a ply deck, a king plank will do the job.

Tell me about this glue you are using Greg. I never heard of it & it could be very useful for the interior work I'm doing.

[PeterSibley]

http://www.fixtech.com.au/contact-us.html

It's pretty good stuff .

[The Bigfella]

I think Greg should post a photo of the timber he got for his birthday!

[Larks]

I think Greg should post a photo of the timber he got for his birthday!

Yes indeed he should!! Yesterday sort of disappeared in seeing everyone off then cleaning up and today seemed to vanish with trying to get some deck beams painted, so unforgivably it's still where we had unloaded it on Saturday. I'll get a few other photos, as intended, when I separate it all to stack it away where I can show just exactly what is in there, but meanwhile here are a couple that I've just snapped, with the obligatory scaling devise included:






Luke, thank you for comments and the reassurances re the blocking, the decks will indeed be layered ply (although the cabin top will probably be ply of cedar T&G).

The breasthook is actually solid, despite the shake down the port side. I had initially thought that I'd need to take it out and replace it completely but after having a much closer look I don't believe I'd be achieving anything more than I could by repairing it in place, so what I plan to do with it is clean out the shake and either spline in a piece of hardwood or simply epoxy the gap then shape a new "cover" breasthook to fit tightly over the existing one. Pretty much as you describe it yourself, however with the new arrival or Peter's generous gifts I may be able to use a piece of that to very good effect here.

The aft lodging knees, (which I've been calling quarter knees??), are also as you say as much for the sake of tradition as they are to simply give me the opportunity to make them and replace the old ones with something a little more "presentable" and to give myself a bit of reassurance in the strength of this area.

[Larks]

Or, with a ply deck, a king plank will do the job.

Tell me about this glue you are using Greg. I never heard of it & it could be very useful for the interior work I'm doing.

Greame, there's probably not much more that I can tell you that isn't on the link that Peter put up, but if you are interested in trying some I can either send you some or I can ask my mate Troy, who is the manager/rep' here if anyone is selling it in NZ. There may be an equivalent there that other builders are using but I have a bit of faith in this one because it's been quite popular with the industry here. Interestingly Troy was telling me recently that the marine industry has become quite a small part of their market, not because the product has become any less popular but because their market in building, mining and so on has picked up so dramatically.

[Candyfloss]

Thanks Peter.

Oops, looks like we crossed posts Greg. Yeah thanks, it seems the local suppliers are Geneico in Parnell, Auckland. I'll give them a bell, get a price.

[Lucky Luke]

Or a nice grown knee , we do have them you know .They grow on trees .

....I have never seen a branch down some 150 deg. from the trunk.... but maybe you have trees that grow upside down, or something like that !

[Lucky Luke]

Or, with a ply deck, a king plank will do the job.

No. the effort is not only along the boat axis, but lateral, and it's huge (it's the one that makes the boat heel, you know !)

Even on a ply deck, I would not put all my faith in the deck to hull junction, no matter how well it may be done, but still unite both beam clamps with a breasthook, at the bows at least.

[Candyfloss]

I never heard of a boat splitting down the middle, but I do not wish to derail Greg's thread, and since I am not a marine engineer, I'll say no more on the subject.