Restoring Sea Weed

[woodpile]

Finally got off my but to give Sea Weed a new lease on life. She's a 13'9" rowing skiff built around 1950 in Phippsburg, Me. by a gentleman called Daddy Bowie. From my research and help from Willin, a Phippsburg local, Bowie was the row boat builder for most residents back then on Small Point. He built entirely from cedar and did a nice job, keeping his boats very light weight and nicely rockered for easy rowing. The plan is to keep things as original as possible as the cedar is in quite good shape for it's age considering it's been stored outdoors for a lot of years. The only major change being considered is changing the cross planked bottom to plywood, the wood's not bad but the shrinkage created gaps up to 1/8" wide between boards. Looking for suggestions on what to do with the steel fasteners holding the laps together, their pretty secure but also pretty rusty, my fear is trying to remove them, and there's a lot of them, will cause more damage than good. Thought was to leave them alone and add some copper clinch nails between them, but then will the rust bleed thru the new paint?





Picture of "Daddy Bowie" on Small Point looking west over Casco Bay.

[Thad]

My thoughts: Adding copper will accelerate the deterioration/rusting of the iron/steel. The laps are well above the waterline so probably all will be well. 1/8" gaps will swell tight in a couple of hours so what's the point of the plywood?. Clean her up and paint as you wish, but use oil based enamel instead of a plastic paint.

[Jay Greer]

Certainly it is a well built and nice looking skiff. I would opt to keep the bottom as it is. An eighth of an inch is not a large gap in cedar planking. If upon launching it does not take up in a few days, then consider caulking with cotton. The wood is bare enough to paint without using primer which, will insure better penetration and longevity. That is, if you use oil based enamel. It will take more coats but it will have greater longevity than if you use primer under the enamel.
So far as the rusty fasteners are concerned, if you can use a Dremmel tool and small wire brush to remove the rust, they can be coated with a cold galvanizing compound known as Devcon/Z. The product was developed for the military and does an excellent job of stopping rust in its tracks. It is 96% pure zinc.
http://snsvo3.seekandsource.com/apex...l/vopage3.html

Jay

[Phil Y]

Nice tractor

[michigangeorge]

There have been some recent threads discussing how to stop the bleeding rust on your fasteners. I could not find them right off this morning but someone will come along with the info. I would not change that bottom either. If you can remove the paint on the inside of the bottom planks a good application of boat soup will start tightening those planks. If they do not swell enough, caulk them, paint over the caulking and apply seam sealer. Thats a pretty boat, you know her history, keep her original :-)

[woodpile]

Not sure why the pictures went away, perhaps too large, here's the link to the Photobucket folder.
http://s395.photobucket.com/albums/p...ct/Sea%20Weed/

Well the consensus, hers too (the better half), is clearly to keep her original......agreed, no plywood. There's a pic in the album showing the bottom gaps, actually up to 1/4" is closer to what some are, with the boards being only 5/8" thick 1/4" gaps seem a littlt too wide for caulking so the alternative is there's enough NW cedar in the barn for a new bottom, with all the rusty steel fasteners in the bottom this seems like the best way to go leading to the question of fastening new boards, bronze ring nails?, screws?, epoxy? and should they be gapped, how much, for caulking? Thanks for all the steering here.

Jay,
Devcon Z sounds like a good product, especially with a few galvanized trailers in the fleet but buying it from a site in Tamil Nadu, India has me wondering a little. Have you ordered it from from them? Found this site http://westsidedelivers.com/item.asp?PID=5266 $48 & change for a quart spray can.

[woodpile]

Think I got it, looks like when you do a reply the pictures temporairly go away???

[Peerie Maa]

Looks as though someone already tried some mastic or putty. I'd clean out the stuff in those seams and then lay some wet sacking in there to see how much they take up when there is nothing to keep the seams open. Only then think about replacing the worst of the bottom planks.

[Willin']

Wow, that's an awful pretty work boat. The quarter knees are particularly sexy. I'll keep my eyes open but so far I haven't noticed anything that sweet on a mooring around here.

[Willin']

I'd build or restore something like Sea Weed long before I'd consider one of those bud tugly goat island skiffs everyone seems to be raving about lately any day. Good luck with her.

[woodpile]

Thanks Willin, as 60 some years of paint come off and more of the details are exposed it becomes more obvious old Daddy Bowie had a good eye and was experienced building these boats. The way he did the sawn frames, think that's what their called, tapered across the bottom and laminated to form one piece from gunwhale to gunwhale with a 2" thickness across the bottom and 1" up the sides with all edges nicely chamfered. In your area next week.

[nedL]

Nice little skiff! Down on the Jersey shore cross planked bottom rowboats were the 'boat of choice' (literally by the hundredes!) for rental rowboats for more than half a century. When they threw them in the water in the spring they all filled with water and floated at their gunwales for a couple of days till they tightened up, then when bailed they were dry. If it were me, and if the planks are in good physical shape (not all split at the chines from expanding steel nails) I'd leave her alone and just use a semi-soft seam compound. You don't want to caulk a cross planked bottom very tight, with no framing in the bottom they pop planks real easilly if overcaulked, then you have a mess.