Rebuilding 19 foot clinker doubleender. Advice needed.

[heimlaga]

I am not a professional boatbuilder. I am a carpenter and joiner but because I know a little about wooden boats I sometimes end up doing some not too advanced repairs for customers.

Now I am replacing the keel, stem knee and garboards on this 19 footer. Probably built in the 1950-ies it has spent most of it's life in a boat shed with earthen floor into which the keel sank and rotted out. The old T-shaped keel was hewn out of one piece. In order to get the garboards in I made the new keel in two pieces. The inner keel in already in place.

I run into a problem today. I make the garboards in two halves. So that I can fit them properly into the stem rebates and into the old "geralds" of the plank above. The plan was to scarph the two garboard halves together in the middle once they are both fitted. What I did not think of as I was planning was that in order to seat the hood end properly in the rabbet and under the "gerald" the plank needs a bit of persuation with a rubber mallet on the midshoip end. Once I have cut the scarph there will be no end wood to strike with the mallet.
How on earth am I to assemble this without a few light blows with a mallet?....or must I use a butt joint and one of those much hated butt blocks instead of a normal scaph?

Ideas?

[robm]

Can you make the scarph in place? I.e., push the plank ends into the rabbets, then taper the plank? Perhaps one could be tapered on the bench, and the other tapered in situ, after being tapped into place?

[Timo_N62.9_E27.7]

Screw a block on the side of the plank and strike there. Afterwards you can plug the screw holes.

[heimlaga]

It is not possible to cut the scarph in place. Or....at least not feasible.


That idea with a screwed on striking block sounds interresting. I will think about it.
Maybe a glued striking block would work. Glued with hot hide glue that can be easily disolved. You got me thinking.......

[robm]

So this is being repaired with the boat upright - that would make it hard to scarph in place. I am not sure how well hide glue handles shock loads. Or any other glue for that matter, as the wood is what tends to fail, not the glue. Fasteners spread the load better.

[Slacko]

I was thinking a block screwed on as well.

[Peerie Maa]

I was thinking a block screwed on as well.

This. and free off the hood ends of the next plank, and renail when the garboards are in place.

[Larks]

and perhaps get rid of that knot - which looks like it is already splitting and getting ready to fall out anyway......

[ulav8r]

Cut a block with an opposing angle and fasten to a square ended striking block so that when the angled block is slid against the installed plank, the angles pull the striking block against the face of the plank. Relieve the angle block slightly so it does not bear on the thin end of the plank.

[heimlaga]

Thanks! I will try one or another sort of striking block and then report back.

Currently I am thinking about gluing on the striking blocks using ordinary PVA white joiner's glue to fasten the striking blocks and then just plane them away. Screws have a tendency to tear everything apart in this spruce timber of ours.

I am not very worried about that knot. It shows no tendency to fall out and I rekon the linseed oil and pine tar will fil the cracks and make it watertight. There are knots looking like that in the original planking. However there are one or two loose knots which will need to be bunged.

[heimlaga]

I am working on the first scarph. I made it angled across the width to make it easier to get the advoining garboard half in place. I left a bit of extra thickness in the outer edge to avoid a feather edge. This is a traditional way of doing it around here. You can see a bit of a bulge on the outside at each scarph.

IMG_5351.jpg
What shall I use in the scarph? My climate control is a bit insufficient this time of the year. My heated workshop is too full of heavy duty industrial machinery to allow me to work on boats indoors.

IMG_5350.jpg

I would have liked to glue it using Aerodux 185 just like the other scarphes in the boat but it is too cold and an improvised tent with a heater would be unreliable and very expensive with current energy prices. I think the wood is a bit moist for using epoxy. The oldtimers used pine tar and cotton and clench nailed the scarphes together so that would of cause be an option.
Should I use sikaflex?

[neil.henderson]

Sometimes you can push planks or ribs into place by working a length of timber off the walls/corners/ceiling of the workspace - tends to be much gentler on the timber and you can get very fine adjustments of the pieces of the plank/joint. I used this method combined with clamped blocks of wood with wedges to bend the Spotted Gum ribs (steam bent) into my motor launch hull - worked a treat with no screws or metal fixing required................

Regards Neil

[heimlaga]

I ended up bedding the scarph with sikaflex. I don't know whether it is correct or not but the weather was freezing and I need o get the job done.

This is a traditional way of reinforcing the feather edge. The scarph surface of the outer part is planed a wee bit hollow and the outer edge is left around 3mm thick. When all is nailed together tight the outer edge forms a ridge which of cause is planed away at the land so the next plank fits tight.

IMG_5368.jpg

The port side garboard is all nailed in. All went well expect where the stem joins the keel. The plank refused to be pulled in so there is a 0.5mm gap in the worst spot. I wounder if I just can fill it with cotton and tar/boiled linseed oil mixture. The gap stretched for about 10 cm along the land.
What do you think?

[heimlaga]

Starboard side garboards going inIMG_5379.jpg

[peter radclyffe]

well done

[heimlaga]

Now that I am making the keel out of two pieces instead of one. Should I glue the inner and outer keel together or should I bed it with sikeflex or should I just smear it with pine tar and screw it together?

I am afraid that if I glue the glue will squeeze out and stick to the garboards.

[Peerie Maa]

Now that I am making the keel out of two pieces instead of one. Should I glue the inner and outer keel together or should I bed it with sikeflex or should I just smear it with pine tar and screw it together?

I am afraid that if I glue the glue will squeeze out and stick to the garboards.

What is your planned order of assembly?
Are you fitting and securing the hog part of the keel first, and then adding the salient keel batten afterwards?
Does the keel have a rebate bevel, or does the boat follow older Shetland practice of leaving an open seam between the edge of the garboard and keel, relying on the bearding for watertight ness?

If she has an open seam, there is less of an issue than if she has a rebate.

Personally, I would dry fit the components.
Then lute and clench the garboards to the hog.
Then paint the edges of the garboards, keeping paint away from the glue surface.
If she has a rebate, paint the rebates, again keeping the glue surface clean.
Then glue the keel on. If there is a rebate, lute the rebate surfaces, so any squeeze is "balanced" between the glue and luting and any glue entering the rebate is kept off the wood by the paint and soft luting.

[heimlaga]

Order of assembly:
The garboards are clench nailed in and the outer keel is now being fitted to the hog. Then it will be fastened in one way or another.

There is no rabbet. The garboards are clench nailed to the hog. The seam between garboard edge and outer keel isn't exactly open but it is very far from any attempt at making it watertight.


What is luting?
I am using a mixture of pine tar and boiled linseed oil on the cotton in the seams.

[Peerie Maa]

Order of assembly:
The garboards are clench nailed in and the outer keel is now being fitted to the hog. Then it will be fastened in one way or another.

There is no rabbet. The garboards are clench nailed to the hog. The seam between garboard edge and outer keel isn't exactly open but it is very far from any attempt at making it watertight.


What is luting?
I am using a mixture of pine tar and boiled linseed oil on the cotton in the seams.

Luting is a viscous semi liquid like thick paint or varnish, Pine tar if thick enough without the oil. Something that you slather on to faying surfaces that don't need any form of gasket.
As your seam is open, a coat of paint or tar if she is to be tarred on completion, to stop any glue squeeze out from sticking. Scraping the uncured glue out with a thin pointy stick would be good as well.

[heimlaga]

Thanks Nick

This makes perfect sence. I just couldn't come up with the idea myself.

[heimlaga]

Dry fitting the new outer keel
IMG_5401.jpg



Shaping the new outer keel. I wonder how many weeks some celebrated youtube woodworkers would have spent building router jigs for this. I did it quickly with spindle moulder and hatchet.

[heimlaga]

The new engine for the boat has arrived. A 2 hp Wickström. Made in Vasa, Finland likely in the 1950-ies. For some weird reason there seems to be no new inboard engines in this size on the market anymore. The world has definitely gone bonkers. Now that we need to cut down the use of fossil fuels there should be a future for easily driven hulls with inboard motors in the range from 2 up to 8 horsepower.
IMG_5398.jpg


If the name John Wickström (born Johannes Wikström) rings a bell for someone in Chicago Illinois it is because he was involved in the Caloric Company making boat engines there in the very early 1900-s. Around 1910 he went home to Finland with his family and set up Bröderna Wickströms Motorfabrik together with his brother Jakob.

[heimlaga]

The new outer keel glued in following Nick's advice. Everything seemed to work as intended.
IMG_5411.jpg

[heimlaga]

Working on some new sole boards or whatever they are called around the engine. I have also put in new ceiling in the hold. In Österhankmo at the time they nailed the ceiling lightly to the steam bent ribs. I broke with tradition and imported a supposedly better solution from Kronoby that is 100 km up the coast where they put in loose short ribs to which they nailed the ceiling so it can be taken out in one piece for cleaning and tarring the boat inside.
IMG_5417.jpg

[Peerie Maa]

Working on some new sole boards or whatever they are called around the engine. I have also put in new ceiling in the hold. In Österhankmo at the time they nailed the ceiling lightly to the steam bent ribs. I broke with tradition and imported a supposedly better solution from Kronoby that is 100 km up the coast where they put in loose short ribs to which they nailed the ceiling so it can be taken out in one piece for cleaning and tarring the boat inside.
IMG_5417.jpg

In the Shetlands, where boat parts are named in Old Norse, the bottom boards were called tilfers. They, too, lift out for cleaning and maintenance

[heimlaga]

Some Norwegians call them "tiljer". In my dialect of Swedish we say "faarvied" or something like that. I don't know how to spell it. The wider and in old times also thicker board along the centerline of the hold is sometimes called "stallsfjöl".

In the old days faarvedin in the hold consited of loose boards pressed down and held in place by a wooden block that was wedged in under "ståorbeton" that is the clossbeam in the middle of the hold ( fastiband I think it is called in Shetland). In the 30-ies and 40-ies it became popular in many places to put in a sawn frame without crossbeam and suddenly there was no way of holding faarvedin in place. For a couple of decades it was often nailed in until a completely new easily removable system had been developed.

[heimlaga]

It is starting to look like a boat from the inside. I am working on the engine cover.


I started working in new bolts to hold the stern tube and found that the timber was frost cracked and only consisted of splinters. I had examined it for rot but not for frost damage since I had never seen that before. I wondered why the stern tube wasn't bedded with anything and I thought some insects had eaten the lard. Now I see that it had never been bedded at all. We all knew that the original motor installation was made by someone incompetent but I didn't know it was that bad. Watere thad been standing between the tube and the sternpost and made te starnpost crack.
Fortunately the sternpost consists of a grown crook whose outer corner has a grain direction very near the tangential cut I had to make to cut out all the damaged timber. I will just glue in a new piece with Aerodux 185.

[WX]

At least it looks warmer outside. I'm definitely spoilt regarding climate here. First day of winter tomorrow and today I was wearing a t shirt.

[alfredparker360]

Congratulations on taking on the challenge of rebuilding a 19-foot clinker doubleender! To ensure a successful project, it's essential to meticulously plan the restoration process, acquire the necessary tools and materials, and seek advice from experts or forums specializing in boat restoration.