N17813 Restoration Diary

Rubbing strips Rubbing strips have been pulled off; easy to do because the outwales have dried and shrunk so that the copper nails just be pop out. Huge barbed ring nails had been used at the ends and these have to be sawn off. Don't try pulling out barbed ring nails, disastrous splintering will follow!

Decks Where the outwales are badly cracked aft we glue, clamp up and screw. An hour or two passes whilst we do other jobs. Now they have set beautifully solid. We screw down the loose sections of the deck and add a new temporary section aft. (Cut with a jig saw from a a bit of scrap ply using the other side as a template.) All of this is takes time but is a straightforward job for an amateur.

But the plate is stuck! The hull is now much less squashy and we are ready to turn it over. Not so fast - the huge plate is stuck down resting on the trailer. The anchor point for the raising gear which is way up under the foredeck has pulled out and the plate can't be shifted by hand.

Nothing for it - we will have to get the foredeck off and screw the anchor point back onto the hog. ( Its either that or send in my grandson but my daughter might not approve!) A job on our list for tomorrow.

The hog is made up from two bits of timber: an external "keel" section roughly triangular, and an internal plank which is screwed down on to it to form a sandwich into which the bottom planks are slotted. The last eight inches inside are found to be completely rotten.

We take out the transom knee - a horrible job because it has been screwed on from outside and none of the screws will shift. A hack saw blade down by the hog does the job. The knee falls to bits along the lines of the grain but enough is preserved to be sure of the angle with the transom.

And the hog: we have cut away the hog internally being careful not to cut through the good plank on the port side. As this piece comes out, together with the adjacent section of rotten plank more of the transom crumbles and we are left with what you see in the photograph.

Now the really frightening part is over! Making up the replacement pieces will be tough but fun

Re-fitting This is my good friend Charlie (There are two Charles's working on this boat.) He has a worked a miracle today cutting a new piece for the hog and insetting a new piece of planking to replace the bit I put my thumb through. Both have been scarfed. The whole thing is bedded down on a sort of mastic filler and temporarily pinned with brass pins (The ideal tool for this job is a "pin-pusher" I have one for putting pins in model barge planking - Squires supply them for railway modellers) The result is ready to be planed in and rubbed down. A little staining may be needed later to get a colour match - I know a man who uses tea (Earl Grey he says; but Darjeeling for this I think)

Meantime the foredeck I have been stripping off the foredeck. Getting the bow plate off was difficult. Another chum showed me a good trick for getting out old screws - if you can get them started at all then push a thin (old) screw driver under the heads with one hand and go on winding with the other, back and forth at first. Once you have a tiny amount of raised screw head you can turn it out with pliers. With the bow plate off its easy to pop the deck off .

The plate inserted to carry the deck step for the mast is split but easily replaceable. Also, when we first had the boat we noticed a dip in the foredeck - just a little like an upturned slipper. The reason is now clear. One of the deck beams forward is cut a bit low and the deck has gradually subsided on to it. A strip of ultra thin modelling ply glued and pinned to the beam will quickly put that right. I debate whether to put in a king plank (a narrow-ish plank running fore and aft between the deck beams) My previous boat had one.

The plate finally pops up I replace the anchor point for the centre plate outhaul with new screws and in a fresh place. The old Barton blocks are persuaded to turn until they run freely and a new soft outhaul is threaded. With a bit of initial persuasion the heavy plate (30 lb) slides neatly up into its case and now we can move the boat. Today it is sitting comfortably upright on its trailer.

Bugle cleats Originally the outhaul had been captured in "bugle" cleats which were screwed on the the deck beams but had pulled out. They can go back in when the beams have been pinned and glued, perhaps on pads through bolted since they take a lot of shear strain. - a job for another day.

Cutting the transom filler piece Now then my job is to cut a new section for the transom to match the planking which Charlie has put in. And to cut out the corresponding chunk from the transom! I have slept on it. This morning my main worry is how to establish a centre line down the transom since it will be nice to have everything square. And of course the gudgeons have to go back on the centre line.

Well I ducked it today. My excuse is that friend Charlie has introduced me to the use of the heat gun. With it I can strip a whole plank in twenty minutes and I did two in succession. Fourteen to go. I also stripped much of the transom and one of the seats.

Beware A heat gun is without doubt the best way I have found of removing old varnish - BUT - it must be handled with very great care and the instructions read equally carefully. And it gets VERY HOT - so be careful where you put it down. And the scraper you are using - in my case an old very blunt chisel - also get VERY HOT.

Work along the plank The technique as taught by Charlie is to point the heat gun along the plank, not directly at it. Follow it with the chisel and if you get the timing just right the the chisel will push the varnish off just as it starts to lift.. A long slow stroke will take the varnish off in strips.

Work away from your body It goes without saying that both the heat gun and the chisel should be pointing away from your body. DO NOT WORK TOWARDS the gun - you will be burned - and I have a good big blister to prove it. Work away and at the right speed and the results are magical. My heat gun is 1500 watts and you would certainly not need more for this sort of work.

Spars Today is a home day. Today I used the heat gun to strip the old varnish off the boom and take stock. An obliging beetle has left little dark beetle tracks on the surface along here. But the wood is in good condition nearly everywhere, if a little pock-marked. The business end has been left in water at some stage and on the surface has become a little soft - soon sanded down with the help of my grandson.


Chasing spiders out of the track with sandpaper

However the gunmetal fittings have corroded to a white powder, particularly inside and will have to be replaced. The mainsheet fitting, which is stainless steel, is fine.

Sanding down took about two and a half hours and now all that remains is to re-varnish and replace the fittings. Well that feels good, one bit finished.

Today we did bite the bullet and fashioned a new filler piece to replace rotten section of the transom. Charlie made it up from a beautiful piece of mahogany which I had saved up from an old centreboard and then fitted it.


This is what we were dealing with - a missing section of the bottom planking and the transom which had crumbled away	Here is the piece of mahogany cut from an old centreboard which is going to fill the missing section of the transom.

Difficulties included getting the inside edge of the hole in the transom straight - finally done with a very sharp chisel to a pencilled line - and fitting the filler piece to the bottom planking which was not quite symmetrical. The secret was to do a bit at a time. And to mark one side of the wood so that we knew which way it went back after taking it out to fiddle with.!


Here is the new piece fitted into the transom still in varnish ready to sanded down with the rest of the transom.	And this is the shape of the new piece viewed from inside with a new section of hog and planking, before sanding-in.

Anyhow as you can see it slid neatly into its slot - we left the varnish on for the picture but that will all disappear when the piece is finally sanded in.

Day 8

Seats and thwart Meantime I had been attacking the seats and thwart. Under that old discoloured varnish they turned out to the most beautiful mahogany glowing a pale pinkish yellow in the sun. The old varnish was fetched off using a heat gun then rubbed down with Aluminium silicate abrasive paper (available from Halfords) and then with conventional sandpaper. I have taken the seats out because the knees were loose under them and needed to be re-bedded. But I left the thwart firmly in place!

Yet more about knees. The seats rest on knees all four of which were loose and had to come out. These knees are cut in a cunning way so that they rest on two planks at a time. The underside of the knee is cut to the profile of the plank lands and it is this which stops the knee sliding down into the boat - this and a single screw driven in through the planking from outside. In a later boat by Wyche & Coppock the seat knees are combined with the deck knees and so spread the load over a great number of planks. Nice shapes these knees

OK so I spent a pleasant half hour on my back under the boat getting the four screws (blighters) out. OK so I had boat cushions to lie on - who wouldn't - but I didn't nod off as someone implied - I really didn't!

It is just like fishing. Think of the fisherman sitting quietly on the bank of the canal enjoying the day and occasionally reeling in a fish. That's the right pace for this sort of work! And so far it has all been perfectly possible.