Monday, June 15, 2015

renovating a 150yr old boat outdoors in mid winter

Starting with some ugly shots...
above, the tiller was greyed and multicoloured, but a very beautiful piece of work, so I couldn't resist staring there. The challenge in Winter though is getting sufficient temperature to dry things off and harden the finish. 


 The combing was next and was bigger to sand that it seemed....you can see some of the deck boards. These varied considerably from fresh to greyed to crackled to de-laminating. Her old berth was heavily shaded on one side and this position tended to leave almost half the boat damp for long periods. But the planks ribs and bilges are pretty good. Note the Manilla line. Fred used only natural fibres in his rigging.


Above, one of the previously shaded areas. Some of these boards had lifted at their edges, curling away from the epoxy coated ply beneath. It was a bit of a triumph to get the epoxy to go off in the cold weather, outside in high humidity. Pre-warming it and the (fast) hardener in hot water (in a bucket) got things started. The repairs have sanded up well since.


Next, while I wait for a warm enough day to varnish the combing I'll continue to strip back the gunge from the decks and begin making a new aft cockpit sole plate- the old one has started to rot and is in danger of rotting the frames that it sits on. All the flooring is of Australian White Beech, like the decks. I'd like to stick to that or something similar, but to get me going I'll make temporary replacements from 21mm ply, and paint them. I'm stuck there because I don't want the floors to deteriorate further this Spring, but I don't have time (or a sufficiently well set-up workshop any more, for a while) so a temporary job seems in order.

3 comments:

  1. Working in winter weather, on the water. How's that for an alliteration?
    Small steps lead to big progress.

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  2. Cheers Michael. Progress feels good, whatever the weather we wither with wantonly.

    ReplyDelete