Odds & sods

Week 3.

Didn't seem to get much done this week.

Glued up the starboard garboard scarph and left for a couple of days as it's still damned parky around here; temperatures seem to struggle to get above 50. With the clamps still in place, drilled and bronze screwed the fixings for the plank into the floors.

In preparation for the weekend, the old holes in the 3rd plank on the port side (which remains and will provide the face for the 2nd plank - yet to be cut - to be bedded on)  were drilled and dowelled, effectively providing a new edge. Similarly the "old" fixing holes in the timbers (old in quotes since the timbers were only replaced months ago...) were dowelled. Hopefully this will mean that I will not be dictated to by previous holes in old planking that were not central to the timbers, thus many were at some crazy angles just to even hit the edge of the timbers...

Some of the floors in the cabin were beginning to show signs of rot; these had been treated as I got to them in the timber replacement process with Cuprinol, however now their undersides were exposed, I decided to give them the epoxy infusion treatment (similar to the deck beams) to ward off further damage if any water dwelt for any period in the bilge in the future. A nasty job with a hot air gun and epoxy dripping down your arm whilst coaxing a laden brush of ogg to defy gravity....  Interestingly, where there was a good close fit with the face of the old plank, there was little if any evidence of decay, due to the absence any air I assume, proving rot is an aerobic process. Fortunately, these floors were replacements (in the '80s I think) were ridiculously over sized, so there is more than enough meat left in them, so my earlier thoughts of replacement have now subsided.

Planking - flying solo.

Week 2.

This week spent trying to get both halves of the port garboard prepared for steaming with Pete on Saturday; so a brief run-down of the stages undertaken for my first "solo plank".

Whilst the boards I bought were pretty damned good by general consensus of those that know, there were still a few knots and if I wanted to waste as little as possible, some of these would have to make it into the finished planks. Really bad ones would be avoided, but others were infused with epoxy and then filled before the old plank patterns were laid out and juggled with to get the best use of the board. The aim is to get two planks (one boat length) out of each board if at all possible.

When satisfied the patterns were drawn round and the rough blank cut out. The blanks then needed to be planed down to the correct thickness of 1/2"; so next door to the thicknesser for a dozen or so passes until down to within a 1/100" or so of the half inch.

Taking the blanks back through to the bench, the patterns were laid out once again and their lines transferred to the blank. These old planks were somewhat "iffy" to say the least, with seemingly scant regard apparently being paid to their "fairness" and so a batten was laid down the line and the shape adjusted to give a pleasing sweep. This would define the final plank shape.

Happy with the shape, the plank was then cut out and hand planed down to the final pencil marks.

The next stage was to cut the "geralds" to allow the plank above to blend in along the top edge. Clinker boats (having overlapping planks) would look a bit messy at the ends if this wasn't done. In the picture below of "Corsair" before I brought her home, this effect can be seen as the planks look as though they merge together as they reach the stem of the boat. The geralds allow this to happen, but they are a bit of a pig to do if you're just a weekend bodger!!

First thing is to mark out the extent of the plank overlaps. This is done by measuring the extent of the bevel and transferring it with a gauge to the plank.

Next, the length of the gerald is transferred to the new plank...



... and then the depths. This is where things get tricky; the gerald has to fade to nothing but it also needs to maintain the bevel so you getting a sort of dipping twist... so first the shoulder is marked on the plank edge and then the line of the bevel:-

Laying the plank flat and clamping a guide to the bottom edge of the overlap bevel the first stage of the gerald is cut. This establishes the decrease of the gerald and the shoulder where the land of the above plank will sit. Picture below shows this stage completed with the guide removed.

Then it is time to introduce the bevel, so plane down to the second sloping line so the top forward edge disappears to nothing... but the shoulder depth must not be altered, so to help me know I am not cutting any more wood away, I mark the face of the gerald with pencil lines:-

I must make sure that the lines remain untouched at the inside corner of the step just produced, whilst removing excess wood down to the outer line:-

It is always difficult to maintain a flat surface of this bevel as you are constantly changing the angle of the plane whilst shaving off the wood, so it is checked and if necessary scraped with a very sharp chisel until flat along the whole length of the gerald:-

So that was the transom gerald done and the same process was repeated on stem end of the forward plank.

Both halves of the port garboard were just completed by the Saturday deadline, so we spent Saturday adjusting the fit of the starboard garboard against the hog (keel) and the compound bevel of the stem. This was time consuming because we were putting back on 1/2" planks; over the last 100+ years of rubbing down there was no longer a 1/2" rebate at the stem so bits were shaved off the rebate and the back of the plank to get a decent fit in all 3 dimensions. This took damned near two thirds of the day but just left time to steam in the forward portion of the Port garboard and whilst this was clamped to the boat, cooling; we marked out the scarph joints for the starboard planks and Pete cut them for me to glue up in the coming week.

First plank dry fit

May, Week 1.

At the back end of last week, we (my Guru, Pete & I) had marked and cut out the first garboard planks. It became clear that my good but undersized Makita thickneser would take them down to size alright, but at some stage during the operation we were bound to be called in to carve the turkey.... I was offered the use of a big old Wadkin thicknesser that could accommodate the boards before the planks were cut out i.e. 2 ft wide and wouldn't take more than an hour...... sooo for the third time all the boards were un-sticked and loaded onto the trailer.

Things however didn't go to plan; after over 5 hours we had only managed to get them down to just over 3/4" (the target being 5/8" or there abouts) before the blades gave out in spectaular fashion and everything was abandoned. That being said, it was a marked improvement - I did however feel like weeping when I considerd that at least ten 10 gallon drums of chippings were tossed in the skip during the process equating to about £200 of Oak at a conservative estimate....

Back on the trailer and home (followed by re-sticking with the aid of exasperated & resentful 3rd son) ready for the next steps at the weekend. The two garboard planks we had cut out previously I did put through my thicknesser but as one of them was being reduced, a number of knots chipped and one dead knot fell out entirely - so rendering the plank useless, meaning a replacement had to be cut from another board - bugger. All was not totally lost, because it seems it can be used for the aft section of the sheerstrake, which is narrower. A second plank was cut out and brought down to thickness. Stage 2. of plank prep. involved accurately drawing out the plank on the prepared blanks and then tacking on a batten to assess the fairness of the curves, adjustments made to the shape and final lines drawn before cutting out of the blanks.

Watching and learning from Pete as he cut the geralds into the transom and stem ends we then moved onto the transfer of the edge bevel on the hog side of the planks (another technique I'll mention when I fly solo). Before we knew where we were it was time to steam the forward plank to fix the twist as it makes the transition from flat to vertical and then bends into the stem rebate.

Not much illustration this week as it feels unfair to photograph another man's graft....! However the end result is a steamed plank (seen below):

Planking starts....then stops

Week 4

Doesn't seem like much was done this week. I removed the main bulkhead from the main beam and tidied up - it had been seated in bathroom silicone sealant.....

It did reveal the extent of the drop in the main beam which seems to have flattened if the arc described by the underside of the cabin trunk (which is attached to it) is anything to go by. It is somewhat odd to me that the trunk doesn't actually sit atop the beam, but their corners touch (or would have) with a series of socking great galvanised nails toshed in at an angle from the inside of the trunk into the beam....most odd. It seems to be the way Mr. Woods wanted it, because exactly the same arrangement exists at back end where the cockpit trunk is fixed to the aft beam.

Thinking of a way to stabilise or return the shape of the beam I have made enquiries about whether a bronze brace could be made up to fix to the underside of the trunk and the aft face of he beam. There will be complications arising from this when the new bulkhead is fitted, but that's another day...

Saturday saw the start of planking. Pete came over to help and we started by offering up the old garboard and marking off the outer edge on the timbers. The plank was then cut at the point where the new plank joint is planned, leaving us with a servicable pattern. So now we had a 13ft forward section section and a 17ft aft section. These were taken through to the old milking parlour (where the 20ft planking bench is....) and marked out on the stock. I was hoping that we could get 1.5 boat planks (3 part planks) out of one stock board - some hope; we barely got 2. The blanks were cut out and started to run through the thicknesser and here operations faltered... the board used was one of the thickest if not the thickest as a result of our resawing operation a couple of months ago and whilst we could have pulled the thickness down to the desired 1/2" it would have taken over an hour for the 2 planks. Time to rethink. We will take them back to the IBTC and run all nine boards through their thicknesser down to 1/2". It will cost me a bit but save a lot of time in the long run.

So planking stalled. Looking round the bottom we could see that the plank runs of the newer mahogany bottom someone had put on were bizarre to say the least - plank edges bowed in and out all over the place for some reason. These would need to be made fair before the new neighbouring plank was fitted. In some cases this would need quite a bit of wood removed, bring the old fixing holes very close (too close) to the new fair edge. These would need filling then.....

The method I was advised was dowelling with the same timber as  the plank, leading to the next question: where the hell do you get Oak & Mahogany dowling? Short answer; you don't - make it.

So the first step is to ascertain the smallest hole needed to drill out the existing holes from square (the shape left by the square shanked nails), to round. Then find/make a former out of relatively hard steel either with the same diameter hole:-

On the bandsaw, run off strips of wood just wider than the hole diameter and take off the corners with a block plane, tapering one end:-

Mount the untapered end into the chuck of a drill and make sure it is as central as possible - no wobbling when rotating. Introduce the tapered end to the former hole and using a moderate drill speed, force the blank through the former:-

All being well, you should end up with a nice collection of dowels. The beauty of this is that you can tailor your dowels to any diameter - so if you need to fill a screw hole rather than a nail; up the size a bit and drill a larger hole...

Given this seemed so easy, I decided to fill all the old holes and give myself the freedom of not being a slave to other's errors and misplacement of previous holes that just caught the edge of timbers rather than running through the centre. So the bottom of the boat has now sprouted some spines:-

These will be cut off and planed flush. Where large countersink holes remain, larger holes will be bored with a centrepoint drill to a depth of about 1/16" and wider plugs glued in leaving effectively a brand new plank edge. A lot of time, but on the bright side a new process learnt so not a wasted day!!

Finishing the hog

Week 3.

Having tidied up the laminations to the top, the lower face was tackled with the hacking out of the hole to accept the dutchman repair. I spent some time agonising about the easiest approach - removing the lower section from 1' in front of the rudder tube, right back to the transom; or the preservation approach - remove only as much as required.

I chose option 2 which resulted in about 3 times as much work, trying to achieve 3 satisfactory joint serfaces which is not much fun when you're working "upside down" twisting your neck and upper body to make numerous upward sawcuts. Hacking out the trash with a chisel is fine, but then comes the cleaning of the surface. If using a saw upside down is a pain then using a plane is 10x worse. It wasn't going to work for bulk rmoval; there had to be another way and there was :- an angle grinder....

So armed with 24 grit disk, no goggles 10mins rough shaping saved about 4 hours with the plane. Even so the tidying up with the plane afterwards was at least 2 hours of arm shattering graft.

Whilst doing this I had already laminated a couple of bits of Dougla Fir together (all I had to hand was 3/4" thick and I needed 1".....) and bunged them next to the woodburner to go off. When dried the laminated piece was rough cut to shape and then the arduous task of shaping to fit all surfaces of the joint was started. Not one of my favourite jobs, but it teaches you the necessity of sharp tools and 3 or 4 sessions at the oil stone during the process and a couple or so hours later and the dutchman was done.

A dry fit and predrilling for a couple of bronze screws at the tail of the scarphs would make fitting with slimey epoxy a simpler task. The patch was then shoved in on Thursday morning.

On friday the cramps were pulled and the repair cleaned of epoxy using a hot air gun very carefully so as not to over heat and a scraper (dried epoxy plays hell with a plane blade and blunts it in 1/2 the time than if used on clean wood), then the edges cut back to the original with shoulder and bullnose planes. The bottom was shaped to a fair curve matching the lines of the whole hog (tee hee...) with a belt sander.

Later, a large vice was relocated from great grandfather's bench to the 20' bench made the other week in preparation for the start of planking next weekend (hopefully). Another 5min job that took 2 hours.

Having a few hours to spare, started tidying a couple of holes in the cockpit coaming, hacked out by some wood butchers to locate some horrid little coaming leads. These will be filled with a neat Teak dutchman to repair - it wont be invisible, but it will be a a lot better.

Bought a dodgey plank of Teak from ebay... it says it's Teak; very much doubt it's Burmese - more likely an Indonesian or African substitute, but hopefuly I can find a bit of it tha will be a good grain & colour match. Still at £33 for a board 6' x 8" x 1" you can't complain (Burmese wood have been more in the region of £120...)

Big hog job

Week 2

Second stage progress on the hog repair around the rudder tube entry. First a tidy up of the inner face of the hog with paint removal a sand and scratch with a cabinet scraper. Next a clean up and plug of the screw holes used to secure the original and latterly the replacement rudder tube flanges. Cutting plugs from Douglas Fir these were epoxied in place. Still being a bit on the chilly side, it was going to be 24hrs until this cured for cleaning up, so decided to attack the transom knee.

When the transom was replaced (sometime in the 80s I believe) the through fixings were sawn through for some reason - why I don't know, since the old transom wasn't going to be used.... however, the resultant butchery left an non-square bearing face together with an inexplicable number of part drilled holes - 8 in all, God knows why. The through drilled holes for bolts were plugged with Oak plugs and the 8 misfit holes with epoxy and wood flour mix.

Being portable, I put it near the fire indoors to cure. A few hours later, back in the barn and slice off an 1/8" from the uneven face and epoxy on a 1/4" strip  of Oak. This will trimmed and shaved to fit flush against the transom after the bolt holes in the hog are re-established after the lamination process.

Later in the week I addressed the bigger damage to the rudder tube site. Using the small router with a 19mm template trimmer bit, the broken slots were cleaned to form a clean sided slot. Splines were cut and machined to fit the slots and a large plug cut to fill the hole for the rudder tube.

These are then epoxied in place, by making sure the pilot hole in the plug is maintained clear, the centre of the original rudder tube location is kept. When the laminations are glued on the top of the hog, this pilot hole will be use to establish the centre through the laminations, and when the dutchman is put in the lower edge of the hog, likewise the pilot hole is transferred downwards. This will allow the maintenance of the centre of the rudder tube through the new wood of  the repair. Later - when the final design and dimensions of the new rudder assembly is known, a new rudder tube hole can be drilled in the certain knowledge it is in the original location....hopefully.

Friday brought the big glue up. Laminations sanded to provide a key for the epoxy, clamps and pads sorted, followed by the glue-up. Applying the epoxy took an age, but 21:00 all was clamped and oozing satisfactorily and a sweet curve to the hog achieved....which hopefully will stay there when the clamps are removed on Sunday.

Clamps removed as well excess glue squeeze out and the laminations trimmed with angle ginger and finished with a hand plane to match the width of the hog. The use of the plane was a P.I.T.A. due to the stub ends of the sawn off timbers, but after about 8 hours - job done.

Corrective surgery

April, week 1.

Back to real work on the boat after messing about benches and whatnot. I need to repair the sickly hog that has troubled me for some time. This is something of a multi-faceted problem. When I first got the boat it was clear there was a problem witht the hog where the rudder tube passes through:-

(Rudder facing backwards to fit on trailer)

This I am convinced is due to poor storage and inadequate support when laid up on shore over the years, together with a replacement rudder in the 90's which seems extraordinarily heavy. When I removed the rudder and had a poke about, the area under the lower tube flange was more than a little tired:


Top side



Bottom side

The plan is to cut the timbers that pass over the hog (putting in temporary floors to keep the planking apart where necessary) and laminate 4 laminations of Douglas Fir to give a 1.25" thick reinforcement piece on the inside face from the transom to the cockpit bulkhead - about 5 feet. Then cut out a section (half thickness of the hog) on the bottom face where the hole is and about 4" either side and the then glue in a dutchman, making a very strong repair.The diagram below hopefully explains:-


Red dotted line = current shape
Blue lines = final shape
Green lines = laminations
Orange line = larger Dutchman (the shape and extent of which not yet confirmed)

So first the removal of the transom knee and the fitting of the temporary floor (the dark mark is where the knee was - first time that part of the hog has seen the light of day for 106 years)

I had some Douglas Fir offcuts from the deck planking which I trimmed to 5" wide (max width of the hog over its repair length), flipped them over and resawed them to half the thickness:

There are a couple of notches either side of the rudder tube hole  in the hog (seen in the 2nd photograph of this post) that will need to be routed and filled with smaller dutchmen, then the laminations will be epoxied to the hog, but at the moment the deformation is being persuaded out of the hog with Acro props and hefty "G" cramps...

That's it for Easter except for a short diversion - the problem of working on a boat at home is the other things you have to do and share your workspace with....

Happy Easter!!

A bench fetish...

Week 5

Clearly I have a problem.

Having finished making a bench the other week, I decided I needed another.

The combined length of the two in the barn was 13ft and my planking stock is 20ft 6in and the idea of cutting a hole in the side of the barn to feed through the excess, let's face it, was never really a goer, so it really was inevitable that I made another bench closer to 20ft. Even though I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to dilapidated outbuildings, I couldn't think of anywhere dry enough or moderately draught-proof enough for me to want to work in.

It's funny how often you can't see the wood for the trees, a couple of weeks ago I had to relocate the planking stocks from under the boat and the only solution was to throw away all the kid's bicycles and other junk in the old milking parlour and use that. Two days to clear out, an afternoon move the wood and that was that - until the bench thing cropped up. A perfect place, next to the stock (sadly now in the wrong place - so another in/out job) and adjoining the barn to boot.

50ft of 4x2s and a bandsaw made quick work of the 4 frames, the next thing was the bench top. I had been told old scaffolding boards were the way to go and a few calls located some 20mins away in Diss. Hitching up the trailer to the Land Rover and an hour or so later, ten 13ft boards at home and a further afternoon resulted in this:

The glowing orbs at the far end belong to my dawgs that share the far end of the building. 1 1/2 board lengths equal 19ft 6ins so job's a good'un as they say...

Test plank

Week 4.

Ever since the start of this of this project I have been apprehensive about the black art of clinker planking, especially the cutting of the geralds for the hood ends of the planks as they merge with the stem and adjacent planks. Friday was a day to face the demons and see how difficult it is and so knocked up a test plank.

One of the planks removed last week was a stub about 2' 6" long of what was an original plank, it is the second plank on the port side running back from the stem. At its widest it was 4" so I hunted around for some stock and found an oak gatepost... I did toy with the idea of using some scrap Douglas Fir or some other crap lying about, but thought might as well get used to the real stuff.

Shoving the ripping blade into the bandsaw I cut of a 5/8" slice from the gate post and ran it through the thicknesser 'til it was 1/2" thick. Using the old plank as a template, marked out and cut the blank plank from the stock and planed down to the lines. The front portion of the hull planks have a double taper (inside bottom edge and outside top edge) as well as the dreaded "gerald" for the first 8" or so of the top edge.

I have read book after book over and over again and tried to visualise the process of cutting the bevels etc. without much success for a couple of reasons I think; there are few illustrative photographs of the process that "talk to me", but fundamentally they all seem to address the process for planking a new boat - fundamentally different from patching an old one when all the other planks are in the way. So this was going to be the common sense approach from first principles.

I figured the essential precaution was to make sure the rebate of the gerald had a straight edge right the way through to where it blends into the top bevel, so having marked out the width of the top bevel at 3/4" I clamped the plank and a straight edged piece of scrap along the line for the first 8" of the rebate:

Gently taking a fine tenon saw, cut the edge of the rebate so it started 8" in from the front of the plank and increased in depth to the tip of the plank:

Now, using long soled plane like my great grandfather's Bailey fore plane I cut the bevel to the pencil line the whole plank length (having first removed the scrap guide).

Replacing the guide I then started to cut the rebate of the gerald with one of my stubby little bullnose planes, gently increasing the depth and trying to maintain the bevel until the top front edge of the plank was wafer thin at the leading point. This replacement plank is a touch thicker than the original at 1/2".

As a bit of background, historically it is known that these boats ("Corsair" and her two sisters) were nominally 1/2" planking. Measurement of the original planks that are left on "Corsair" run between 3/16" to 7/16". Question: is this the original thickness or has 100+ years of sanding and re-varnishing resulted in this thinner plank measurement? I don't know the answer, but where the originals do remain, examination of the nail heads reveal they are very small and in some cases do not exist at all, only the shank shows, leading me to think that a lot of the planks have been sanded away, so there is no point in replacing the planks with 3/8" new ones in the misguided belief that was the original gauge. So all replacement planks will be 1/2"; however right at the end in the rebate of the stem this is a bit too thick and so the whole plank will also be gradually thinned down over the first 18" or so of its length so it merges seamlessly with the stem.

The stem rebate is also bevelled, and so the curved tip of the new plank is bevelled to match it with a spokeshave:

Flipping the plank over, the lower edge back bevel is also cut 3/4" wide with the fore plane. The combination of all these modifications can be seen on the now rather complex shape of the front end of the plank:

With the gerald cut into the top edge hopefully showing the disappearing rebate:

As a first attempt, really quite pleased, and to some extent the fear of planking de-bunked ... (though pride cometh etc.)

All that remains is for me to steam this attempt to allow me to properly test the fit, because this plank needs a lot of twist and bend to conform to the shape of the bow (original plank below). 

I will soak it in water for a couple of days to raise the internal moisture content and hopefully minimise the risk of splitting/fracture during this process.

One thing that was clear during this experiment is that I will need some decent bench space for working full size planks. I already have my grandfather's bench and had hoped to use another rough one I had kicking around, which was 3 1/4" too high!! Unfortunately, just lopping off the excess from the feet is not possible due to a full width shelf just above floor level and removal of this resulted in effective total destruction of the bench - so Sunday will be be spent knocking up a bench... even though that will bring me up to 5 benches dotted around in various outhouses, garages and workshops.



Two end frames



Complete bench with under storage for offcuts...

Both benches (including the one to the right of the new one) make a working bench length of about 13' 6". The longest plank I expect to work is going to be 20' so will probably see about adapting one of the barn cladding planks so it will drop down / lift up to reveal a slot that I can post the longer planks through whilst working them on the bench.