Author: Mark Austen

A slight change to the procedure today, it was 1º C when I first went down to the boat this morning and there’s no way that it is suitable to apply varnish. So I turned on the heater and took a look at the work I did yesterday.

Having removed the cramps and such I tested the epoxy with a fingernail and found that it was quite solid. It seems that the heater arrangement worked well.

I trimmed off the tops of the pins and the did not break the top off the block, so I will presume for the moment that it is well stuck.

Time to clear the area for the next task.

This is the area under the poop deck and you can see the lockers that occupy the space under the aft deck. This is pretty useless as is in order to get at anything in these lockers you need to clear out everything under the poop deck, or remove the poop deck.

I would have left these untouched but the surveyor noted:

…the two bronze cleats aft are only screw fastened to the thin plywood deck; without any wooden blockings below. Recommendations: Ensure the aft bronze mooring cleats are securely mounted.

The access to these cleats is via the locakers and that is not going to be easy. So, I elected to remove these lockers which will not only allow backing pads to be placed under the cleats but easier access to the otherwise awkward space.

The area under the poop and aft decks is quite spacious.

There is even more space once the locker fronts are removed. This space is now usable.

The next part of the task is to remove the cleats. This one has a wellie hook.

Here’s what Charles has to say about wellington boots:

I use traditional knee length wellington boots for mud work. They need to fit well so that they do not stay behind in the mud as you walk forward. One minor irritation, especially for knock-kneed sailors is that mud on the inner side of each boot will transfer from one boot to the other as you walk, rising higher each time and getting onto the inner side of your trouser legs above knee level. This means mud on board and in the cabin. The answer is to walk slightly ‘Frankenstein’ fashion, preventing the boots from touching. Whatever you do when working in mud, some will stick to your clothing. Do not try to rub if off wet for it will only stick harder. Leave it to dry when it will brush off cleanly. Once boots have been in the mud they are not welcome on board until cleaned, but this cannot be done without water. Don’t leave them stuck in the mud alongside the boat for they will float off very quickly as the tide returns. Tie them to a cleat (see fig. 5). I use a piece of shock cord with hooks at each end. Once wellingtons came with holes punched in them at the back just below the lip, presumably to tie them together in pairs. Since the advent of packaging in hygienic boxes such holes are missing but the office punch will suffice.

Sailing Just for Fun pp 57-58

Anyway, the hook is in the way and needs to come off.

The screws in this cleat have been replaced with stainless steel screws, a sure sign that the originals were brass and dezinced to the point of being useless.

The screws came out easily, thankfully, which is not surprising when you consider that they are just into 3/8″ plywood.

Similarly, the screws came out easily on the port side. Now to make the backing pads.

I cut the removed fronts of the aft lockers into four 120mm square pieces…

…and glued them together with the varnished side outwards.

It was still sufficiently cold to make the glue drying time long, so into the house they went to be placed on the Rayburn with a pot on top as a weight.

Since I hd a little bit of time I decided to try and locate the ‘soft return’ that was reported by the surveyor on the port bow.

This is it here, I think. Here’s a short video of me tapping.

I think you can hear the difference in the sound return from the good and soft wood.

I’ve sanded the paint a bit to tidy up the area and once the wood has dried I’ll apply so of that penetrating epoxy I keep going on about. The same for the transom, if I can find the soft spots.

The name plate on the stern is looking a bit ragged so I took it off and sanded and scraped a bit. The trouble is that the letters are a vinyl transfer, as far as I can see and sanding is going to sand off the vinyl as well.

You can see that happening on the bottom of the ‘W’.

Time to move on with the cleat backing pads. It was a bit tricky but eventually I got the bolts cut to length, the butyl tape applied and the backing pads in place. This is the starboard one…

And this is the port side. The bolts came out very close to the edge of the pad, but that is due to the location of the cleat on the deck.

The starboard cleat from the top. The squeezed out butyl will be removed later.

The port side cleat had a bit more butyl tape under the cleat so there is more oozing out.

The drop nose pin arrived in the post this afternoon and I didn’t waste any time trying it out.

The is the other side and the head has a groove running around the circumference for attaching a light line.

The tiller was a tight fit, mostly due to excessive build up of varnish, so I took it over to the belt sander and slimmed it down a little.

I had to take more off than required as needed to varnish the now bare wood.

This does seem to be a very nice piece of wood and as far as I can tell, it is the original tiller that Charles put into Shoal Waters back in 1963. Every photo I have of the boat around that time shows this as the tiller. I wonder if this came from Charles’ previous boat the Zephyr? I know he took a lot of the gear out of the Zephyr and used it in Shoal Waters, but whether the tiller was part of that I don’t know.

Still, it is at least 63 years old and in near perfect condition.

Hanging from the beams in the workroom with a coat of varnish. I lightly sanded the existing varnish prior to applying fresh.

I also washed these two boards with white spirit, lightly sanded and applied varnish. The board on the left is the bottom washboard, and the other is the board that goes between the two thwarts under the poop deck. A second coat of varnish was applied in the cabin, so that is also coming along.

It was a great day. The sun shone and despite a cold start to the day it soon warmed up to a balmy 7º C. There was little or no wind and I managed to get a lot of things done and ticked off the list.

All that remains of the major construction efforts are the fitting of the centerplate case and whilst that is not a simple task, it is not difficult. It is, however, just a tad daunting. Making it completely watertight and strong is critical to not having the boat sink when launched !

Time for a cup of tea.

The morning started the same way that it has done for the past fews days with varnish work. This time the bottom of the two boards and judging by the coverage, one is all they are going to get this time around.

I also put the heater on in Shoal Waters and put some stain on part of the new galley locker, the part at the back that will be visible.

This is the section of wood I mean. The white areas are where there has been glue on the wood and it doesn’t take the stain. Nevertheless, I shall bash on regardless and if it annoys anyone too much I’ll paint or replace it.

The resized locker lid has come out quite well. I washed the surface with White Spirit, dried it and gave it a coat of varnish. The far edge, which you can’t see, was bare wood and now has a coat of varnish. I’ll be putting varnish on that and the just stained wood in the coming days. It will not be as quick to do as the temperature is quite a lot colder out in the boat than inside the house. Maybe I’ll be able to get a single coat per day instead of two. The other locker lid was similarly washed and varnished but I’ll not do any more to that, one coat was sufficient.

The section of the locker lid that I cut off is really nice wood. I wonder where it came from. Charles was able to get wood from various places such as Mahogany from a man chopping up a billiard table (Sailing Just for Fun p25). Wood came from other places as well, a bank and the farm he managed before becoming a Civil Servant. These days this sort of thing is impossible, with the advent of eBay everything that looks even remotely useful is sold.

I need to see if I have any white paint so that I can paint the inside of the locker. The rest of the locker is very off-white paint due to age and I’d like to put the same type of paint on if possible, but if I do not have white then I do have some grey bilge and locker paint and I’ll just use that on the untreated wood. After all, it’s not going to be seen very often. After a quick trip down to the workshop I found that I did not have any white paint, so grey it is.

The peel ply was removed from the aft end of the skeg as the epoxy was sufficiently cured. The epoxy stayed in places despite the force trying to putt it off when removing the peel ply, a good indicator that it is well attached to the wood beneath. Another task crossed off the list.

The epoxy on the underside of the new aft bock top piece was carefully sanded back to the wood.

But the epoxy on the top surface was left as is since once the top piece has been glued in place it will be sanded to blend into the old block.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task is to get the bullseyes done. Nothing difficult about this, just potentially messy.

The backing pads were put into the correct place and wedged there using two battens clamped together as shown. Not elegant, but it works. You do really need three hands to do it, one to hold the pad in place, one to hold the battens and a third to fit the clamp and tighten it up. You can get a single-handed version of this, I’ve watched other boatbuilders use them.

Anyway, the top and front surface is covered with sealant and the pad is screwed in place from the outside. Once that is done the bullseye can be fitted.

The four screw holes through the coachroof are clearance holes and chamfered so that the butyl tape has somewhere to go. You can see the tape on the screws in the bullseye.

The screws are tightened up a litte at a time until they are tight and you can see the tape squeezing out. I’ll run a sharp knife round the fitting later and remove the excess.

The screws holding the pad initially were backed off a little, butyl tape wrapped around the thread and then screwed back in again. Here the squeeze out is obvious.

The excess is easily remove just by pulling it off.

The other bullseye was similarly treated and yet another task can be ticked off the list.

I have a shed load of 6mm silicone rubber tubing in the workshop left over from when I added a water-cooled spindle to the CNC Router and I found a use for some of it.

I cut off a short length, slipped it over the end of the sealant nozzle, bent the tube over and tied it tight. Useful that.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task is the tiller and rudder. When we collected Shoal Waters from the Goldhanger Sailing Club, the tiller took some persuading to come off. There was a brass bolt through the top of the rudder stock and through the tiller and it came out easily. The bolt was 1/4″ and the hole a bit bigger than that but I had to resort to hammering the tiller out with a mallet. Well, a hammer onto a piece of wood that was on the back of the tiller, but it is easier to say mallet.

I decided at that point that one of the tasks would be to fix this such that removing the bolt would allow the tiller to count out freely. Now is that time to make that happen.

This is the slightly modified rudder stock in that the two holes holding the bolts you can see and the hole through the tiller were drilled out to 8.5 mm. This allowed the two bolts holding the brass (bronze?) tiller holder to the top of the rudder stock to fit properly and also allows the use of an M8 and 80mm long drop nose pin. Or will when it arrives.

This is the original through bolt that prevents the tiller from slipping out. There’s nothing wrong with it except that getting it out in a hurry isn’t really possibly whereas using a drop nose pin is quick and easy to remove.

I put an M8 long bolt through the hole to check the clearance.

So, another task done. When the pin arrives I shall tie it to one of the bolts so that it can’t get dropped overboard by accident.

Time for a cup of tea.

First task was to apply yet another coat of varnish to the top surfaces of the galley stove boards, this is the fourth and last coat for the tops. Once this has dried a little I’ll put them on the Rayburn to warm up and harden the varnish.

I decided yesterday evening that I really needed to do something about the bottom half of the aft block.

As you can see from the photo, parts of the front are damaged due, I have to say, to my slightly too aggressive work with a chisel when trying to get the old case sides out. There were, I decided, two practical ways to go about this. Firstly was to just cut the entire front off and replace it and the second was to fill in the damaged sections with thickened epoxy.

I decided to go with the second option as I have to make up some epoxy to fill in the accidental saw cut in the back of the new piece.

First thing, the heater was turned on and the warm air direct on to the aft block from inside the cabin. However, later on I took a look at the damaged section and it is a lot less severe than it looks in the photo, so I decided to leave it. The front part will be coated in neat epoxy before the sides are fitted and I’ll just make sure that plenty of epoxy is brushed into the damaged area.

The next task while I waited for the CPES applied yesterday to cure was to finish the bullseye backing pads. This could have been a bit messy since the procedure was to mix up a fair bit of thickened epoxy, spread it on to the top and front edge of each pad, cover the epoxy with clingfilm and then each pad was pressed against the coachroof where they will be installed.

Here we go, lots of thickened epoxy on the backing pads, resting on cardboard (to catch any drops) and covered with clingfilm.

And here, a short time later, the same backing pads having been pressed against the coachroof. There are still gaps in the epoxy, but it is close enough and I can put more in these gaps and smooth it over.

I made a lot of epoxy, this is one of the reasons for that…

…and this is the other. The aft end of the skeg needs some repair. I think that the original is three long pieces of wood stacked on on top of the other, with two side pieces to hold it all together.

Like this. The red green and yellow pieces are the ones stacked on top of each other. The white pieces are the two side pieces holding everything together. That is the original skeg. at least I think so.

At a later time another piece has been added to the bottom of the skeg and various dings and scratches filled with epoxy. The back part of this has been partially knocked off so I took a chisel to the whole thing and removed as much of the loose parts as possible, then sanded it with 80 grit sandpapar.

This was slathered with the thickened epoxy and a layer of peel ply put over the top. This will be covered in antifoul paint before being launched and if I leave the amine blush on the epoxy, the paint will come off. Besides which, the peel ply allows me to smooth the epoxy down with my hand (wearing nitrile gloves) and that all by itself is worth doing.

You can see the addition to the bottom of the skeg more clearly from the side.

I also filled in the old screw holes where the bullseyes were.

I will need to go over both these areas with a sander to remove the excess epoxy, but I will have to do that in order to apply the new paint.

One of the holes did develop a short tail as I pressed too much epoxy into the holes from the outside.

But that was easily removed and I used the tail to fill in a nearby hole in the upstand.

With the temperature forecast for the weekend getting down to near zero and possibly with snow, I want to get any outside epoxy work done today so that it stands a good chance of curing before the temperature drops.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task was to resize the locker lid so that is fits since about a third of the original length has now been allocated to the galley stove.

This was a pain to do as I had to reuse the brass hinges but with stainless screws and getting them screwed in was awkward. Still, it is done now.

The result isn’t too bad. I gave the lid a light sanding and will add some coats of varnish in situ. I don’t want to remove and replace it again. The cut edge need to be varnished from scratch but the rest of the top can just have a coat or two.

I also took the time to add screws to the various battens in the galley locaker. These have been glued using cyanoacrylate glue which is very good but it is brittle, so I added the screws, just in case.

That’s the lot of today.

Time for a cup of tea.

The first small task on the list today was applying a second coat of varnish to the top side of the galley stove boards.

The boards are starting to look a lot more shiny than for the first coat as that soaked into the wood. This one did not, or not so much, since the first coats sealed most of the wood grain.

The glue up of the wood for the new top section of the aft block seems to have gone well, so it was out to the workshop to remove the rough surfaces.

The planer puts a lot of pressure and stress on the wood as it is cutting off wood from the surface and if a joint is not particularly good, then this usually results in the join splitting apart. In this case it didn’t so all is well there. I planed the wood down to it’s final thickness and now it is ready to go.

To prevent more cutting that necessary I aligned the straight front edge of the paper template with the edge of the workpiece.

The next task is to cut the rebates as doing this now whilst the block is still large and rectangular will prevent mishaps trying to do this later on when it is not.

Four passes on the table saw and that is done.

Mind you, I messed this up and made a cut in the wrong place for the first cut. Still, this will be minimal once the piece has been shaped and any errant slot remaining will be filled with thickened epoxy.

Time for a cup of tea.

First the two easy cuts made on the mitre saw.

Then a straight cut at the back to get closer to the line made on the bandsaw (carefully).

Then the excess was sanded away using an oscillating sander. So far, so good.

Not too bad for a first approximation. The front and sides are pretty much an exact fit, but the back has missed, fortunately on the plus side, not the minus.

Here’s an inside view and the mismatch at the back is slightly more clear in this photo.

And this from the other side.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task is to put in the case side template and see how that fits with the new top.

The template was put into the keel, clamped to the top and two thin battens clamped either side of the aft block spanning the old and the new as you can see above. These were to keep the new piece in position and upright as much as possible.

Looking at the new piece now you can see that the bottom of the curve on the new section isn’t that far off.

So, I carefully sanded a bit more off until it was a pretty good match.

Using a self-centering dowel drilling jig I drilled two 10 mm holes through the new top, both being perpendicular to the bottom.

I chose to drill them completely through the block rather than attempt to drill matching holes in the old section by guesswork. This way I can clamp the top piece in place and drill down through the holes and get a perfect fit.

The block clamped in place…

…and the resulting holes in the bottom section.

I used two pieces of an medieval style arrow shaft, made from Ash, which was 10 mm in diameter and sanded it down a little to make it a loose fit. I put each piece into a cordless drill, wrapped coarse sandpaper around the shaft and spun the shaft until the desired fit was obtained.

Finally for this part I sanded a flat section on each shaft. Without this the dowels will not seat properly as the pressure from the air and glue being forced into the hole pushes the dowel out again. This is the reason that the dowels you buy from a hardware store are not round but ridged all round.

The holes in the bottom section were filled with Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer and I was gratified to note that the CPES did not soak in much, indicating that the wood through which the holes were bored were not porous. I did coat the top of the wood and that did soak in but that is endgrain and I would have been perturbed if it had not on any but the very densest woods, of which this is not. I also put CPES on a number of other areas in the boat that have been waiting until I had enough to make it worth mixing up a batch.

That concluded the outside work for the day, inside I put the third coat of varnish on the galley stove boards.

Not a bad day’s work. All small things but on the critical path. While I wait for the CPES to dry, three or four days in this temperature, I’ll finish off the case sides which need to be trimmed and a bead of sealant put all around the outside corners where water could collect.

Time for a cup of tea.

Not surprisingly, the tasks for today were pretty much the same as yesterday. An early start to get the first layer of epoxy on the second case side and so on and so forth. Didn’t bother with photos for the second side, it’s all the same as the first.

The new ship’s battery arrived this morning, which was a bit of a surprise since it was due to arrive next Tuesday, not that this is a problem, just that I wasn’t expecting it today.

Here is the new battery on the bridge deck instead of the old one. I can tell that it makes a difference since when you turn on the cabin light, the battery voltage does not change whereas with the old battery, the voltage would drop by half a volt or so. The cabin light is a 5W bulb meaning that the bulb draws around 416 mA from a 12V supply and a battery in good condition should not show an appreciable voltage drop.

However, I might have made a slight mistake with the measurements.

I measured the gap as 320 mm as you can see here, although looking at the photo now, the real gap will be 340 mm since the inboard end of the battery will be sitting on the lower runner so that it is level (ish).

But, and this is a big but, I forgot that there will be a centerplate case support here that will reduce the width.

Holding the support in place I can see that I just have 310 mm, which is the width of the battery, so the battery will go through the gap…

…but only is I take the door off !

So, a mistake, yes, but not a bad one. I mean, how often will I be taking the battery in and out? Maybe twice a season, once at either end, but probably not even that.

The door had to come off

“All right,” said Fred, “Have to take the door off
Need more space to shift the so-and-so.”
Had bad twinges taking off the hinges
And it got us nowhere
And so, we had a cuppa tea

The door came off without too much bother, only one screw caused a problem as it sheared off in the jamb. Annoying since this means that I will need to move the hinge so that the new screw doesn’t try to screw down through the old one.

Door with all the fittings removed.

The fittings and fixings. All brass except two stainless screws. All the fixings bar the stainless ones went in the bin and I’ll replace them with A2 stainless. I did think of replacing the hinges and latch with stainless equivalents, but they are still good enough or will be after a bit of cleaning.

I’ll not replace the eye straps as these were for the bungee that restrained the Camping Gaz bottle when using the radiant heater and we don’t have that anymore, so the eye straps are redundant.

Anther small task was to run the power cable for the compass light. This would have been a total pain were it not for the fact that the centerplate case has been removed allowing me to lie on my back with my head under the bridge deck from whence I could hammer in the small cable clips to hold the cable.

As before, I used small bronze panel pins instead of the steel nails that come with the clips.

And this is the result. The round cable is the power cable to the starboard navigation light and the black and red cable is the one for the compass light. There are a lot of other unused clips in there. There are two possibilities. The first is that there used to be another cable possibly for a quarter berth light and the second is that the cable was put up by feel from the cabin and these are the clips that failed that exercise.

I put a lever connector on the end but left it dangling. This will be connected to the cable from the compass and I’ll have to find a way to stick it to the underside of the bridge deck but still accessible so that the compass may be removed from time to time. Not sure how to do that yet.

I used a carpet offcut over the keel to make things a little more comfortable.

Talking of the compass, I was not happy with the way in which the LED wires were dangling out of the bottom of the housing, they are thin and not strong, so I took the compass apart and extended the wires using two lever clips. The connector and the wires were held down with hot glue.

The new wires still hang out of the bottom of the housing, but they are longer and more robust.

Well, I think that is a good place to stop for the evening.

Time for a cup of tea.

The final stage of the case sides before fitting is to sheathe the inside of the case. Since there are going to be three epoxy applications per side and the second and third layers need to be applied whilst the prior layer is still chemically active, this is going to be an all day event, sort of. It will be apply the next layer and wait. Repeat three times.

I set everything up yesterday evening and first thing this morning I started.

The first layer is unthickened epoxy spread onto the inner side. This is allowed to soak into the wood for a while before the next layer is applied.

There is a slight wrinkle to this layer in that the aft end has a part that is not inside the case but goes alongside the aft block. This part has only one coat of epoxy and needs peel ply added to remove the amine blush once the epoxy has cured.

Now we wait for this layer to start curing. The stage we are looking for is when the epoxy gets to be about as tacky as Sellotape.

Time for a cup of tea.

Three hours latere the next stage is done.

The cramps hanging down over the edge of the case side are there to ensure that the glass mat drapes over the curved edge of the plywood without any lifting. I have done this to ensure that the edge of the glass mat will be under the bottom edge of the side when installed. This means that when the centerplate is lifted up, there will be no edge of glass mat to catch on the plate and eventually tear off. This way there is just a smooth curve and no edge.

I hope.

Time for a cup of tea.

Finally, for the coating of this side at least, the third layer.

This layer has graphite added to the epoxy, 10% by weight, to form a more lubricating surface. The result is a black epoxy layer which looks really nice to my eyes. Shame it is on the inside and will not be seen when the case is assembled.

I will give it a few moments to level out and then I will wave a hot air gun over the surface to pop any bubbles that remain after the mixing.

This has to be left for 24 hours or so to achieve full strength and then I will take it down to the workshop and trim the edges of the glass mat. After that it will be the turn of the other side.

Time for a cup of tea.