I gave myself an easy day yesterday as I find that working over the weekend without a break seems to make me more tired during the week. That isn’t to say that I did nothing on the Shoal Waters project, just no physical work.
But, I resolved to get the part of the template task that is bugging me fixed.
It’s this part. The bit at the bottom corner of the template really should be pointed, but it’s that shape now as I’ve not been able to get the last pieces of the original plywood out. It’s in an awkward position and one in which the rest of the boat restricts how far I can use a chisel. The only direction that I can get a blade in further than I have now is from the front of the pointed end but kneeling on the cockpit trying to work under the bridge deck.
In the end I just gritted my teeth and just scraped away at the last bit of glue and plywood until I got it all out. Took about an hour and frankly, this was the hardest part of the work I’ve done so far. Of course, keeping my right leg far enough away from the business end of the sharp chisel doesn’t make it any easier, but I have no wish to stab myself in the thigh with a sharp pointy thing.
And here’s the result. You can see the lip at the bottom of the slot and the aft block and the 1/4″ groove in the keel and the block.
Here is is from a slightly different angle.
And finally a close up of the pointed bit, albeit a little out of focus.
I’ll still need to tidy that up a bit with sandpaper but now that the old plywood has been removed that will not be quite so difficult. I’ll wrap a strip of sandpaper around a 6mm piece of plywood and run it into the slot a few times. It doesn’t have to be perfect as it’s going to be slathered in a marine adhesive, but it needs to be better than it is now.
Oddly, the other side should be a little easier since the other side of the case will have been removed by then, so the access will be a little easier. that and the fact that I know where the end of the pointy bit is, so I won’t be guessing how far in the slot reaches.
The last last if the tea break was to measure the pivot bolt as that needs to be replaced. This measured at 3/8″ in diameter and 4″ in length.
The next part of the repairs requires me to construct a template for the sides of the centreplate case case, which sounds easy enough but is a little more complex that you would think.
There are two templates to be made, one for the inner layer and another for the outer. Because the keel timber is curved, the templates must first be made from cardboard and checked before being used to create plywood templates from cheap 6mm plywood. These are then used to check the fit and to make any adjustment required. Once those are correct they may be used to cut out the marine plywood sides.
So, to start with, the template for the inner layer as the one for the outer layer cannot be done until the cheap plywood template is completed for the inner. Now, there are two tricky bits for the inner template, the ends since they recess into the fore and aft blocks.
I won’t bore you with the details for making these, suffice it to say that since it was nearly impossible to measure the required shape, I have to use trial and error until I had two pieces that gave me the correct shape for the ends. Lots of trial and error, I suppose it took around eight attempts to get a good fit.
When the marine plywood arrived from Robbins Timber, it was covered with two pieces of cardboard, each the size of a full sheet of ply. I kept these for making templates. A piece that was too large was cut out, seen above.
This had recesses cut out to fit over the supports on the outside of the keel and then clamped into place.
The recesses were cut so that a significant portion of the cardboard protruded through the hull as you can see above. I drew a line with a black marker pen against the bottom of the keel.
And removed the cardboard from the boat. Not very elegant but good enough.
I used some panel pins and a batten to give me a fair curve and drew that.
Like this. All I had to do now was to cut along this line which I did using a good pair of scissors.
That’s the bottom of the template done. Now for the top. The cardboard was clamped back in the slot but with the bottom curve resting on the lip of the keel slot. The top edge was then drawn with the marker and the whole thing returned to the workshop for cutting out.
The top batten is quite beaten up in places, so the line is a bit wonky, but it is supposed to be three straight lines and that was easy to cut, this time using a suitable straight edge and a utility knife.
Looks good. So far nothing has gone wrong, so I decided it was time to take a break before getting the ends fixed to the centre part.
All this climbing in and out of the boat gets tiring.
Time for a cup of tea.
Some time later…
Having had a break, I found that I was beginning to lose the light, so I decided that once I had the ends fitted to the template, I’d call it a day for this part of the template task.
This is the first attempt. I’d put all three parts into position and c;amped them where I could, then marked where each one fitted. Then it was out with the hot glue gun and fix them all together.
What would be do without Hot Glue?
Once the glue had set I took the template back into the boat and dry fitted it.
It didn’t quite fit, but here I had the first mistake of the day and cut the wrong bits off!
The fix for the front end.
And the fix for the aft end.
At this point the template fitted, or as well as a floppy piece of cardboard can but I was starting to make mistakes. So, despite being still light enough to do more, I called it a day.
The cutting and fitting of the plywood template can wait.
I will soon be reaching the stage of the centreplate case replacement where I need to make a cardboard template for the sides. However, before that can happen I need to chisel away some of the old case side that is between the fore and aft blocks and the keel.This is tedious as it requires me to kneel or squat in an awkward and cramped position working with a sharp 6mm chisel being careful not to go too far and cut away too much.
Not something I enjoy much so I decided to do something else first.
First task is to remove the top strengthening piece from the removed case side. I wedged the old and slightly less old pieces of plywood apart with a screwdriver and was able to pull the two pieces apart by hand. This is the result. The lower piece has the batten I want to retain with some of the original plywood attached and you can clearly see just how badly deteriorated it is. This did make it quite tiring to remove the plywood since it had no mechanical strength and only came away in small pieces. Still, after some time I had most of it removed.
This is the batten showing the outer face and the removed plywood flakes.
And this is the other side with some of the damaged plywood still attached. I decided that trying to get this off with a chisel was far to difficult and thus I was doing it the wrong way.
So, I removed the remains of the brass screws…
…and planed the rest off, the work of just a few minutes. I really should have just removed the screws and then used the planer instead of messing around with a chisel.
The result is very good.
I still need to remove the diagonal brace, seen here, it’s the longer piece in the middle and this might be a little more difficult than the first piece as it has a rounded edge making the planing of the side opposite to the rounded side a little more problematic. Still, it will be easier than trying to get the plywood off by hand.
Following this successful task I turned my attention to the centreplate case. The bit highlighted in red is the forward block and the bit highlighted in green is the bit I have chiseled out! There’s not a lot of room in there.
I turned my attention to the portlights after that. One side of each light was cleaned with Isopropyl Alcohol and a strip of Butyl tape applied making sure to cover the holes.
The light was then placed on the cabin side and six 5mm flanged bolts pushed through the holes in the perspex, the tape and the holes in the cabin side, but left protruding.
Some more Butyl tape was wound around each bolt just below the flange and the bolt then pushed in as far as I could by hand..
On the inside a washer and a self-locking nut were put onto the bolt and tightened up by holding a hex key on the outside and using a nut driver on the inside. That metal bar you can see outside is a hex key in the bolt on the outside being stopped from moving by a lead block so that I could tighten the nut up in the inside. Both forward lights were done with this lead block method but the two aft ones were close enough to the hatch for me to reach inside and outside at the same time, making the job a lot easier.
The tightening is done in stages so as not to crack the perspex. The bolts were tightened in opposite pairs so as to prevent bending to much. The nuts were not tightened up as far as possible as it is cold outside at the moment and the Butyl tape is not very flexible as a result. The nuts were done up about 60% of the way and then left. This will allow the tape to be compressed slowly an in a couple of days I’ll tighten then up to about 75% and then to 90% a couple of days after that. That will be tight enough to make a very good seal but to tight enough to squeeze all the tape out of the seal. This tape never goes hard, so leaving a bit unsquashed means that if there is ever a leak then I can tighten up the nuts a little to make a better seal. Any tape the squeezes out of the joint will be removed by scoring it around with a sharp knife and pulling the excess away
Here are the two starboard port lights. It would have been better if the Butyl tape were brown, but it isn’t so the portlights will stand out a lot more than they did before. It won’t affect the sailing performance, just the aesthetics and, being male, that doesn’t bother me much.
One of the good points about the way in which Charles Stock build the interior of Shoal Waters is that he slapped Mendix (or Mendex) over just about everything. That would be the equivalent of using thickened epoxy today with the exception that the stuff he used doesn’t appear to be susceptible to heat, unlike epoxy. So, unlike epoxy, you can’t make this stuff soft with a heat gun and scrape it off.
One of the bad things about the way in which Charles Stock build the interior of Shoal Waters is that he slapped Mendix (or Mendex) over just about everything. The only way to dismantle things done this way is to cut them out.
So far, the removal of starboard side of the centreplate case has removed parts that needed to be removed anyway, but has meant cutting through something that I would have preferred to not cut.
That’s the bulkhead that is shown here in the righthand side of the case.
This is what it looks like now. I’ve kept the piece that has been removed and I’ll epoxy it back in place when the new case has been installed. Although I may put in a new one that is the same as the height of the one on the port side. This bulkhead it supposed to stop the case from moving under the stress of the plate when sailing. The plate is 1.2m long outside the hull when lowered and that produces a lot of sideways force on the case due to leverage and I’m not sure that the small bulkhead Charles used is really enough.
The fairly careful removal is about to end. The aft end of the centreplate case protrudes into the cockpit and the woodwork around the case has to be cut out and removed. I have already made a start with a single “incision” to show the limit of the cut but now it is time to finish the job.
No finesse in this part of the removal, there are too many hidden screws to make this an easy job, so I just went at it regardless. Mind you, I didn’t cut of huge pieces at once, preferring to cut things away small chunks at a time.
First break, make the replacement portlights.
I remove one of the old lights, scraped away the old sealant, drilled bolts holes through the old screw holes and put one of the replacement lights in place. I don’t have the correct bolts for this job, they are on order, so I just used some bolts that are too long to check how it looks.
The USB charging ports of the charge controller only supply 500mA total and if you try to take more than that, it takes away power from the controller itself and that stops working. So I bought some blanking plugs.
I’ll probably fix these in using some hot glue the they don’t fall out. There’s no reason to use these sockets as I’ve wired in eight others that will supply s good amount of power.
Back to the cantreplate case. I cut away the top cover to reveal the top of the aft end of the case. It came away quite cleanly and you can see the soft plywood of the case where it is inset into the aft block.
Then it was more work on the sides. This lump is the plywood added by Charles and has to come off.
A while later and that was removed and I could see the glue line where the plywood of the side is glued to the aft block. I’ll need to tidy this up and there’s still a lot of the plywood left and my chisel work is not that good, so I’ll resort to using a sander for that bit. But this does show clearly where the plywood ends.
Finally, for today, I remove the supporting battens back to the keel. Well, almost. The one added by Charles is okay, but the original one is very wet. Not rotten, just soaked up a lot of water. I’ll let that dry for a bit and then sand the rest of this and the paint back to the top of the keel. I’ll probably need to take this away completely as I don’t know how far the wet wood goes.
This is the other end of the battens, so not a lot to remove and since the wood is very wet, it is probably a good idea to remove it and replace it with new wood. It will be interesting to see how the keel is under the batten. It has been glued in place so the water that was soaked up by the batten probably hasn’t affected the keel…I hope!
That’s the end of the centreplate case work for today, although not the end of the tasks for the day. There’s not going to be enough light to continue the case removal after I finish work but enough to do a few more port lights.
So, here’s the process. Select the light to be replaced.
Remove the screws. Notice that the old light doesn’t fall down as there is some sealant between the perspex and the cabin side.
Pretty good stuff, but it has to be scraped off.
Interestingly, once the sealant has been removed you can see that this light has already been replaced three times before. There are the screw holes for the light just removed, two sets of screw holes that have been filled in and the remains of some screws that have been sanded down flush with the wood. So that means that this new light is the fifth one !
Then it’s drill the holes and put the light in with temporary bolts.
I managed to get two more done but the light was fading fast and so was the temperature. Clear sky, Winter and once the sun sets the temperature plummets.
Still, a fair bit done during coffee and lunch breaks.
Have you ever had one of those light-bulb moments? You know, where something suddenly dawns on you seeming without any lead up or introduction. I had one this afternoon whilst I was continuing the work on removing the centreplate case on Shoal Waters and doing very well.
This is a bit of a long post as I took a shed load of photos, but I’m not sorry about that. What do the youngsters says these days? Oh yes…
Sorry, not sorry.
I’d spent a few moments making a portlight template on the laser cutter and checking the fit.
This was the light I used as a test since it is not quite round as you can see from the top right. The perspex has been cut away slightly so that the light fits by the navigation light. I’ve just noticed that you can see the cabin light on side. I’d been using that to sweep up some rubbish and forgot to turn it off.
I made the template a fraction smaller so that the cutaway was not required and tested the fit. Good enough and so I moved on to the centreplate case.
All was going very well and I found that there is one place that brass screws were not used in Shoal Waters as you can see from the photo. Annoying to find and excavate but the screws all came out easily once the surrounding wood was removed.
All was still going very well and I decided to take a photo of the support under the bridge deck so that I know how to put it back again once the rebuild is under way.
Likewise the port side as this has a stop screwed into the top of the case to prevent the block and tackle used to raise and lower the centreplate from pulling the upright out.
Then I remove the starboard upright and that is when the light bulb went on.
Up to this point I had decided that the original case was two layers of plywood laminated together but this showed me that I was wrong about that. You see, the upright was set into the case through the outer layer of plywood.
This is a closer look. And the light-bulb moment was that Charles would not have cut away one layer of plywood on the case to inset this upright, he would have just put it out the outside. That in turn meant that the entire outer layer of plywood was not original but put there by Charles when he first constructed Shoal Waters back in 1963. Looking at the construction of the cabin shows quite clearly that this outer layer of plywood was put on first, apart from where the bridgedeck support uprights were placed. All the other parts of the cabin that are fixed to the centreplate case attach to the outer layer of plywood and are not inset.
So why is this shocking? Quite simply:
If Charles had not constructed Shoal Waters in this way sometime in the last 20 years she would have sunk and quite possibly whilst under sail.
A bold claim, I hear you say but isn’t that just supposition? Let me show you what I mean.
It didn’t take long to clear away all the beading and other centreplate supports from the top of the case and to then cut the side of the case away.
Like this. A very satisfying moment but I need to show you a closer look at one part of the side removed.
This is the inside face of the aft part of the case side with the top to the left. As you can see, someone has tried a repair job at sometime during Shoal Waters’ life, that yellow gunk looks like epoxy. Still, the part of interest is the smooth area at the top left.
This bit here. That smooth bit is the inside face of the outer layer of plywood.
That is to say that the entire inner layer of plywood, the one originally build by Fairy, in this area has gone.
The rest is in pretty poor shape as well and there may be other areas of the case where the inner layer has completely disintegrated. If this is the only part then when the boat is upright, this is out of the water. but would have been under water when heeled over, that is when sailing.
If the original layer is missing in other places that are underwater all the time, then it is likely that Shoal Waters would have sunk on her mooring.
But, I hear you say, that’s all well and good but how can you tell that the outer layer is not original. Just finding one part where a support has been inset doesn’t mean that the outer layer wasn’t original.
Well, I can’t say 100% that it is not original, but I can say to 99.999% and that is because I own Naiad, a Shoal Waters look-alike built from a Fairey Falcon by yours truly. The hull dates from the same year as Shoal Waters.
So I hopped into Naiad’s cabin armed with vernier calipers.
Here is the width of the top of the centreplate case in Naiad to the outside of the plywood from the top. Just over 31mm
Now, using the proddy end of the calipers I’ll measure the width of the top to the outside of the case.
Like this.
The result is just over 31mm.
So, Naiad, a Fairey Falcon hull built in the same year as Shoal Waters has a single layer of plywood for the centreplate case sides.
Now look at a photo of Naiad’s centreplate case before the cabin was built. The side of the case is unbroken from the tip of the case back to the aft of the case, although you can only see the front part in this photo.
Now look at that part close up in Shoal Waters on the port side where I’ve not removed anything yet.
That is the front edge of the second layer or plywood which stops just behind the shaped part where the mast step goes. It’s not easy to see in this photo due to the lighting, but it is there. All this is pretty conclusive to me.
So, having convinced myself that Charles’ original construction choices prevented a disaster, I carried on.
I removed the layer of plywood that was inset into the hull using a sharp chisel. This after part of the plywood came away but not as easily as first part had. The first part practically fell off and made me wonder if it has ever been glued to the hull or whether the prolonged water saturation had dissolved the glue. This part of the plywood was quite clearly glued in place but even so, the glue line broke very easily without damaging the keel timber.
Looking aft in the slot I can see the back of the case but this slopes away aft and is outside the cabin so I’ll need to partially dismantle the cockpit to get the last part out.
I started by making an incision on the outside where two pieces of wood had been joined.
Then looking out from the inside I could see the daylight through the cut, so I know where I’ll be to be cutting.
I did this bit before taking the side of the case off as I thought I might be able to get it all in one go, that isn’t going to be easy so I just took the side off and I’ll work on the remaining piece of the case another day.
So, a very satisfying day but one that is a little bit shocking at the same time.
Now that I have enough of the starboard side of the centreplate case removed to see how to remove the rest, I need to add some more support under the keel. The case itself adds significant strength to the keel and removing it will remove that strength. The keel is probably strong enough to support my weight once the case it completely removed, but there’s no sense in relying on “probably” when it is a simple job to add a couple of additional supports under the keel.
So I’ve put a sturdy support under the keel mod-way between the two trailer supports, more or less.
That should do the trick nicely and change the probably to certainly.
Now that there is light in the cabin I can continue the removal of the starboard side of the centreplate case and, as the title of this post suggests, I have yet to locate the bottom of the plywood side.
I widened the cut through the base of the case and cut down to a point just above the part that I know is the top of the keel. At this point the plywood is still visible on the inside of the case but it is not securely attached to the keel. Using a flat-bladed screwdriver I was able to prise the plywood of away from the keel and break it off. It is still damp, although not wet any more, and quite easily snapped.
Looking down the slot I can see that the plywood does not go right down to the bottom of the keel, which makes sense since this would make the edge of the plywood touch the water and that would in turn soak up the water, something to be avoided at all costs. So the builders of the hull cut a long and deep recess into the sides of the slot leaving about 6mm of the keel timber intact to form a barrier. Presumably it also forms an edge to locate the case properly.
So, I now have the top of the keel timber and I have the bottom of the side of the case. This means that I can cut away large chunks of the side knowing that I’m not cutting into parts of the boat that I should be leaving intact.
Mind, you, there are screws holding the side of the case down to the keep, so I’ll need to try and avoid cutting those. They appear to be stainless steel and my multi-tool won’t cut through that.
These are the piece of the plywood I removed from inside the keel timber. You can also see from this photo just how effective the cabin light is now that it is installed. This work would have been difficult without it.
The downside of the work is that Charles used something he called Mendix or Mendex spread liberally to cover any gaps in his ‘Clodhopper Carpentry’. I’ve not been able to find out what this substance is, but I can tell you that it is very tough and when cut produces a fine, choking power so I have to wear a breathing mask to avoid breathing this fine dust into my lungs. That means that I need to take regular breaks in the cutting work as this restricts your breathing. Besides that the dust gets everywhere and a break every now and then is needed to brush the dust of and clear up the mess in the cabin.
I usually make a cup of tea (no surprise there) and then resume work once I’ve finished the cup.
Some time later…
This represents about an hour’s work, about all I can do in one stretch. I’m just not used to crouching down into a small ball and then working on something sideways. I need to take a break after an hour. So I need to find some small tasks that take about an hour to carry out in a standing position and do those between hour long sessions cutting away the case side.
The first task of the day was to finish the navigation lights refurbishment and to that end I made a start after breakfast and my first cup of tea. The new bulb holder needed to be put in place and connected, a second mirror reflector cut out and installed, the gasket put in place and the housing screwed back on to the boat.
The new bulb holder fitted well and you can see in the photo that the connections have been made. The negative cable screwed to the fitting using crimped eye connectors and the positive cable connected using a lever connector. The new holder is sufficiently shorter at the back compared to the original to allow the lever connector to be placed between the holder and the cable coming in through the back of the nav light. I won’t detail the mirror reflector work since this have been done in a previous post.
Some lanolin was smeared on the housing which allowed the gasket to be “stuck” to the metal and kept it in place whilst the unit was reassembled. You can see the black gasket in the photo above. This assembly was repeated for the starboard side.
When all was done the lights were tested. Here the port light.
Here the starboard.
It’s not so easy to see from these photos but you can quite clearly see the reflection of the bulb in the mirror reflector when viewed from the side showing the the reflector is working as intended.
And to complete the test, here is the stern light which was already converted to an LED bulb and needed no work.
So the navigation lights are now done and that task may be crossed off the list.
By this point I had to stop and retreat inside. Firstly to wash the lanolin off my fingers, even when cold that stuff is sticky, and secondly to warm my fingers up. It’s 9 Celsius outside today according to my weather station but the wind is bitter. I think I was probably only outside for an hour before I started dropping things due to cold fingers.
The 1mm thick neoprene sheet arrived a few days ago and now that the main cabin light has been installed, it was time to make the navigation light gaskets.
Having done the major part of the work earlier with thin plywood to get the fit correct, the only thing I needed to do before cutting the gaskets was to find out what settings were required. I made a simple cut about 20mm long close to one edge of the rubber sheet at various powers and speeds until I got a consistent cut and then cut out two copies of the gasket.
As you can see they came out really well. The only downside is the black mess you get on your hands once the cutting has been done. Washes off easy enough but you need to do that before touching anything else !
After that I cut out the bulb holder shims on the laser cutter. This took four or five attempts to get correct as the fit had to be tight but not too tight. Here I have dry fitted the, to the bulb holder to check that they work the way I envisioned. They do, so that is a plus.
There are three parts to the shim, two outer pieces that are the same and an inner piece. The inner piece fits around the holder but into the hole in the brass support. The two outer pieces go around the holder and are as wide as the support. These will be glued together in the brass fitting and the bulb holder will then be pressed into the hole in the middle, so to speak.
Well, that’s the idea. This is the result. I used super glue to glue everything together and it looks to be pretty good. I probably need to put something on the metal to stop it corroding, some thick grease or similar. Lanolin is probably a good idea, I keep some of that on the boat for greasing shackles.
I’m not sure how the positive wire will be connected to the cable from inside the boat. The negative wire isn’t a problem, it will be clipped under one of the mounting screws as the negative from inside is at the moment. There may be enough room behind the bulb for a lever connector, I’ll have to check that out tomorrow.
There’s more work to be done on the nav lights, I have to cut out another reflector, mount both reflectors and the screw the things together with the new gaskets in place. I should be able to do all that tomorrow around making a cheesecake and wrapping presents for the family Christmas Lunch on Saturday.
I took a slightly extended lunch break today to work on Shoal Waters. I had been working on a data migration for a client and had started making mistakes, a sure sign that I needed to take a break. I wasn’t working on live client data, just a local copy so nothing was harmed by the errors, but certainly time for a break.
The first task today was to run the cable for the cabin light. I had to widen the hole through one of the coachroof beams which would have been a problem if I had not bought a bendy extension for the drill some years ago. I crimped two suitable eye connectors to one end of the cable and wired that into the switch box, directly to the bus bars. The cable was run pretty much along the same path as the one I removed yesterday.
With the exception of this bit here. Firstly there are two connectors in the line so that I can run another cable into the front part of the cabin later on. Looks a bit messy right now, but I’ll tidy it up once the other cable is done. Secondly, the cable runs inboard along a different beam.
The light, on its base, screwed to the coachroof and the wires connected.
And let there be light !!
It works, and that is a great relief. It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but it does mean that working in the cabin after work is now possible although I’ll need to use a mobile light for some things where this light doesn’t reach.
Such as the main fuse.
Today’s parts delivery included these items excluding the brass holder. Two are replacement bulb holders one of which is too big to fit in the hole in the holder and the other is too small. The too big one will be put into the parts bin, just in case I find a use for it somewhere else, the one that is too small will be made to fit by making some sort of collar. But that’s a task for another time.
Right now, I am talking about the main fuse and that is what that large chunk of plastic, labelled GLOSSO, is, a 10A circuit breaker. This will be placed in the battery box in the positive wire. If anything shorts out somewhere in the rest of the wiring, this will protect the boat from damage, such as catching fire due to a short causing excess heat.
Still, the battery box is small and cramped and the light from the new cabin light doesn’t reach inside, so a torch will be necessary to screw this fuse into the box.
That’s next.
And there we are, main circuit breaker wired in and fixed to the side of the battery box.
I think that completes the first stage of the rewiring. The second stage will be the light in the fore-cabin and the third stage will be the fixing of the solar panel once the coachroof has been sanded, epoxied and painted.
