Woodwork

New Floor Timbers

I replaced the old rotten softwood floor timbers with some new beefed up white oak timbers. I laid the edges in a bed of thickened epoxy and pressed down to get the correct height and then fiberglassed them in place with 3 layers of cloth and epoxy. This has been the most challenging time so far mentally. The interior of the boat is so dusty and dirty and it's hard to see light at the end of the tunnel. I will be glad to get through this period of the restoration.

New Galley Cabinets and Ice Box

Before and after pictures of the Galley. I built all new cabinets and added a refrigerator box with 4 inches insulation. The cabinets were made using African mahogany. Staining the mahogany with Minwax Cherry stain matched the original mahogany well. I will finish this with a high quality polyurathane. Oh, and by the way, don't use polyester resin on styrofoam, it will melt! Should have known that. Epoxy resin works great on styrofoam for fiberglassing the interior surface of the icebox. I placed three layers of laminate on the interior of the ice box.

Bulkhead Rot

I have found some rot on the bottom of the forward bulkhead. It runs about 5 inches up from the bottom of the hull and about 3 feet across the bottom. I plan to keep the bulkhead in place and grind out the rot and replace with fiberglass/wood/resin makeup. That will force me to paint the bulkhead, but I thought I would do that anyway to brighten up the inside. We will see.

Refinished Cockpit Trim

The mahogany cockpit trim cleaned up pretty nice. The Fein mulitool worked great for sanding tight areas.

New Teak Cockpit Seats

Before and after pics of cockpit area. The bottom picture was taken before the deck was painted.

Refinished Interior Floor Boards

With 2008 coming to a close it was nice to get the interior of the Rasmus cleaned up and looking much better. The new galley cabinets and refinished floors are in place and my spirits high from finally seeing some good results.

Replaced Rotten Wood in Bilge Area

Some of the thresholds of the passageways were rotted out. I replaced them using mahogany and cherry. Here is a new threshold for the forward bearth.

New Bow Anchor Platform

I have built a new bow anchor platform out of teak using gorilla glue and 3/8 inch silicone bronze all threads to hold it together.

Fitting New Bow Platform and Toerail

Pictures above showing the fitting of the new bow platform and a toerail section.

Toerail refit

Replacing Teak Toerail

I made patterns for the new teak toe rail on plywood by laying some 2 ft. by 8 ft. by 1/4 inch thick plywood sections down on the toerail and marking the shear line on the plywood. I then cut this out with a bandsaw. This gave me a pattern for my new teak toerail. I have started steam bending the teak. I have read it is next to impossible to steam bend teak but I had a piece of teak that was already bowed and I am having success steaming and bending with the natural bow already in the teak plank.

I had previously cut a teak plank up for the new toe rail. I had read that steaming teak for a bend was tough, but I had a plank with a bow in it and thought that would give me some help in bending. I cut the planks and steamed them. Then quickly clamped them in a form in the shape of the boat curve. They clamped in place OK without splitting, but when I released them they sprang back quite a bit. After assessing the teak I had, I determined I didn't have enough to finish and I sure didn't want to spend more money on teak and I thought the bend was going to really give me some trouble to do without splitting or other problems. I had some 2 inch thick cherry already and decided to use it and paint the toe rail instead of varnish. I had previously marked off the curve of the boat on 1/4 inch plywood and cut on the line to reproduce the shape. I set the plywood on the cherry planks and marked the curve on the cherry and then cut the planks out with a skill saw. I made sure I didn't incorporate any wood defect in the finished plank. I then used my bandsaw to cut the rough width of the toe rail. I then ran the rough shaped toe rail through my 15 inch wide belt sander edge wise and convex side up. This cleaned up the edge of the toe rail plank very nice. I then filled it 180 degrees on edge with concave side up and cleaned that side. This produced a nice toe rail plank with uniform width and smooth sanded edges. The pictures below show how I finished the toe rail up.

Here are the jigs used to rout the joint I will use to connect the toe rail. I gave the jigs the same curve as the boat and the same width as the toe rail. I cut them out of plywood first and then found that the ends are to flexible to support the router, so I made some more out of oak. The shape of the joint was determined by my edge sander drum. I could cut nice reproducable curves into my jig using this sander.

A toe rail plank clamped and ready to recieve the jig

The jig clamped in place and the router bit used to clean up the joint after rough sawn with a jigsaw.

Cleaning up the joint with a router.

The freshly milled toe rail dry fit in place. Notice I rounded the edges of the toe rail with a router.

I finished cutting and dry fitting the cherry toe rail. I am going to leave it in place for a couple of days to see how the wood reacts to its new home. I was careful selecting the cherry from my wood pile but there is always a chance I missed a defect and it should show up fairly quickly in the Arkansas heat. I will apply 3 coats min. of epoxy, let dry for at least a week, sand smooth, apply a 2 coats of Interlux Primecoat, sand, and then paint a nice teak brown. I feel like this will have a good looking, long lasting, low maintenace finish. We shall see. Pics Below.

Epoxy Coating the Toerail

I applied 3 coats of epoxy with West Systems yellow foam roller. It was messy and I had to stay with it to catch the drips and runs and keep everything nice and smooth, but everything went on pretty easy. Only problem was the 100 degree heat. Sweat was running off of me and was a nusiance even with two fans blowing. Pic below:

More Toerail Work

I have rolled on 3 coats of epoxy, sanded, and applied one coat of Interlux Primekote on the toerails. Next will come 2 coats of paint. Pics below.

Cherry toerails coated with epoxy. I will let dry for a week, wash off the amine blush, sand, and coat with Interlux Primekote, and then apply a single part urathane paint.

The Dingy

It seems lately that I have been taking more steps backward than forward. So, I must rejoice in the fact the the dingy has been completed! Yeah, I built it 6 years ago. Pic below

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Doug Hylan design Maine Peapod, which will become my dingy(if I can figure out where to put it) was completed 6 years ago. It hangs patiently from my shop ceiling.

Woodwork: Steering Wheel Pedestal

I purchased a new engine control unit and it would not fit into the original steering wheel pedestal so I built another out of mahogany, teak, and white oak. Pic below:

Reinforcements of white oak mortised into teak base.

All clamped together

Woodwork: Cherry table

I a built a new galley table out of cherry to replace the old one. The original was made with mahogany.

Woodwork: Milling the handrails

As I wait for my fiberglass/epoxy patches to cure (a week ought to do it) I turned to other projects. I had previously milled some round handrails out of teak. As I said before, it is very hard to mill round stock without the proper equipment. I had used my shaper and router without much success. So, I remade the handrails, this time opting to do a more oval shape. This allows the router bit to have a flat surface for it's guide bushing to ride on to make nice quarter round cuts. I used 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 inch stock to start with. This method turned out much better looking handrails. Pics below:

Oval handrails were much easier to cut and turned out superior to the round ones I had cut ealier.

I dry fit the handrail and drilled all screw holes prior to finishing. I am using Petit Z Spar Flagship varnish and like it very much.

Woodwork: Handrail Installation

I screwed on the handrail using silicone bronze screws and 3M 5200 caulk. No, I don't want them to ever come off. Below are pics.