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Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Framing, planking and fairing. Repair, or reconstruction. If it's hull related, you'll find it here.

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robertpaul
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:28 pm

On page 6 of this thread, I repaired the corners of the windshield frames and prepared them for re-assembly. Over the last couple of days I have finally put them together and it seems that it worked out ok. I had a can of Pettit Seam Compound that I acquired around 1992, and it worked great as bedding for the glass in the frame. When I popped the lid, it filled the room with the aroma of boat materials of the past. It was perfect. So here are the pics of the process and a toast to never throwing good stuff out.
Attachments
M3250017.JPG
Mahogany saw dust to use as thickener for the epoxy. The joints will still show a bit.
M3250011.JPG
Good stuff. Bought this almost 30 years ago.
M3250006.JPG
Dry fit. The wood blanks you see on the desk top hold the glass at the level required to hit the frame channel dead centre. The plank clamped on the right of the pic is the straight edge which orients the frame during assembly.
M3250008.JPG
Glass dry fit. The masking tape marks the depth the glass is into the frame channel.
M3250010.JPG
Filling the channels with compound. I tooled it in so that there were no voids. The glass will displace a lot of it but since I am never doing this again I didn't scrimp.
M3250014.JPG
Corners are epoxy glued and everything clamped in place. I bought the pipe clamps at a garage sale for $2CDN.
M3250016.JPG
Assembled. Still needs to be cleaned up and refinished.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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robertpaul
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Sun Dec 02, 2018 10:50 am

Now that both windshields are assembled, all that remains is to clean them up and re-finish. However, I wanted to check to make sure that the two are at least close to being identical before I do anymore. I will test fit them on the boat (which is 400kms away) but for now I just positioned them face to face (as they are not square) to see how close I came to matching them. So either they both fit, or they both don't!
Attachments
M3260001.JPG
The two windows stacked face to face and lined up with each other.
M3260003.JPG
M3260002.JPG
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:49 pm

Now that the windshields are done, I have turned my attention to repairing transom planks. The transom consists of five planks, almost 9' long for the top one, and just over 8' at the bottom. They are 3/4" thick and over 10" wide. Of the five, the second and third from the top are originals, and possibly the top one as well. I won't know that until I pull some fasteners. At this time I have the third plank at home and it is in very fine condition except for the ends where it was fastened to the cheeks. The cheeks themselves are ok (white oak), as the rot really got into the mahogany. The following pictures show the details and what I am dealing with. Fortunately the deterioration is limited to the very ends of the plank. My plan at this point is to cut off the offending end and then scarf in new material. I would like to recycle some of the excellent mahogany I have from the original bottom planks but this would require laminating and planing for thickness, and scarfing two pieces side by side to obtain the width. Not difficult but it will leave a visible line lengthwise. The vertical seam is unavoidable no matter what I do. Using the original material means that the grain will be identical, as well as hardness. Other than DRM, I am not sure I can come up with material similar enough to the original to blend nicely. I am very open to suggestions. You will see from the pictures why this plank is going back to where it was. I really like using the originals where I can.
Attachments
M3270016.JPG
Original plank looking from stbd to port.
M3270013.JPG
Inside edge of the plank. Except for the very ends, the entire plank is like this, both sides. Amazing condition and far too nice to replace with new stuff.
M3270003.JPG
Plank with the battens still attached. The gaps are where the plank is fastened to the frames.
M3270002.JPG
Original batten removed. Most were in excellent shape, which is amazing. They were all painted before assembly at the factory as was the inside of the plank. This is the only place on the entire boat where I found that to be the case.
M3270004.JPG
Removing a bung with a fine screw driver that I got at a yard sale for 10cents(CDN). I push the screw driver several times into the middle of the bung parallel to the grain. This enables me to remove some of the middle of the bung and easily get at the bits at the edges without damaging the plank.
M3270008.JPG
Original fastener attaching a batten.
M3270011.JPG
Port end, inside. My finger is on the deepest penetration of the rot. Unlike the stbd end, the outside does not show any problem.
M3270009.JPG
Port end, outside. The rot did not get all the way through although it is within 1/8" at one point. I may rout out the bad stuff and see if I can laminate behind. If not, scarfing will fix it.
M3270012.JPG
Stbd end, inside.
M3270001.JPG
Stbd end, outside. The x's near the screw hole means the fastener broke when I tried to extract it. The white oak cheek did not want to let go of the screws.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

joanroy
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by joanroy » Mon Dec 10, 2018 8:22 am

I replaced the bottom third of my transom. The top section was repaired prior to my ownership. What they did was cut back the plank ends to the first frame, repaired the corner frames, and fitted vertical mahogany dutchmen the same length and width on both sides. Sanded in, stained and varnished, it looks great. Yes, you can tell it’s a repair, but a really nicely done repair. It was a way to save most of the original plank and not have to go through the trouble of removing, bending and fitting new. The dutchmen are probably about six inches wide and eighteen inches or so long and well above the water line. There’s nothing wrong with a well fitted and fastened repair.

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robertpaul
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Tue Dec 11, 2018 1:27 pm

I went to my stash of original bottom planks and quickly found one that looked to be a likely candidate for re-use. None of the bottom planks are as wide nor as thick as the transom planks so I will have do some laminating. However, I cut a length of the best part (about 6') and trimmed off a few inches from the end to get rid of the butt block fastener holes. I passed it through the planer a bunch of times, taking off only a minimum amount each time. It is cold and the rollers on the planer won't grip well enough to move the plank through if I try to take off too much at one pass. The material is a hard as nails. Here are a few more pics.
Attachments
fullsizeoutput_27b.jpeg
Outside surface before planing. The orange is Primer that I applied when I wooded the bottom 28 years ago.
fullsizeoutput_27c.jpeg
Inside surface before planing. Some small pieces of the original canvas are still attached. Dirty but appears sound. Zoom in and you will see where the original diagonal inner planks crossed this outer plank.
M3280004.JPG
Close up of the inside surface before planing.
M3280006.JPG
Looks pretty nice. Very hard and not the least brittle.
M3280007.JPG
I will deal with the holes after I laminate.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Fri Dec 14, 2018 4:25 pm

I am in the final stages of fabricating the blank that I will scarf into the stbd end of the transom plank (see previous posts). After laminating, I squared them up with my mitre saw. Then I selected the sides that best matched grain, and where the grain might help hide the horizontal scarf joint. The next steps are to cut down the width of the blank to near the width of the transom plank. I will leave it a bit proud on both edges because I might need to fiddle with gluing up the final scarf. Before I cut the scarf in the plank and the blank, I must plane the blank down to 3/4" to match the plank. Currently the blank is around 1 1/8" thick. I would have liked to make a deeper scarf for what I did today, but I decided it was better to get a nice machine cut even if only 45degrees. It will be miles above the waterline anyway.
Attachments
M3290002.JPG
Epoxy glued and clamped. Lots of clamps but I was careful not to over-torque them.
M3300001.JPG
Rough blanks after epoxy glue has cured. Ready to be cut.
M3300002.JPG
I will square them up and eliminate the screw holes along the edges.
M3300003.JPG
Cutting the scarf. This is staged. The scarf is already cut and the pieces repositioned for the picture. The saw is unplugged.
M3300004.JPG
Scarf cut. The saw is unplugged and positioned to illustrate.
M3300007.JPG
Dry fit test of the scarf joint.
M3300010.JPG
The piece on the left will be clamped firmly to the table top with wax paper under it so it doesn't bond to the table top. The piece on the right will slide into the scarf and be clamped from behind to pull it tight.
M3300012.JPG
Clamped until tomorrow. The tape will help with cleanup. I also work on the assumption that I will mess things up, hence labelling which way is up.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

joanroy
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by joanroy » Fri Dec 14, 2018 5:35 pm

Gotta love the way that old growth mahogany comes back to life out of the plane. That’s good wood!

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:15 pm

Yes, JR, it is lovely stuff. I ran the new blank through the planer several times just now. It still needs to lose about 5/16" to get to the proper thickness, but it is dark and cold so I will continue tomorrow. Although the glue line is starting to disappear I expect it will still be visible in the end with some squinting. Once down to the proper thickness I will drill out and plug the few holes with wood from the same plank. The holes have some epoxy glue in them that squeezed out during the lamination process. After that I will make the scarfs in the original plank and this piece. That will be a fussy business because I would like at least a four inch overlap, which means cutting the scarfs by hand.
Attachments
M3310001.JPG
The glue line is visible but the joint is tight and well bonded. This is what epoxy is meant to do.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:30 pm

Over the last couple of days I have been at the boat. It was cool in the building, hovering near 1c. It is fine for wood working, although I can't use paints or adhesives. I have lots of to do over the winter preparing the bottom for final caulking (gapping and filling where the sealant did not fully flood the gaps during assembly) and I want to finish the topside planking so that it can be final assembled in the spring and painted. Yesterday I used my Bosch 2632 hand plane to finally take down the new chines (22' on each side) where they were proud of the bottom. Almost an inch proud! To my shock and surprise the plane zipped through the job very quickly with no major errors on my part. The chines are still about 1/16th proud, but I will finish that off with a hand plane and ro sander. Here are some pics of the pre and post operation. I also did a thorough vacuuming of the inside of the hull/bilge, and inspected for where I may have missed frames with fasteners. My final count was 5 screws just alongside some frames. I will fix but I am quite pleased that I only missed 5 out of 3500 or so.
Attachments
M3320001.JPG
Proud. I had to plane off a full 22' on each side. Went very well but I sure got a lot of wood chips on me. I wear a top quality dust mask and glasses. But the chips get everywhere.
M3320002.JPG
Very proud
M3320009.JPG
Very near flush. The contrasting shade of the chine with the bottom makes it look like it is protruding down. Actually they are on the same plane. My thumb spans the seam between the chine and bottom.
M3320010.JPG
Stbd chine. The contrast makes the chine look sort of weird, but it is on exactly the same plane as the bottom.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:46 pm

Meanwhile, back at the ranch..... I have been working on repairing the ends of the transom plank shown in the posts above. I am using re-cycled bottom planking for the job. So far I have scarfed the recycled material onto the stbd end, and it seems to have gone ok. The grains match well with just initial sanding to smooth the joint a bit. I would have liked the seam to be less conspicuous, but after staining it may be less visible. For the port end I have routed down to the bottom of the rot and pieced in the first repair. When the epoxy glue for that has cured, I will rout the area flush and laminate a much larger piece to finish it off. I will not do anything else to it until the spring when I can fit it on the boat and do the final finishing.
Attachments
M3270011.JPG
Port end inside showing rot.
M3330001.JPG
Port end inside after routing. I routed down to eliminate all the rot, cutting deepest on the lower left. About 3/16" remains of the original plank in this spot
M3330002.JPG
Cardboard template.
M3330003.JPG
New piece made from re-cycled original bottom planking.
M3330004.JPG
Epoxy glued and lightly clamped. Squeeze-Out of thickened epoxy. I applied un-thickened epoxy to both surfaces first.
M3270015.JPG
Stbd end before repair.
M3330005.JPG
Recycled bottom planking scarfed in. The seam will always be visible but after the plank is back on the boat I will strip the remaining varnish and sand thoroughly. That should help get down to the proper shade for the rest of the plank which has been varnished a zillion times and exposed to the sun for 80 years. Here's hoping. the 'blemish' you see under the varnish is actually a knot in the wood. It is original!
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Sun Jan 06, 2019 4:48 pm

Second piece glued into place at the port end of this original plank. I ran the grain at 90degrees to the original plank to mitigate splitting at the end on the outside. Being lazy, it also made it easier to fabricate a single piece to span the width of the plank. I still have some very minor repairs to make on the inside edges of the plank, but the small areas of rot only penetrate about 3/8" at the most. You can see what I mean in the pictures below. Maybe three or four small spots in all.
Attachments
M3340001.JPG
From the last post, you can see the smaller piece already glued in and made flush with the router. The rest is the original plank. A few router boo boos.
M3340002.JPG
'New' piece of 80 year old mahogany shaped and planed.
M3340003.JPG
Dry fitting. I am not overly concerned that there are small gaps as the thickened epoxy will fill them nicely. I go for the uneven edge because, rightly or wrongly, I try to use it to mix the grain at the cut. I only do this if I am not scarfing. This piece is 1/4" thick. If you zoom in on the right edge of the plank you can see a small spot of rot just where the clamp head is. I will chisel this out and laminate a thin piece of 'new' mahogany.
M3340004.JPG
Clamped up until tomorrow when I will flip the plank and trim the new pieces flush with the sides.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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robertpaul
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Mon Jan 07, 2019 2:14 pm

Clamps off and some clean-up. I have done a bit of sanding to remove the epoxy glue squeeze-out and, in retrospect, next time I will tape over the fastener holes to minimize how much escapes. It will make clean-up easier. I will do the final shaping after the plank is re-installed. I still have to clean up a few parts of the edge along the length of the plank, but preliminary work with a chisel shows good wood after 1/4", so that will be easy. I suppose I could just clean out the soft stuff and paint the new edge since it will not show. That leaves 1/2" of thickness in these spots. Plenty strong but the space may act as a water trap behind the frame/batten. I will fix it. So ends the the excruciating detail on this little piece of repair work.
Attachments
M3270010.JPG
Starting point before repair.
M3350002.JPG
Inside look at new piece epoxy glued with grain running across the plank to help prevent splitting. Probably not necessary but it also made it easier to cover the width of the plank.
M3350003.JPG
Just flipped over and covered with epoxy. The laminations are sticking out all over just before I rough trimmed it.
M3350008.JPG
This is the side where I had to add two layers of material.
M3350004.JPG
I will sand this all flush once the plank is on the boat. It looks odd now because there is still thickened epoxy squeeze-out and the new material laminated in is just trimmed rough at this point.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:30 pm

Just when you thought I wouldn't try everyone's patience with itty bitty repairs to an original plank, I will do that by showing how I repaired the edge today. Tomorrow I will remove the clamps and clean it all up. Like it or not, I will share that as well. It's winter and we are all itching for wooden boat stuff anyway.
Attachments
M3350001.JPG
The worst part of this edge is by the Sharpie. I went down about 5/16" to get to very clean wood and extended the cut well beyond any soft parts. For the rest it was only about a 1/8" deep cut before I was well into hard wood.
fullsizeoutput_27e.jpeg
I have routed out the rot completely. In the picture you can see where I had to go deeper in the area in the foreground. To be certain to get all the rot, I extend the cut several inches each side of the soft bit. The bit was hot after cutting. That is my router guide on the top of the picture. Just a straight edge piece of wood clamped on the plank.
fullsizeoutput_281.jpeg
I cut the blanks on the band saw to the proper thickness using the guide. The blade leaves the blank slightly rough which provides a nice toothy surface for the epoxy glue.
fullsizeoutput_280.jpeg
All the blanks dry fit. I re-cycle original planking material, which is why the grain is the same.
M3370001.JPG
The vertically positioned clamp ensures the edge of the blank is snug to the edge of the cut in the plank. The horizontal clamps snug the blank to the bottom of the cut.
M3370002.JPG
The same.
M3370003.JPG
More of the same.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

jfrprops
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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by jfrprops » Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:20 pm

keep it up...much enjoy your progress reports, John in Va
1980 Fairchild Scout 30
19?? custom Argentine Runabout 16'
1954 Whirlwind deluxe dual ckpt 16'
1921 Old Town Charles River 17' (founding Captain, James River Batteau Festival)

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Re: Honey, have you finished fixing Elude yet? 1937 35' Cruiser

Post by robertpaul » Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:25 pm

Thanks John. Here are a couple of pictures of the finished repair. I still have a little bit of hand sanding to do on the top edge, but it is square and near done. I have a few more spots to fill in a similar manner, as well as a crack in the plank where the metal step was located. I think over the thousands of times our family and the ones who preceded us stepped up from a swim, the plank cracked a bit. I will repair it by laminating a piece of mahogany across the grain on this inside of the plank.
Attachments
M3380001.JPG
Top edge of plank. The repair is on the left (back) edge of the plank. It is square.
M3380007.JPG
The seam is visible but I point it out with my finger anyway. This is the inside of the plank and will be painted with bilge paint.
M3380006.JPG
Back of the plank after sanding the repair flush.
1937 35' Double Stateroom Enclosed Cruiser

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