|
How Can I Restore It?
(If I can’t get it
apart!)
by Sherwood Heggen
You just got your project boat. To you it is beautiful. The
neighbors think you have lost your marbles and the money you paid
for it. You are going into this with your eyes wide open, knowing
that you are going to have to disassemble it and replace a lot of
parts to make it right. It shouldn’t be that big a deal. It is
held together by screws and bolts. You are good with tools and your
hands.
The boat is 60 years old and it still
has the original bottom. You have assessed the condition of the
bottom and have found soft frames, a soft keel, and a lot of other
non-surprises for a boat this old. You’ve read all of the articles
on restoration and have built the cradle to support it after it is
rolled over. You have removed all of the little screws inside the
hull bottom going through the inner planking to the outer planking
unless you have a Century. That is one of the good points of
restoring a Century - no inner planking screws!
OK, you are ready to go. It is
Saturday morning. Your buddies have helped you roll the boat over,
have had their coffee and rolls and have gone home, leaving you one
on one with the project. What to do first?
Since the frames are bad, it will be
necessary to get at them somehow. Taking off the bottom planks is
about the only way that is going to happen. You know that screws
hold the planks in place, but where are the screws? Well, they are
securely hidden under plaster plugs which must be removed before you
can get at them with a screw driver - all 1700 to 1800 of them.
Assuming you are going to use the planks for patterns, you will want
to take them off one at a time, screw by screw, in a non-destructive
manner.
Removing the plaster plugs will be a
long drawn out task. The effort can be eased a bit by drilling
through the center of the plug with a five-sixteenths inch brad
point bit. The bit will stop at the screw and most of the plaster
will be removed, but the screw slots will still be loaded with
plaster. A sharp ice pick is the best tool to clean the slot out.
The other method is to use the ice pick only. Push the pick into the
plaster, prying out as much as possible, run the point of the pick
around the perimeter of the hole and finally clean out the slot.
After about a hundred attempts of cleaning out the holes, you will
possess a new skill you never thought you would have. Have plenty of
coffee, pop, snacks, and a TV/radio available to counteract the
boredom because you are going to be there a long time doing this
mundane task. The number of holes you have cleaned indicates how
many screws you now have to remove. Here again, coffee, pop, snacks,
and a TV/radio for entertainment are vital for keeping you from
going nuts.
During disassembly, keep a notebook
of the various measurements and points to remember. Important to
record are the bolt and screw sizes as you remove them from the
various stations. List the members of the boat bottom across the top
of the notebook page, i.e., keel - stringers - chine. Then, down the
left side of the page, mark the stations from fore to aft, i.e., S
(stem), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc, for the main and auxiliary frames,
ending with T (transom). The main frames are the ones that connect
to side frames and the auxiliary frames are the ones that stop at
the chine. Intermediate frames, which are sticks between the keel
and chine, are placed in between the previously mentioned frames.
They all have the same size screws and need not be mentioned in
detail on the record, other than the number of screws they require.
As you remove a fastener, identify its kind and size and record it
on the page. You should list the screw sizes holding the bottom
planks in place also. You will refer to this when ordering new
fasteners and during assembly.
Grab your screw driver that fits the type of screw to remove and get
to it. If it is a Frearson screw, do not attempt to use a Phillips
screw driver. The blade looks similar, but it just won’t work. Go
to your boat restoration supplier to get the correct Frearson bit.
If it is a slot screw, be sure the blade is sharp to get the best
grip in the slot. What about using a power screw driver? Don’t use
one until you know that you have the screw loose in the hole. The
power driver often gives too much power too fast and will damage the
screw slot making it even more difficult to get the screw loose. It
is surprising how well established a screw can be after 60 years in
the same hole. Once you have worked it loose with a manual
screwdriver, make the job go a lot faster by using the power screw
driver to finish removing the screw from the hole. If you should
happen to destroy the slot, use a one-quarter inch drill to drill
the head off the screw. Then, when all the other screws are removed,
simply pull the board off the remaining screw shank. Then, grip the
shank of the screw with a pliers to turn the screw for removal. You
will also find a number of “spinners” that seemingly have lost
their grip. Actually, it is more likely these are broken screws.
Leave them until the plank is off when you can simply tap the heads
out with a hammer. You can work around the remainder of the screw in
the frame if you do not replace the frame.
After you have all of the screws out remove the planks and set them
aside for patterns. If you have a Century, you will now be looking
at bottom frames and battens. If you have a double planked bottom,
you still need to remove the inner planking. This planking is held
in place with little nails whose heads are nearly ready to come off
from their rusty condition. It is easier to drive the boards off
with a hammer from behind than it is to try to get all of those
nails out with the boards in place. Don’t try to save these
boards. Most likely you will be replacing them with plywood anyway.
Once the boards are all removed, you will be able to get a better
grip on the nails with a claw hammer, vice grip, or what ever device
you wish to use to extract the
little buggers. You have come a long way! You can now see the bottom
frames. Holding everything together here are mostly countersunk
carriage bolts and some very large screws.
Taking out the bolts is a simple
matter of removing the nut and driving out the bolt. The first time
you spend more than reasonable time removing the nut with your
socket wrench, you will realize that the bolt is spinning. You look
in the hole at the head and you ask yourself how you are going to
get a hold on that. There are a couple of ways to get it out. Since
you will want to replace that bolt with a new one, simply cut it off
behind the nut with a hack saw, if you can get at it. The other
method is to take a screw driver with a blade no more than a quarter
inch wide and drive it in beside the bolt head on the left side.
Then, as you remove the nut with a wrench, twist the screwdriver
handle, clockwise. Usually that will drive the blade edge into the
rotating edge of the carriage bolt head, stopping its rotation as
you remove the nut. Once the nut is off, drive the bolt out with
another bolt far enough to get a pliers on it and pull it out.
The screws that hold the frames to
the stringers and the chines are usually #12 and #14 and take a big
screwdriver. You may have to go out and buy a proper size screw
driver that has a square shank or a hex shape for a wrench up by the
handle. The amount of torque necessary to remove these screws is
great. You will find turning the screw much easier when a wrench
provides extra leverage to twist the screw out of the hole. Before
attempting to remove the screws, clean the slots well. When turning
out the screw, be sure there is plenty of downward pressure applied
to the screw head. Do not let the screwdriver twist out of the slot
or the slot will be damaged making it more difficult, or nearly
impossible, to get the screw out with out destroying everything
around it.
You may notice as you attempt to take
frames out that the bottom frames, stringers, and keel are like an
inter-locking puzzle. The keel holds the frame and bottom joiner
down to the frame and the stringer is notched keeping the frame and
bottom joiner from moving fore and aft. To remove a frame, you must
remove the keel or the chine. Then after all of the screws/bolts
that hold it in place are removed from the frame, the frame can be
lifted free.
You may need a short screwdriver to
get at the screws in the bottom joiners which tie the frame halves
together because of the limited space between frames. The keel must
be removed to be able to remove the bottom joiners. A right-angle
drive chuck attached to your drill motor can be a great help for
getting at screws in that cramped area. They are available for sale
at good hardware stores.
Hopefully that takes some of the
mystery out of taking the bottom apart. Give some thought to the
task ahead before you start. It gets quite involved and the pieces
are many. If you intend to replace the bottom frames, replace every
other one to maintain the correct bottom shape, and then go and
replace the remaining ones.
There will undoubtedly be some challenges not given consideration
in this article, so use your
imagination to get the task done, or give me a call. I can be
reached at 715-294-2415 or e-mail me at Heggensj@Centurytel.net
. For those of you that press ahead,
good luck. And to all who own a woodie, don’t destroy it; restore
it.
|
|
