April 16, 09 - Spring has finally arrived.  I took tthe cover off the boat on Tuesday since we have a week of sunny weather forcast.  Yesterday I decided to finish shaping the keel where it meets the stem.  So I removed the blocking I put under the new part of the keel for the winter and laid a tarp under the bow.  After that I laid out the lines I wanted to plane the keel back to and backed out a screw that was in the area to be planed off.  That preparation took about 30 minutes.  When the prep work was done I got out my new electric plane and went to work.  The entire job of planing off extra wood to shape the keel took about 15 minutes.  The only down side I can see to the electric plane is that it completely covered me in wood chips.  Despite that, I really like the electric plane.

Here is the before picture from last fall.  This picture was taken right after I put the keel in place.

Here is the keel yesterday after I finished with the electric plane.  A marked improvement.

After I finished with the keel I removed the blocking I had screwed to the hull to support the bow while I had the keel off and bunged the holes in the planks.  The next step is to replace the rotted frame ends that I cut last fall when I removed the keel.

April 29, 09 - Since my last update I haven't had much time to work on this project, but I finally got back to it last week.  Last week I removed the first bad frame on the port side.  The boat has a number of longitudinal stringers on a spacing of about one and a half feet.  Initially I tried to remove the bad frame without removing the stringer.  However, after doing a lot of damage to the planking and the stringer, I finally decided to cut the stringer out.  Once the stringer was out, the frame came out quite easily except for one screw that I had to dig out.  With the frame out, I made a pattern, which I used to laminate a new oak frame.  Over the last few days I repaired the damage I did to the planking during the frame removal.  Finally, today I installed the new frame.

The picture above shows the new frame in place.  At some time in the past a planking repair was made to put the outsize plank in at the bow.   When that plank was put in short sister frames were installed and that the plank was screwed to.  I deciced to remove the sister frames.  Unfortunately, the stainless steel screws used in that repair were really hard to back out.  I managed to get five of the screws out without difficulty, but I stripped the slot on the sixth screw, so I had to drill and dig it out.  I also cut a 1-7/8" hole in the plank to get at the head of the bolt holding the frame to the stringer inside the hull while I was trying to remove the frame without removing the stringer.  Consequently, I spent a lot of time repairing the plank.  Where I dug the screw out, I drilled a 1" hole in the plank, which I then sanded a taper into.  I also sanded a taper into the 1-7/8" hole I cut.  I made up  tapered 1-1/4" and 2-1/8" douglas fir plugs which I set into the two holes with epoxy thickened with microfibers.  I also filled the unneeded screw holes by through drilling them to 3/8", epoxying a bung in from the inside, using a forstner bit to expand the outside half of the hole to 1/2" and epoxying in a 1/2" bung from the outside.

Today I installed the new frame end.  It is scarfed into the old frame about 8" above the waterline.  The frame is attached to the keel with two 3" long bronze screws and a bit of caulking compound.  After the epoxy cures, I will sand everything fair and put another coat of paint on the frame.

July 12, 09 - It has been two and a half months since I last updated this page.  Since then I have been working at replacing the rotted frame ends.  That work involved completely ripping out the head as well as the lower half of the bulkhead between the head and the anchor locker.  Today I put in frame number 10.  This is the last of the frames that land on the keel From this point aft, the frames are continuous from gunwale to gunwale.  Consequently, at each station I will only have to laminate one frame instead of two.  The picture below shows the bow as it looked this afternoon.

When I replaced each frame I drilled out the original iron boat nails and bunged the holes using my stepped bung method.  Those repairs account for more than half the bungs in the planks.  During the disassembly I have found at least four generations of fasteners.  There are the original iron boat nails that are now completely wasted below the waterline.  The second generation of fasteners consists of sporadic #12 x 1-1/2" bronze screws.  The placement of those bronze screws likely contributed to the wasting of the original iron fasteners.  The third generation of fasteners is a set of #12 x 1-3/4" phillips head bronze screws.  Finally there are #14 x 1-3/4" stainless steel phillips head screws above the waterline and occasionally below the waterline.  I have removed all of the old fasteners and replaced them with #12 x 1-3/4" bronze slotted screws.  Where I have finished working the fasteners are now all bronze.

The ten laminated frames I have installed are laminated into the original frames above the waterline where the original frames are sound.  The next step is to install keelsons on either side of the keel aft of the fifth new frame.  When that is done, I will start replacing the bad parts of the gunwale to gunwale frames with new laminated oak frames that I will laminate into the old frames above the waterline.  There are four of those frames to replace, then the old frames have been sistered.  When I get to the sistered frames, I will remove the bad parts of the original frames and either laminate the sister frames into the original frames or make up new laminated pieces to replace the bad wood I remove.  In either case, I will remove the sister frames and take the hull back to its original frame density.  I will also replace all the old fasteners with bronze.

Although you can't see the starboar side in this picture, I have removed the forth plank above the garboard because it was baddly rotted.  I will be replacing it after I get ten frames back from the bow.  I will also be replacing the first two planks above the garboard because those planks are in very poor condition on the starrboard side.  The third plank above the garboard on the starboard side is a newer plank and is sound.
 

Aug. 10, 09 - I am still making slow but steady progress.  I have now put in 14 new frames.  I have also installed the keelson that I cut out.  Yesterday I went a little nuts and removed a plank on the starboard side that I wanted to replace.  I then cut out the new plank and put it on the boat.  That was the first plank I have done and it was surprisingly easy.  Of course it was only 6 feet long and only varied in width from 4-1/2 inches  at the aft end to 3-15/16 inches at the forward end.  I screwed it to the boat starting at the stem where the curvature was greatest and working aft.  I put in a but block where the new plank joins the old.  The new plank is 7/8" douglas fir.  I will replace the plank under the new plank after I complete the reframing project since it is 18' long.

I have one more frame to replace before I will replace the missing plank above the plank I put in yesterday.  The 14 frames I have replaced take me back to the bulkhead at the aft end of the head.  I have started putting the new floors in and have also started to replace the stringers I removed for the reframing.  The stringer was 1.5" x 3-3/8".  Near the bow the stringer has considerable bend and twist.  Because of the tight space in the head I decided it would be very difficult to bend and twist what is in effect a 2x4 into place and then hold it there while I attached it to the frames.  Consequently, I decided to make the stringer from two pieces of 3/4"x3-3/8" fir and to laminate the second piece to the first, because I could clamp to the first half.  Last week I crawled into the head and put the first halves of both the port and starboar stringers in.  It was a struggle, but after I got the screws in to hold the middle of the stringers in place, I was able to finish putting the two stringers in after many contortions to apply the required force to the stringers while screwing them to the frames with #12 by 1-3/4" bronze screws.  The picture below shows the stringers in place as well as two of the floors.

Today I laminated in the second half of the port stringer.  It went much more easily that putting the first half in.  The second half is held in place with 14 screws, a layer of thickened epoxy and 14 clamps until the epoxy sets.  I will do the starboard stringer tomorrow because it was impossible to work in the head with all the clamps in place.  Once I get the starboard stringer finished, I will start putting the ceiling back in.  The original ceilings were nailed in with steel finish nails.  I will use #8 bronze screws since the ceilings are screwed to the frames.

Dec. 4, 09

Wednesday was the last day of work on the Tortuga for this season.  After I took the picture shown above on August 9, 09 I ripped out the interior in the main cabin and started framing there.  On Dec. 1, 09 I put in the 32nd frame for this season and started putting the stringers back in.  The stringers are made from two pieces of fir 3/4"x3.5" CVG stock.  The first piece is attached to each frame with two bronze screws.  The second piece is screwed and epoxied to the first piece.  The back of the first piece got three coats of bilgekote before it went in.  I went that way because it was just too difficult to bend in 2x4s by myself.  On Dec. 2, I finished putting the lower stringers in then covered the boat for the winter because we have snow forecast for tomorrow (Dec. 5).  The pictures below show the boat before and after this Falls work.

As of today I have five frames to go to finish reframing the boat.  I have already reframed the boat aft of the main cabin.  Next Spring I will finish the five remaining  frames, replace the planks I removed and start rebuilding the interior.
 
 
 
 

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