June 24, 10 - I finished installing the last new frame 9 days ago.  After that I started working on planking projects.  On June 15, 10, I had six full planks and two butt ends to repair below the waterline.  Above the waterline I had a spot of rot that extended into two planks around a butt joint to repair.

I tackled the butt joint repairs below the waterline first.  The two butt joints I needed to repair were in the the same place on the port and starboard sides of the boat about one plank below the turn of the bilge.  When the boat was built, butt ends of planks fell on frames and the planks were attached to the frames with iron boat nails.  At some time after the construction of the boat the butt joints were refastened with more iron nails and then again with bronze screws.  Consequently, the inch at the end of each plank at the butt joint had about nine fasteners across the 8" width of the plank.  This plethora of fasteners became obvious when I removed the frame that the two butt joints fell on.  By the time I removed all the old fasteners, the plank ends looked like an iron-sick piece of swiss cheese.  Since I was scarfing a new laminated frame into sister frames that started a plank above the butt joints, there would be no frame behind the old butt joints.  Consequently, I decided to cut the plank ends back to get to good wood and to put in a short joining piece to fill the gap.  After I cut the old planks ends off, I ended up with an approximately 18" gap to fill.  So I made up butt blocks and screwed them to the old planks.  After that I measured and then cut out a new piece of 4/4 douglas fir and screwed it into the butt blocks and the two frames it spanned.  Because I was working close to the turn of the bilge, I had to back out the new plank to conform to the curvature of the frames.  I did that by taking a few passes down the center of the back of the plank with my electric plane and then sanding the edges of the planed area to generate a smooth curve.  The short joining planks fit quite nicely.  All together these two 18" long butt joint repairs are hels in place with 24 bronze screws each, so I don't think they are going anywhere.  The picture below shows the port side repair.  The starboard repair looks the same.  I have not yet recaulked the hull, but will start doing that in a few weeks.

The next planking project I took on was a repair to a bit of rot in two planks just below the shear.  The picture below shows the repaired spot.  The new wood is about 3' long.  The problem was rot in the lower plank of the two I replaced at a butt between an original plank (forward) and a plank that was put on the boat in '95 (aft).  In order to replace the rotted wood I took the mahogany trim above the spot off to reveal the cover board.  It appears that the rot was caused by water seeping in between the trim and the mahogany cover board to the plank butt.  At first the rot appeared to be limited to the lower plank where the butt joint was.  However, when I got to digging it became clear that both the lower plank and the upper plank, above the butt joint were rotted.  Consequently, I cut the bad wood back by about 18" forward and aft of th rotted wood at the butt joint.  Once the bad wood was off the boat I had to consider how to make the repair.  This spot is just aft of midships and is an area where the original frames had all been sistered.  However, once I removed the plank and the mahogany trim I discovered that the sister frames had been driven in from below.  Furthermore the sister frames were kerfed and had not been driven all the way up to the cover board.  The original frames in this area were totally rotted, so there wasn't actually anything to attach the new planking to.  Also, as the picture below shows, the upper plank tapers to less than an inch in width at its aft end, which made it essentially impossible to fasten with screws at its aft end.

I began the repair by scarfing new oak ends onto the sister frames to carry them up to the cover board.  After the epoxy scarfs cured, I cut the old frame ends out.  I also decided to make the repair with a single piece of wood rather than two planks.  To give the impression of two planks I used my router to cut in a false caulking groove 1/8" deep.   After I shaped the repair plank, I screwed in in at the forward end.  There is enough fore/aft curvature in the hull at this point that the aft end of the plank needed to be drawn down by about 3/4".  I accomplished that by drilling through the aft end of the plank, the frame behind it and a stringer behind the frame.  I put 1/4" bolt through the hole with a large fender washer on the inside and a piece of 2" wide oak on the outside that I oriented verticaly.  I then put a nut on the bolt and used to to gradually draw the plank down while progressively fastening it from the forward end to the aft end.  Once the plank was in place, I removed the bolt and replaced it with a 1/4" machine screw that served to provide extra purchase to hold the plank in place as well as bolting the new frame end to the stringer.  Once the plank was secure I caulked it with cottom and then paid the seams with 3M 4200.  I also bunged all the screws.  After the 4200 cured I sanded the plank fair and painted it with a coat of Interlux sealer.  As soon as I have a rain free day, I will sand the plank out and put the first coat of topsides paint on it.

Yesterday (June 23, 10), I laid out the bearding line on the part of the keel I replaced two years ago.  Once the layout was done, I started carving the planking rabbet into the new part of the keel.  I had to quit early yesterday because it started raining quite hard just before noon.  This morning I went out and finished the job.  I started carving the rabbet solely with wood chisels, but decided to try using my Dremel Multimate with the plunge cutting attachment to cut the bottom surface of the rabbet into the keel.  That worked surprisingly well and let me finish the job is much less than half the time it would have taken with just the chisels.  This 6 foot bit of rabbet still took nearly six hours to carve though.  The starboard side should go more quickly.  After I finished cutting the rabbet, I clamped a spiling batten to the frames and made the measurements for the garboard.  I then removed the batten and laid out the garboard.  I will cut the plank out tomorrow.  Tomorrow morning I will also build a steam box since the garboards have about 60 degrees of twist, which will be impossible without softening the 1" thick douglas fir planking stop by steaming.

June 27, 2010 - Since my last update I cut out the garboard plank for the port bow.  I also did a bit of final work on the frame bevels and repainted all the wood I had shaped.  Yesterday I went over to the lumber yard and bought some cheap pine, which I used to build an 8' long steam box.  I did a test "steaming" yesterday on a piece of scrap douglas fir.  The result was good, but let me know that I needed a bit more than the hour I allowed in the steam box.  This morning I set up the steam box again, slid my plank into it and plugged the heater in.

My steam box uses a Wagner wall paper steamer I picked up on sale last winter.  Today I discovered that the steamer will run for more than two hours on a fill of water.  I left the 7/8" thick plank in the steam box for two hours from the time I plugged the heater in.  Steam started coming out the low end about 30 minutes after startup, so the wood was steamed for 90 minutes.  After two hours I took the plank out and started fastening it to the frames.  I managed to fasten it to all but the three forward most frames before the wood cooled too much to bend further.  The second stage of steaming used a "steam envelope" made from a piece of old tarp that I slid over the unfastened plank end.

While the plank end was steaming, I used bar clamps to gradually draw the plank to the frames.  All together the end of the plank had to move nearly 3".  Despite that, it pulled down easily.  As I pulled the plank down to each frame, I slid the "envelope" back and fastened the plank to that frame.  The finished product is shown in the next picture.

I was very pleased with how easily the steamed douglas fir plank bent onto the frames.  The garboard planks have about 65 degrees of twist and bend in nearly 9" over just under seven feet.  Tomorrow I will head off to the lumber yard to get the wood for the rest of the port side planking.  Weather permitting, I will have the port side closed up by the end of the coming week.

I have steamed small pieces of wood before, but today was my first time steaming in a full sized plank.  I was a bit surprised at how easily the wood bent after steaming.  After today's success, the rest of my planking project doesn't seem as daunting.

July 5, 10 - Since my last update I have been working on the planking.  I started by putting the plank above the garboard on.  Because the plank needed to be nearly 8" wide at the forward end and I am limited to 5.5" wide planking stock, I decided to fill the spot with two planks rather than take a chance steaming a composite plank edge glued with epoxy.  I was pleased to find that the narrower plank was much easier to install then the 5.5" wide garboard plank.

As you can see in the picture above someone did a previous repair by cutting out part of a plank.  I originally intended to leave the funky repair in place, but when I got to picking around at the forward end of the part of the plank that wasn't replaced, it became clear to me that the hood end of that partial plank needed replacement.  Consequently, I cut the hood end of the plank out back to the aft end of the funky repair.  I also removed the "repair plank"

The picture above shows the boat this morning.  Over the past couple of days I removed the bad wood, spiled the new planks and installed them.  Last night about 5 PM I put the last screw in and the port side was closed up for the first time since I removed the garboard to cut the forward end of the keel off.  I also finally replaced the bit of the worm show I removed when I cut the keel off.  The old worm shoe was teak, but I cheaped out and used Ipe instead.

Today (July 5), I started carving the starboard rabbet into the keel.  I expect to finish that project tomorrow.  After that I have a bit of work to do on the frame bevels and then I will start planking the starboard side.

July 16, 2010 - For the past eleven days I have been working on the starboard side planking.  I spent most of two days carving the keel rabbet, working on frame bevels and other pre-planking details.  I also lost a couple of days due to poor weather (driving rain).  However, this afternoon I put the seventh plank on the starboard side.  As you can see in the picture below, all I have left to do on the starboard side is to put in the 9' long shutter plank.

I have put four strakes of planking on the starboard.  The planking strakes ranged from 18 to 21 feet long.  This afternoon I shaped the shutter plank.  Tomorrow I will carve the caulking bevel into that plank, predrill the holes for the screws and then put it in the steam box. This last plank will be a bit more difficult than the other 7 planks in that I will have to use shutter clamps to twist it and draw it down to the frames.

July 17, 2010 - Today was the day.  I finished shaping the shutter plank and then tossed it into the steam box.  After 90 minutes of steaming I removed the plank and began the process of closing the hull up.  Shutter planks are harder than earlier planks because you can't draw the plank down to the frames with clamps.  Furthermore, since I was working alone, I had to jury rig various props to hold the plank in place as I gradually bent it into the gap.  The process took nearly two hours and involved drilling four holes in the plank so I could use through bolts to draw it down.  At any rate it is now DONE!!!!!!!.

All that remains to do on the hull is to recaulk the seams.  Before I do that I have a coupld of plank edges that need a bit of work.  In particular I need to glue a shim into the seam between the starboard garboard and the next plank up because I made a mistake and carved the planking bevel on the bottom of the second plank leading to a double width caulking groove.  That is an easy problem to fix though.  I obviously need to finish wooding the hull too before I can put new bottom paint on.

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