Restoration.

[Springsong]

This is the bit about wooden boat building that facinates me the most. How the boatbuilder takes the shape from a few scraps of wood tacked on the boat and transcribes it onto a plank and ends up with the piece shown in the photo. I guess he started with an eight or ten inch plank to get this shape out of it.

Here it is being offered up, it is almost as if all that shape is dissappearing .

The forward end copper nailed and trimmed at the stem with clamps down its length to give it shape whilst Andrew nails it to the timbers. A couple of timbers up in the bow I think will need replacing.

The second plank is going to have to go even further back than we at first thought. Where you can see the chalk cross amid ships on the second plank Andrew has found some rot so he is going to go back to the scarph aft of the two ventilation slots. This plank will be too long to do in one piece but as yet I am not sure where the join will be. Regrettably I cannot get back until Saturday so I shall only be able to see the finished product.

[Antares_9]

Great to see the progress Barry, shame that with such a thorough job that when you strip something you have to find the result of a previous inadequate repair. Looking better every time you post.

[C.Ricko]

Good to see this is still getting attention, you must surely be getting towards a launch date

[Springsong]

Thanks guys

Yes it is rather frustrating to have to keep repairing repairs, not to say costly.

As to a launch date we had hoped late spring next year but we may have to revise that.

So much to do so little time to do it.

[Springsong]

The saloon is on the last few laps decoration wise. We have some ash to buy for the other side of the opening to the galley from the saloon, the ash beams need a couple more coats of varnish and the same for the forward bulkhead and cabin sides.

The second layer of deck has been started with the front and half the starboard side deck being epoxied and screwed down.

Just to make things confusing, and believe me I am easily confused, we have another Alan working with us. We will call him AW and the original Alan AS. So AW has been stripping out all the old green loo piping, all the old copper gas pipe from the forward cabin where there was a gas heater on the bulkhead also any stray wiring that was hanging around.

We have decided to put tongue and groove on the bulkhead and along both sides of the hull longitudinally with gaps top and bottom to allow air circulation.. These will be mounted on removable frames for ease of hull maintenance and so they can be removed when the boat is not in use. On removing the old hardboard which in itself was no easy task as it had been stuck with the liberal use of spray foam insulation. This you can see as the yellowy stuff between some of the ribs .I had already spent a couple of hours getting it off . It is not clever stuff to have around in places like this because it attracts moisture and then holds onto it causing rot and all sorts. Not good. The saloon is on the last few laps decoration wise. We have some ash to buy for the other side of the opening to the galley from the saloon, the ash beams need a couple more coats of varnish and the same for the forward bulkhead and cabin sides.

The second layer of deck has been started with the front and half the starboard side deck being epoxied and screwed down.

Just to make things confusing, and believe me I am easily confused, we have another Alan working with us. We will call him AW and the original Alan AS. So AW has been stripping out all the old green loo piping, all the old copper gas pipe from the forward cabin where there was a gas heater on the bulkhead also any stray wiring that was hanging around.

We have decided to put tongue and groove on the bulkhead and along both sides of the hull longitudinally with gaps top and bottom to allow air circulation.. These will be mounted on removable frames for ease of hull maintenance and so they can be removed when the boat is not in use. On removing the old hardboard which in itself was no easy task as it had been stuck with the liberal use of spray foam insulation. This you can see as the yellowy stuff between some of the ribs .I had already spent a couple of hours getting it off . It is not clever stuff to have around in places like this because it attracts moisture and then holds onto it causing rot and all sorts. Not good.

[goodall_m1]

Just to make things confusing, and believe me I am easily confused

You really got confused typing in that last post (just blame it on the IPhone everone else does!)

The photo of the forepeak certainly shows that there is still a lot to do

but you must be proud of what you have achieved so far.

[Springsong]

The front cabin and fore peak has had all the offending foam removed and all the cob webs hoovered up, so the next job in there is to paint every thing with bilge paint

AW has been stripping out all the old plumbing and wiring. We have taken the whole dash board console apart, here you see it with just the front off. We are going to make a new dashboard for the new instruments to sit in, we are still looking for a nice piece of old mahogany to make it from favourite at the moment is part of the old cabin sides when they are removed, as long as they come of in in decent shape. The white bit you see in the middle is the hatch through to the heads giving access to the steering and wiring under the dash.

[Guest]

looking good Barry cant wait to see the finished helm

well the whole boat really

Jonny

[diesel falcon]

Thanks for the update, she,s coming together nicely,well done and keep the thread going

[jillR]

looking good

jill

[Springsong]

Hi Guys

If the rest comes up as well as the front panel looks as if it might then everything will be just fine.

Before we took it off we thought it was just a tatty old piece of plywood, Imagine our surprise when we found it was all one piece of 1'' mahogany, you can see from the two photos, and that is just burnt off sanded with 80 grade paper and washed with white spirit.

[jillR]

Imagine our surprise when we found it was all one piece of 1'' mahogany

dont you just love it when that happens

jill

[C.Ricko]

finding out it is mahogany is great but not as good as finding out it is not rotten!

[Springsong]

You are both soo right, one thing for sure it would not have been replaced with one inch mahogany if it had been rotten.

[jillR]

i wonder if mahogony is not over rated for boat work

it does not seem to get on well in the boating world

shame as its a lovely looking wood

jill

[Springsong]

I think Jill it doesn't like being wetted then dried continuously as at the waterline on a boat especially in fresh water. I believe in salt water it is the complete opposite and the pickling effect cures these problems. I think a trip to the south rivers Grt. Yarmouth particularly is no bad thing for a day or two for a wooden boat..

[Springsong]

Time seems to go by so quickly, it is nearly six weeks since I last posted on this restoration. In my defence I claim early old age and quick a sum of repetitive work which doesn’t warrant recording on here. So.

My good friend Alan has undertaken to take on the boat building aspect of the job. He has never done this kind of work before but is well read on the subject and asks for and implements advice where necessary. He is a methodical worker and always measures at least twice and cuts once only, sop we are very grateful to him for doing this, I think he is actually looking forward to doing this.

These photos show Alan's work to replace or rather double up some of the lower forward ribs. Some of the original ones are in pretty poor shape and to steam in new ones would be a very complex operation, especially right up to deck level their going through two different planes. The decision was made to double up the lower sections, where most of the damage appears to be, with epoxy laminated oak ribs. We think alongside the original oak ribs this will actually be stronger and give much more support to the planks on this area clearly susceptible to damage.

As you can see from the previous photo I have painted one side of the inner hull, I have now stopped until Alan has finished al his black art machinations down below because there will be plenty of new wood to be painted then

[Palmtree]

Hi,

The stem looks good with no signs of cracking, was this replaced after the quay incident?

Ian

[Springsong]

Hi Ian yes only a piece had to be let into the stem, reasonably fortunate.Here is a picture before the repair.

While all that has been going on in the bow at the other end I have making cutting the tongue & groove for the galley. As you can see from the finish along the top edge my joinery skills are not among my best skills, well actually it is my measuring that falls down as my eyesight is so rubbish that I cannot read the tape measure. It is not the end of the world as there will be some pieces of ash to finish it of along that top edge. In fact along all the edges that matter.

The cabin sides will be painted in cream gloss as they will hardly be seen because we are going to make hopper style windows to give a little more ventilation. I have spoken to various people about hopper windows and their propensity for leaks. The best solution I have heard yet was from

Patrick at Martham. The system he suggested, if I can explain it right , is: The piece of wood running side to side that carries the glass should have a channel cut into it to locate the glass as it pivots the whole piece should be angled downwards along with the cabin side edge. The whole should be epoxied with at least two coats if not three, the end pieces of the hoppers will be attached to the ends of this piece of wood and this also epoxied to a height of one to two inches up the hopper side thus making a tank if you will. Therefore any rain hitting the widow open or closed will flow over this smooth epoxy and away down the cabin side and onto the epoxied deck. Fine in theory lets see if it works in practise.

I forgot to mention before the the ash for the top edge will be cut from the roof beams that were made with the wrong angle all those years ago, I knew I would find a use eventually.

Starboard rear galley bulkhead

These pieces will be fixed to the ribs under the deck and the oak worktop will butt up to them will an oak upstand to finish it off. The holes are for ventilation, they have yet to have their final coat of paint.

[Springsong]

We inherited with the boat a rather ratty looking mast. Said mast sat in a substantial s/s tabernacle to allow it to fold down for bridges, this in turn sat on a wooden plinth on the fore cabin roof. The whole thing as with the rest of the boat had been “sadolinnedâ€to death, including bits of the stainless tabernacle. The weather has been so cold all my painting and varnishing has had to stop so I decided to strip the mast of its sadolin see what it looked like and perhaps put in a boat jumble and make a new one.. Imagine my surprise when I found it to be a really beautiful dense piece of oak. I suspect it maybe the original mast to the boat, she had one in the picture from the boatshow. Two other things were wrong with it, the spreaders at the top were made of pine and were not very nice. We found a piece of oak and with only a little help from Alan I made a new spreader. The other problem is that it originally being a hire boat it would not have had navigation light so the mast did not have facility for wiring, so some one ran a wire up the side of the mast using staple to hold it in place leaving five pairs of holes up the port side of the mast. The plan is to cut the mast in half along its length and following the line of one set of holes. We will router out a channel to take a wire for the mast head light, fills the other holes and stick it back together seamlessly , hopefully !!

[Springsong]

Alan meanwhile has put in and strengthened some ribs up at the front in readiness for the new plank .

This is Alan's first plank fitting, at least it is not actually finished when this photo was taken but almost. He chose a shortish one to start with, and it looks good to me.

I have borrowed some Owatrol of a kind person so I an experimenting with it with a view to using it on the surfaces in the cockpit. It strikes me that at least so far it is very much simpler to use than varnish, one of the main things being dust and the like is not a problem it can just be wiped off. According to the bumpf once the top coat has been applied nothing needs to be done unless the shine fades little then a very light rub down and apply another coat and job done.

I shall report back with photos.

[jillR]

hi barry

its looking good

jill

[Springsong]

The cockpit was in a pretty dire state at least decoration wise. The varnish wsas all very dead and needed stripping, a job that I had been putting off a little being a little nervous of what I might find, also a lack of decent paper for my sander. Yoggibear had mentioned a place in Grt. Yarmouth that was very reasonable, so I paid a visit, closed for a family funeral, I pick my days very carefully. Anyway Yoggi very kindly lent me a couple of sheets to be going on with. I am delighted to say that the solid mahogany boards are coming up a treat, the surface where the sun has been most active is a little soft on the surface, this is not a problem if fact it makes it easier to get down to the beautiful red of the mahogany.

I am all the while thinking about plumbing and electrics. The hole in the front bulkhead I had originally thought might be good for the electrics but on reflection will be too far from the batteries so not really suitable. You may be able to see from the photo there is room for a self contained cupboard in there so I thought why not put the water heater/central heating unit in there, there is even room for the header tank above it.

The back bulkhead is coming on well, the bottom bit is very hard for me to reach so I shall probably have to get into the engine space to get to it. The top edge will have a wide piece of mahogany running from side to side to cover the screw holes and to finish the epoxied cloth that will cover the roof. There will eventually be a two or three seater folding seat along the bulkhead so a section of the top rail will be padded to act as a back rest. I have more or less decide to use Owatrol in the cockpit, that is unless Jock has an aversion to it (or the price). I have almost finished the front of the steering position, it is still too cold for the topcoat to dry properly, especially at night but I don't think we are too far away now.

[Springsong]

Plenty has been going on recently but as much of it has been repeat business as it were I have been perhaps a little slow in updating this tome. Matters were made considerably worse when through a complete lack of thought I threw myself at the concrete floor in the shed where star premier is holed up. Those of you who know me know that my left side is a bit dickey so landing on my left shoulder and doing a fair demolition job may be a good result as it leaves my right side still relatively unscathed but still just as old.

The net result is after surgery to the shoulder it is now strapped to my side and I am unable to drive or do anything for six to eight weeks, which gives me plenty of time to bore you good readers, it only leaves me one more thing to say on this subject and that is to thank the guys at Martham who

helped me up and to all the staff who called ambulances and my wife and everything. You all know who you are and even if you don't read this drug induced rambling I hope that yogi bear will pass on at least the sentiments. Thank you all.

I made my first ever purchase via E bay and paypal from recommendations made on this forum. Some people said they had there deliveries in six days, or maybe I was just wishfully thinking, anyway they eventually arrived whilst I was in James padget hospital 'don't ever go there' I was quite relieved as I didn't think trying to reclaim £3.00 something was really going to be worth the bother. The end result appears to be a great product at an incredible price but now I shall have to wait to try it out.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300638404436? ... 5212wt_109

Good Friday 2012

I and a few other high thinking people have been giving the canopy for Star Premier much thought. We have wanted something lightweight yet traditional, now my good friends who have Broad Star as you may know a very similar boat to SP kindly gave me permission to crawl alover her to take measurements of a, the canopy itself and b, the bars arms or cantilevers which allow it to be raised and lowered. They are two agile people some 20 plus years younger than me and they struggle with their canopy mainly because of the rear window arrangement but also because of the weight of the actual structure.

So to start at the beginning, why not.

I had seen some pictures of FOB http://www.broads.org.uk/wiki/index.php ... tory=11992

and thought maybe something similar with laminated beams and a canvas rollback top with a canvas rear screen. This would have been okay and easilyGood Friday 2012

maneagable by one or two people, maneagable by one or two people,

BUT not origional.

So we started to look at other ideas still thinking of laminated beams, realitely cheap but labour intensive, then we realised we still had some miscut beams left over from the rear cabin roof, we have worked out that cut carefully we should get three beams out of each one leaving some spare.

So we will have six ash beams which will carry through the ash idea from front to rear. Now we needed to work out the front, side and rear rails, we havn't actually finalised this yet, a kind friend is doing some drawings for me to show to a boat builder and see what he can come up with pricewise.

The side rails will have a rebate on the inside above the beams where pre epoxied plywood as light as is practicable will be glued into place. The front rail will have a beak/peak on it to keep rain away from the screen joints hopefully in the same kind of curve as the front cabin roof when that is done, the rear rail again with a curve to follow the line of the transom.

Meanwhile dear Ken Nevard has been inveigled into the scheme to make the arms out of polished S/S tube, and all the fittings needed to make it work. Ken is hopefully meeting me next week to finalise all this.

I don't know whether this makes any sense but I know what I mean.

I have in all the exitement forgotten all about the windscreens themselves. The front one is new built by Will too many months ago, the rear one is original and Ithink will suffice for a few years yet. The problem my friends have is in folding the rear screen down whilst holding the canopy up, and then trying to let the canopy down as gently as possible onto the folded screen and rear cabin roof.

We have thought of having the fold in side panels made in canvas , but again not original, so we are thinking that maybe the whole rear screen could fold inwards and the canopy sit on the rear roof behind it, it may have to be stayed in some fashion while in the up position to hold it against it location on the canopy, no big deal I can live with that.

The front screen I havn't quite got my head around yet, my brain says it needs to be inside the rail to prevent water incursion, but then the canopy needs to be lifted to clear the rail, cannot be impossible,whereas on the outside water could in theory run down the inside of the screen not a good idea. More thought needed. Oh dear.

[jillR]

hi barry

so sorry to hear you had a fall, hope you recover well and soon.

you probably know more about ebay than me but just incase

if you want to buy something heavy and it has to be collected

click the " distance nearest" button. and it will list items in order of nearest distance to you 1st.

jill