Big wooden boat project [Splashed Sept 2017]

[zool]

Wow Ned, that's a surprisingly nice specimen of a Jersey built SF. I grew up on the Jersey shore and remember when a lot of them were still in service. One by one I watched and even helped cut them up. I remember the day me and dad cut up his old Owens built in Maryland. When we failed to come back on time from a fishing trip, and showed up on a coast guard boat with it in tow, my mom made us get rid of her lol....

Most are gone now, what remains in the back of the marinas are the 60's hydrids with glass hulls and bridge, on top of wood cabins like the silvertons and Luhrs.

You do still see the Jersey speed skiffs from Bender, because of their value...I dont see any Pappy's tho...

Good luck with your project

 

[Ned L]

Zool --- Thanks. I have a real passion for these boats. I have been collecting information about the boats and the builders for about 40 years now. I have given a number of presentations on the history to a local Maritime historical association down there.

Yes, the speed skiffs are about the only surviving part of Jersey boat building history that are still being built today. I have an antique wood one, and also had a 1969 glass one (that I was informed had to go if I was getting this boat lol -- sold that one last spring) ---- Nothing quite like doing 70+ mph in not much more than a 16 ft flat bottom rowboat with a 350CID SBC in the middle!!

 

[Ned L]

One of my few ?oh crap? moments was while doing a compression check on the port engine. ---- Reminder to self, ?? when screwing the compression gauge adapter into the sparkplug hole be sure to use the short adapter!!! The long adapter is so long that the intake valve hits it and tweeks the valve stem when you turn the enging over.
I was lucky enough to find a complete set of NOS intake valves on Ebay at a really cheap price. In hindsight maybe this was a good thing. When I had the head off I checked it for straightness and found it was warped about .020?. This could lead to it cracking either when I put it back on, or when the engine was in use. ---- Glad I found it then and cold fix it. A trip to my local engine guy for a resurfacing had it straight and true again. (apparently warping is common for flat heads of all sizes.) while I had it apart I freshened up the outside as well.

And finally looking a bit better

So far it seems to run as nicely as it looks, ... she just ticks away at 500rpm with good oil pressure. .--- Time will tell.

 

[Ned L]

Getting to the actual boat, ....... The first thing addressed was her stem. I knew the hood ends of the planks had loosened up a couple of years ago, and the yard refastened them. That along with some questionable looking stuff up top made me decide to pull it to see what was going on, make any repairs, replace the bolts and generally freshen things up.
A fun project considering the stem head is about 8 feet above the ground.

Here we are with the stem out.

A bit scary looking.

And here is the stem, .... pretty bad up top, a couple of poor 'in place repairs' were made decades ago.

Here are things from the inside.

I didn't think I would be able to find a chuck of seasoned white oak large enough to make a new stem, and the fact that the original stem was bad for only the top 18" made me decide to repair the original one rather than make a new one.
I took some well seasoned 5/4 white oak and glued it up into a chunk large enough to replace the top 24" of the stem. (Resorcinol glue)

I plugged all the old screw holes.

I cut the top of the stem with a tapered nibbed scarf and glued the new piece on, trued & faired it, then cut the new rabbet.

Here are all three pieces that form the complete stem laid out.

A good 7 feet from one end to the other.

 

[Ned L]

Next came time to repair the hood ends of the planks. A bit ratty after 57 years and at least one set of added screws.

I cleaned out the screw holes that were torn out and glued filler pieces in

Then I cut off the damaged gains at a tapered angle and glued on oversize wedges (Jersey white cedar for all this).

Then came time to put everything back together.

...................Easier said than done!

First I started with a couple of props and jacks.

And ended up needing four props with hydraulic bottle jacks to get everything coaxed back where they belonged. Working one plank at a time back in place

until finally things were back where they belonged.

 

[Mikeopsycho]

Wow! Very interesting and difficult project you did! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ned L]

Thanks, ... not really 'difficult' if this is the stuff you like doing. Though yea I guess it was kind of difficult from the standpoint of just physically getting everything back where it belonged.
Wait until we get to the parts where I used rail road ties, chains, and a cable hoist to give her a 'tummy tuck'!

 

[Ned L]

I found some more good pictures of repairing the stem.

Here is the new chunk of oak being glued on

Working it down to the final shape.

Pretty much there.

Here is a close-up of the glue link with the nib, or step. This helped a lot to keep the two pieces from just sliding past each other as the clamps were tightened. New on the left, old on the right. Again, resorcinol glue.

 

[Ned L]

Moving on from the stem, ............ I knew the upper 'wheelhouse' windshield was shot and I actually made a second trip back down to NJ to remove it before having the boat moved.

These "eyebrow" panels would have been added sometime after the boat was built. The openings would have originally had just canvas dodgers in them (I am starting out with going back to that.)

So here is what was left of the windshield after getting it off.

Here she was, ... ready for her 200 mile move.

And going on the trailer.

 

[Ned L]

So, ... with her home it was time to jump in....

The after end of the trunk cabin needed some real attention (yea, ok, .. more than I had expected).

The top came off the after 3 ft.

I had not planned on the main bulkhead being as bad off as it really was. This lead to a complete dis-assembly of he head and galley.

The galley is gone....

and here goes the head

Here is the bulkhead in the galley

and some critical marking so I will be able to cut a perfect fitting new one.

and .................

Now we can see what's going on!

 

[Ned L]

There was one rib that had some rot from the leaking trunk cabin so I bent in a new partial rib.

 

[Ned L]

Things were really starting to get a bit ugly so to speak

And a bit of mahogany in the cabin side needed to go

Ane some new going back in --- getting to use one of my slicks (a chisel wider than 2 1/2").

And some more mahogany

We'll get this sorted out....

and then its time to cut into some 3/4" Okume plywood.

A new bulkhead on one side... for the galley

and the other side for the head..

Starting to get there....

Hmmmmmmm, ....... but the hull didn't want to snug up the last 1/8" against the new bulkhead on both sides up top. it was time for a 'tummy tuck'.

A couple of rail road ties, some chain, a come-along and some jacking took care of the problem.

And a perfect fit.

A bit of stain and varnish and things are looking better here.

Put the head back together (old paint stripped & repainted before assembly)

and the galley... (all new paint here as well)

Starting to look like the "before"

Time to move on to the next area. Things like the S.S. counter top, trim, doors, etc will come with the final coat of paint, much closer to tossing her in the water.

 

[Ned L]

With the weather getting colder I turned to rehabbing the helm a bit.

It had looked like this three years ago after the painting to find a new owner (was varnished before).

And was looking more like this.

Stripped all the paint off. Only one coat of paint on top of the varnish, so the paint hadn't gotten into the grain.

Stripped complete of paint, completely taken apart, unneeded holes plugged, sanded, reassembled, stained & varnished, it is now fairly presentable.

 

[GA_Boater]

The way the helm turned out is worth the price of admission, Ned. Must be a lot better than when new in 1957. :thumb:

 

[Ned L]

Thanks!

 

[wellcraft-classic210]

Great pics and project ! Nice work.

Looks like quite a steamer -- Whats in made from ?

 

[Ned L]

Great pics and project ! Nice work.

Looks like quite a steamer -- Whats in made from ?

The stem generator is from the oil fired hot air furnace in our house that we replaced about 12 years ago. I took it apart down to the "heat exchanger" in the core of the furnace, cut that down in size and cut a big hole in the top. Then I took a used 35lb propane tank and welded some tabs to the sides and a pipe to the top. The propane tank gets filled with water and dropped about 3/4 of the way down inside the old furnace core. I have about 120,000 BTU of oil fired heat to boil the water and make steam. Then I made a steam box out of some old pine boards that used to be the siding on our garage.


Sorry I don't have any real good pictures of the boiler.

This is useful when doing work like this

A complete re-ribbing ...

and a new bottom

I also have a smaller boiler and steam box for things up to 3ft long.

This one uses an old gasoline fueled plumbers burner for melting lead for leaded waste pipe joints.

 

[Mikeopsycho]

What kind of paint did you use for the head and galley, and did you spray or roll? Looks really nice and clean.

 

[Ned L]

What kind of paint did you use for the head and galley, and did you spray or roll? Looks really nice and clean.

I am keeping things as simple, and cost conscious as possible. the whole interior is Rustoleum semi-gloss white. A primer coat of oil based 'Kilz' (shellac based), which provides a hard, easily sandable base, followed by one or two coats of gloss white, with a finish coat of semi-gloss white. Everything is brush painted. The mahogany trim is all getting a coat or two of traditional oil based varnish (no polyurethanes).

The exterior paint will all be "Kirby's" oil based marine enamels (out of New Bedford Mass.), and oil based varnish for the brightwork (again, no polyurethanes).

 

[Ned L]

Next was to move on to the forward windshield of the trunk cabin which had been repaired over the decades and needed some help.

The windows were originally opening, but had been sealed closed years ago.

A bit of work had them freed up again.

Once removed, the sash turned out to be in fine shape and needed only a fresh coat of paint and varnish.

The windshield proved a bit different. It was going to need pretty much a complete rebuild.

It was also at this time that I finally woke up to the reality that the windshield had been built on top of the laid teak foredeck. ???. OK, yes, common sense if I had spent the 15 seconds to think about it and look. Well,? I knew the foredeck was getting tired from being oversanded for almost 60 years (the death of many teak decks). It just didn?t make sense to rebuild the windshield on top of a deck that I know was going to require work in the next year or two. So, ????.. It was time to take the windshield apart and then jump into a foredeck rebuild.

I quickly found out that after a previous refastening of the teak foredeck the plugs covering the screw heads had been glued in with epoxy, all 600 or so of them!!!!!! (varnish or shellac is correct). It took HOURS with a drill and then Dremel tool to remove the old plugs.

Things got a little ugly looking.

And then they started to get a little clearer.

The old deck beams were certainly beyond tired!

Finally there wasn't anything left.