Slight Change of Plans

New caprail plan

In the last post I talked about how the caprail and rubstrake would fit together differently than the original design (see here).  I had planned on nesting the rubstrake underneath the caprail and screw it in from the top.  Joel (A35 #52 out in Washington state) had originally turned me on to the idea and I thought it was a better solution than the original layout. Well, as it turns out, I will be installing the caprail using the same design as the original despite my plan.

The problem I ran into was that I just didn't have enough width on the top board to allow for the rubstrake to be nested underneath and screwed from the top.  I cut the top board slightly too narrow and my plan for a 5/8" width rubstrake just wasn't going to work.  I think I may have been able to pull it off, but I only had enough width for a 3/16" rubstrake and that would have been pretty tough to screw into.  I knew that this was a possibility as soon as I cut the top boards for the caprail, but it wasn't until I had everything in place that I was able to come to terms with it.  Oh well, not the best solution, but since the original had lasted 45 years, I can make it work again.

Unfortunately, this change necessitates a lot of planing along the outboard edge of the caprail at a continuously changing angle so it is slow going.  I setup some staging so I could work at eye level and take most of the excess wood off with a power planer and then finish it up with a jack followed by a block plane.  I'm sure OSHA would have a field day with my rickety setup, but I haven't fallen yet.  After about 1.5 hours of work I've finished up about half of the port side and the first 4 feet or so of the starboard bow where the angle is the greatest.  With any luck (and some minor familial neglect), I can have both sides prepped and ready for the rubstrake by weeks end.

Railmeat

I finally moved forward on the rails this weekend after having them sit in their rough cut state for 2 months doing nothing.  In retrospect, now it seems like I didn't do much, but all told, it took about 4 hours of my time not including the 20 minutes clearing the shed of wasps that had decided to build nests in several spots.

I started on the starboard side by getting the rough cut rails aligned as close as I could tell to the bulkwark. My current caprail plan involves hanging the rubstrake underneath the caprail top so I want to have as much overhang as possible on the outboard side of the bulkwark.

Once I was satisfied with the layout I started at the bow and tapped the first screws with my #14 tapered drill bit with stop collar.  From there I measured out 16 inch intervals on the rail all the way to the stern.  Ultimately, I'll be screwing 1-1/2" screws every 8 inches along the rails, but at this point I just need to get it fastened for further trimming.  I tapped and screwed every 32" or so on the 16" marks to make sure it was solidly attached.

Then I pulled out my router with 1/2" shank flush trim bit (I don't remember the maker, but it was expensive ~$45.00).  The 1/2" shank makes it rock solid no matter how thick the wood, and there are 2 roller bearings on the end so you've got a wide profile for finding the surface to use as the guide.  I started up at the bow and using the bulwark as my guide. I slowly routed the inside edge of the caprail.  I had a lot of excess wood to take off so I made a gigantic mess and it took roughly 40 minutes per side to get the whole thing trimmed.  The nice thing about the mess I made is that now the boat and shed smells like freshly cut wood instead of epoxy and chemicals.  I'll be much happier cleaning this one up.

Next up, I have to start working on some test rubstrakes to see how I am going to bring it all together. I'll need to hit the lumberyard this week and pickup a long piece of Sapelle once I figure out the profile dimensions.

Way Too Long!

I have plenty of good excuses for my boat neglect, but none of them matter because the boat is still waiting for me to finish her up.  However, the past 2 months have been difficult because I had to put my mother into a nursing home (she has Alzheimer's disease) and clean out and pack up her home.  All of it very unpleasant.
Somewhat less unpleasant, but also difficult was the fact that I had to build and install a custom picket fence in our front yard that took far too much time.  Lastly and decidedly pleasant, we went to Mt. Desert Island in Maine for vacation where I spent 6 days bombing around Somes Sound in my 17 foot O'Day Daysailer.  I will now stop whining and proceed with the boat restoration mission.

KiwiGrip Part 4

Last year I got most of the KiwiGrip completed but the cold weather in late October kept me from finishing up the last few sections.  I deliberately left the aft deck un-KiwiGripped because that's where I get on and off the boat most of the time and want to reduce the amount of wear that gets until the last possible moment. 

The aft end of the cabintop was the other section that I didn't get to last year and I have been keeping my eye on the temperature and humidity over the past few weeks.  I needed at least 50 degrees and low humidity to get the job done.  Spring has come a bit late in New Hampshire this year and it has been on the cool side but over the last week the temperature has gotten into the low 70's and really dry, making for  perfect KiwiGrip conditions.  The downside of the warming temperatures at this time of year is that it wakes up the black flies and by this time most years, being outside can be pretty unbearable. Black flies just suck and worse than that, they are stupid and love to get into paint.  

Knowing this, I got up early on Saturday and pulled most of the trim off the cabintop and then taped and sanded everything by 8am.  The temperature was still cool (mid 40s) at this point and although it's below the KiwiGrip temperature range, it is also below the operating temperature of black flies and I wanted to avoid them at all costs or I would have lots of black specs in the paint.  Fortunately, once the sun hits the boat shed it warms up nicely so I went ahead.

I had roughly a third of a gallon left from the previous year that I had saved by laying a sheet of saran wrap over the surface of the KiwiGrip before closing the lid to prevent the excess air inside the container from drying out the remaining paint.  It worked and the leftover paint had no dry spots in it and gooped out nicely onto the deck with a trowel.  

I split my work out into 4 sections where I plopped the KiwiGrip goop down on the deck, spread it out with a notched spreader and then rolled it out.  Repeat.  Once everything was done I carefully pulled all the tape off and put a fan on it to facilitate drying.  The black flies didn't show up until I was finishing up and it was still cold enough so they didn't have the numbers needed to make a real nuisance of themselves and jump into the paint.  It was roughly 55 degrees by the time I finished and when I came back an hour later, the surface had skimmed over and was well on the way to hardening up nicely.  I left the fan on for the rest of the day and it was hard enough to walk on (I didn't) by the next morning.  Next up: mounting the companionway trim, hatch tracks, and handrails for real. 

Ooooh Pretty!

I haven't had much time this past week, but the temperature is beginning to cooperate a little bit more so I was able to start practicing my very rusty varnishing skills on our sun porch.  I'm using Epifanes Wood Finish Gloss for the first few coats because it allows no sanding between applications.  I'm probably going to do 3 coats before I mount these pieces and then do the rest of the coats in place once I plug the screw/bolt holes.  I was just anxious to see something look nice and varnish-y for a change.  Of course after 1 coat there is virtually no gloss because I thinned to 50% so the wood would get a good soaking prior to beginning to build.  I'll do 25% thinner for the next few coats and see how that works and then I'll play it by ear.  The final 2 coats I'll use Epifanes Clear Varnish (the standard varnish) because I'm told it's a bit harder for protection.


I also glued up 2 of the 4 scarfs in the cap rails with a mixture of epoxy and wood dust.  I've been carefully saving all the fine dust from some of my cutting operations so I would have a filler that matched the wood.
At some point this week, I'll get the other 2 glued up and hopefully make some more progress on the cap rail installation this weekend.  I'm still haven't fully decided my approach (see "I Haven't Screwed up the Caprail Yet!" post for more details).

Fiddling About

April is usually a really nice time of year to get boat things done, but this year has proven to be a cold spring. I woke up Saturday morning to 19 degrees F with the wind gusting to 30.  Not really conducive to working outside and certainly no good for epoxying scarf joints.  I had planned on going to Ragged for some spring skiing but a friend on ski patrol called and told me that the skiing was definitely not spring like.  So it ended up being a bit of a wasted weekend on all fronts, but I did manage to get a few things done on Sunday.

Raw hatch fitted.  Not pretty yet, but functional.

I spent more time than I had wanted getting the grabrails drilled and fitted; the bolt pattern was not even and because I wanted to use the original holes in the cabin liner (and the interior grabrails), I had to carefully measure and tap each hole and double check for proper fit.  Some were spaced 12", some 11", some 11.5", couldn't the builders have been a little more careful? In any event, I got the job done but forgot my camera. I still need to order 12 - 1/4" x 5" bolts, nuts, and washers to completely finish the job (The original bolts are serviceable, but a bit beat up, so I'm replacing).  Once complete, I'll bed the whole thing down with butyl tape that I ordered from Compass Marine.

I also worked on fully mounting the aluminum slide track and fitting the companionway hatch.  This proved to be a bit tricky because the track on the hatch doesn't allow for much tolerance; 1/16" off in either direction and the hatch will either bind or derail.  Mounting the hatch itself proved to be a bit of a puzzle as well.  Because of glassed-in stops on the hatch itself, you can't simply slide it onto one end of the track.  I finally figured out that you have to actually un-mount one of the aluminum slides, get the hatch on the other side, and then slip the unmounted track into the hatch track before screwing down.  Difficult to explain but I managed to get it done without too many choice words that I'm not supposed to say in front of the kids.

Making Grabrails

I'm not sure if the old cabintop grabrails were original or not, but they were so thin from being sanded so many times that they probably weren't safe and just weren't going to cut it.  They were also pretty badly bleached and stained from so many years in the sun that they looked pretty ugly.  So I went to Goosebay Lumber earlier this week and picked out a nice 5/4 x 6" piece of Sapele to make a new set of them.

I know there are many ways to make grabrails and by staggering the rails on the single board I could have cut down on the waste, but it's a lot more work to do it that way so I chose to make them by opposing each rail on the board so I could cut each of the six the bases of both rails with one cut from the hole saw.

I started by laying out the old rails to mark the base positions on the piece of Sapele.  I never noticed before, but the old rails were not the same size.  One was about 3/4 inch longer than the other and the bases didn't quite line up.  Dammit, can't anything be easy?  So I took the rails back over to the boat and found that although they weren't the same size, they were bolted to the cabintop with the same 12 inch on center pattern (there are matching grabrails on the inside of the cabin that they afix to).  So using 12 inch on center as the known center for the bases of the new rails, I carefully layed out the dimensions and marked the radius centers to cut.   

Using a 3 inch hole saw, I cut each hole about 3/4 of the way through the board, making sure the center drill penetrated the entire board so I could use that as a guide on the other side.  Then I flipped the board over and finished each hole cut.

Next I set the tablesaw fence to 2-7/16 inches to account for the 1/8 inch blade kerf on the tablesaw and ripped the board down the middle.  Now I had two pieces that were rapidly starting to look like grabrails.

I moved onto the band saw and cut out the waste wood between each of the holes.  I initially tried using the bandsaw fence so the cut would go straight, but it seemed to bind things up a bit so I removed the fence and just cut it freehand along the line I had previously drawn that connected each hole.  I've found that as long as I have a line to follow on the band saw and the radius isn't too tight, I can make cuts with it that are almost perfectly straight.

I put a rough 5 inch radius curve on either end of each with the band saw.  Once that was complete the two rails needed to be cleaned up a bit with my Shinto rasp and then the finer standard wood rasp.  

After I was satisfied that everything was reasonably fair, I moved the boards outside and set them up on sawhorses and busted out the router with the round over bit.  Then it was just a matter of carefully following all the edges and smoothing everything out.

I finished up by going over both grabrails with 150 grit paper. I'll follow up with 220 grit once I'm ready to varnish.  This weekend I'll tap out the holes for the bolts and get them dry fitted on the boat.  I will probably have to bevel the base edges to account for the deck camber.  Once I get the proper angle I'll just run them through the table saw and that should take care of it.  I think they turned out looking really good. I like the larger base width and the overall size of them is a bit beefier and will feel more sturdy.  I can't wait to get a few coats of varnish on them, they will be stunning.