A-376 Afloat

[Hull376]

Grabbed two Andersen 12 ST Full Stainless Winches from Defender at discount. Installed them today.  They look great on an Ariel!  Also put on handrail covers I made using Don Casey's directions in one of last year's Sail magazine articles. Wasn't hard to do.  

PS, we're still waiting for some cold weather in Houston.  The banana trees are still growing in my backyard.  They are the first to go if the temp goes below 32 degrees!

[Bill]

we're still waiting for some cold weather in Houston.  The banana trees are still growing in my backyard.  They are the first to go if the temp goes below 32 degrees!

SF Bay Area too, has been enjoying 70 degree weather the past few weeks.  A bit warmer than usual for this time of the year.  Makes for really delightful winter racing, but not much wind.  

[Hull376]

The yard marred my 8 year old topside job when 376 was hauled for a bottom job.  Ouch!!!  I painted it with Interthane Plus back in 2003 and found I had a quart of the paint unopened in the garage.  You can't "touch up" two part poly paint very well, so I had to figure out how to get on a top coat without costing me a pile to have the yard fix what they inflicted.  We don't have any more do it yourself yards that I'm aware of.  Interthane Plus was replaced by "Perfection" two part poly several years ago.  Its like awlgrip but can be rolled on and then tipped with a good brush.  This may sound foolish, but here's what I did:

1. Removed all the old vinyl letters, boat name, etc.  This was the hardest part of this job.  I had to use a hair dryer on the boat name to get that sucker off.
2. Tied the main halyard to another spare halyard and and ran the line two docks down and tied it off to a strong cleat.
3. Loosened the dock lines and then winched in the halyard.  It didn't take much force to do it.
4. 376 heeled over on her side and the top of the waterline was now 10 inches out of the water.  A little closer at the bow and stern. Adjust the dock lines to keep the boat off the dock.

I didn't need to sand or repair the topside.  Just wiped down with de-waxer.  The old topcoat was in fairly good shape, but had lost much of its gloss about a year ago (seven years on a deep color topside is still pretty good in my opinion.)  I rolled on the "repair" coat in 4 foot segments then quickly tipped off with the brush before starting the next segment.  When you've done this before, as I have, you know the secret is speed.  No hesitations.  Go, go, go. I had to adjust the dock lines to do the bow and stern segments. It took only 15-20 minutes to roll and tip the paint. After 5 hours of watching paint dry, I eased off the halyard and the starboard topside was done.  Three days later I repeated this on the port side after flipping the boat around in the dock.  

Would I recommend you try this?  Not really, unless you are as crazy as me.  But seriously,  I did think this through and proceeded because I have used two part poly before, knew I'm a careful painter, and I took precautions so I wouldn't end up with anything getting dumped into the water by accident. I didn't need to sand (I didn't want anything going into the water.) I also "rehearsed" the  process to make sure I could reach everything and that the boat was immobilized on a floating dock.  The results are below.

[ebb]

Must be a beauiful piece of work!
So glossy she has disappeared in her own reflection.
Maybe an angle shot would help?
Would like to see.:cool:

[Hull376]

Ha Ha.  I edited post and lost the photos!!!!  You crack me up ebb!

[mbd]

Kent, did you mask anything?  Or are you so good you just painted within the lines?  Must have been a long stretch out to the bow and stern.  Looks great!

[frank durant]

kent...long time-no updates  ;-)     R U out there??

[Hull376]

Yes, Frank.  I'm still here.  Most recently was talking about insulating the hull because its so hot in the summer down here.  Cold where you are, but since folks up North are on the hard  and not living on the boat in the winter, insulation may not be much of an issue!  I'm finishing the insulation project and will take some pictures and post them pretty soon.  As always, I consulted with ebb on the options.  His best tip was using this water curing adhesive called 564, which has no smell to speak of, and seems to hold tenaciously to anything you apply it to.  Way better to use inside the boat than contact cement.  Thanks for just thinking of me!!!! How nice!!

[frank durant]

Too hot is not normally a problem for us :eek:  Glad you're still "puttin away".   Have fun

[Hull376]

Below is a shot of my existing rudder from 15 years ago. At last haul out it was looking sad. Pointy ends of third and second plank were twisting away from the plane of the rudder. The trailing edge had been sanded down to 1/2” and was starting to crack along the grain.  Time to replace it.  I don’t know what condition the shaft is in. My dad ran aground in western Lake Erie in the early 70’s. He landed on a chunk of limestone in big waves near Put In Bay.  The current rudder was fabricated near Cleveland, and is a 3 plank version of the inboard rudder with the plug. It has lasted 50 years or so. I’m making a straight shaft version for my outboard Ariel. There are other versions of mahogany rudders on the “rudder” thread. This one is a little different in the way the third plank is connected to the second using angled drifts. I took lots of pictures of the steps I used— our forum members always want more Pics. Did most of the work in the sun outside in January— finished just before the Texas freeze / power outage.

Now that I’m about finished, I can say this turned out to be a fun project and I don’t have great woodworking skills. But it could have been a nightmare if I didn’t make some decisions to follow a path of least resistance.  The key area of “resistance” is the drilling of long straight holes! When it came down to it and after doing some practice drilling and getting input from the Wooden Boat Forum, where members build a lot of rudders using drifts instead of bolts, I decided not to attempt to drill holes longer than 10” and specifically, did not want to try to drill from opposite directions and hope that the hole would meet in the middle.  A previous poster did this on a two plank rudder and mentioned it was like getting the English Channel Chunnel Tunnel to meet up when drilling from England and France. Nope, not for me. I don’t have the skills or confidence to try it after seeing how long holes start to wander on both the X and Y axis. And mahogany is too expensive to make a mistake.

But my current rudder has drifts (essentially long honkin’ 3/8” diameter nails) holding trailing plank 3 to middle plank 2, and it hasn’t come apart after 50 years.  Ebb doesn’t like the idea of “cheese holes” for bolt end nuts and he says its the residual “carpenter” in him, but path of least resistance says to use them for nuts attaching threaded rod to the shaft. Otherwise longer holes means better skills than I have. Other factor is you don’t have cut outs for nuts in the rudder trailing edge. If you have the equipment and the skills, go for it (longer holes).

[Hull376]

6'x 1" diameter silicon bronze (655 Everdur) Bar Stock for rudder shaft (Online Metals)
3' 3/8" Silicon Bronze rod (for drifts)
6' 3/8" Silicon Bronze rod, threaded 16 (most vendors sell rod in 3' lengths)
13' Honduras Mahogany board (hand picked by me at Mason Lumber, Houston). It was 7" wide and 5/4 thick (1 1/4") They ripped it to 6", and planed to 1". Yikes! Cost me $90! But its the wood you want to use! Interesting trip to this lumber yard. Stock certified plantation grown.
6 silicon bronze washers and nuts for 3/8" threaded rod
A rudder pattern (mine sketched on cardboard during last haul out)
Non structural white wood glue (better known as Elmers glue)
Epoxy
A piece of 1" X 1/8" thick black steel to make a jig to make mahogany dowels.
Blue Loctite
Blue painter's tape
Scrap pine boards to make a router table and fences to route the cove for rudder shaft

[Hull376]

Project table with integrated clamp to hold rudder in vertical position to drill those long holes
Jig saw
3 24" board clamps
Dowl It hole jig (bought on EBay for $25)
2 wooden wide jaw clamps.
3/8" X 12" drill bit. This bit used for bolt holes. Don't use speed bits
23/64" X 12" drill bit. This bit used for drift holes.
25/64" short bit. This is optional, used to make Mahogany dowels for trailing edge of rudder to plug drill holes.
9/16" box wrench which fits nuts for 3/8" rod
3/4" hole saw
A wood file
Belt sander
Variable speed drill
A good machine shop
Hammer, saw
1" diameter round nose bit (sometimes called a box bit) to route the cove for the rudder shaft
3 humans (to flatten the 3 boards when glueing and clamping them)
Grinder or Dremel with cut off wheel
Chisel
Tape measure
Safety glasses, hearing protection

Cut and glue the planks together

Use the white glue (will dissolve in water, not part of rudder structure). Flip the center board over so its grain is opposite to the first and third boards. Wooden boaters say it limits warping.

The three humans should stand on the joints, middle and both ends to flatten the planks as the clamps are tightened. Wait 24 hours. Then cut it out with the jig saw.

[Hull376]

Cut out  and doweling jig mounted. Hey, the software is flipping my images upside down!

[Hull376]

I started out using math to determine locations of bolt and drift locations then gave it up and went with what looked right after moving strips of tape around. Bolts (6) straight and parallel into the shaft, drifts (6) on angles to lock them in place (wooden boat forum describes how to properly orient and install drifts.) A drift must be installed close to the "pointy" ends of planks 2 and 3 so they don't warp away from the plane of the rudder over the years. Need bolts at top and bottom of shaft, but need to leave space for the keeper strap cut out between lower bolts but they also can't intersect with any of the drifts. At first pass I had a bolt where the strap cut out would go.

[Hull376]

Used a 23/64” X 12” drill for the drifts on the trailing edge of the rudder.  I tried an 11/32” bit, but mahogany is so dense that in testing, I couldn’t get the drifts to go in all the way (I used steel bar for practice on a strip of mahogany.) Drifts were recessed about 1 to 1 1/2”.  The jig had be shimmed to get the correct angle on some of the holes. Before installing the drifts, wooden boaters  recommend using a grinder or chisel to roughen up the bar stock. Supposedly this allows the wood to grip the drift as the wood swells in water.  Others say its an unneeded step. All say to install drifts on angles to each other to lock them into place. One photo shows the angles that the drifts create if you extend them until they intersect. The third plank is locked and can’t be pulled off.