Wrinkled up woodworker, boater checking in

[Scratchnsaw]

Been working in and around the waters for forty years. I have a wife that is usually ahead of me with a fishing rod and a tackle box on her off hours too. We have covered the ICW, Bahamas and both bays on the east coast untold miles on numerous types of power boats in between the forty hour work week in the past.

Normally we boat ourselves in all wood or wooden composite type boats under 26 feet, that gets built in the backyard so to speak, The most recent one was a custom built power cabin boat designed around a planning hull, using a small outboard using tiny amounts of fuel because we have limited amounts of play money.

Beware, my fingers and brain appears to be incapable of and rarely works in unison on most occasions. So if for some reason I reply, all you wordsmiths beware of this, as the reply may not be configured according to Websters and proof reading still comes with deficiencies. I probably will never change, as I still use the brick phone and communicate with boat instructions written on a scrap piece of wood in the workshop.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

 

[HiDHo]

Welcome, I still have a large collection of Wooden Boat magazines in my shop from cutting my teeth in the 70's on a 8' Nutshell Pram.
We cruise the inland waterways now, but have the same back ground of cruising areas having lived in the St Augustine area prior to finding a home where flood insurance is not required.

 

[Capthead]

Welcome, glad to see another woodworker in the group. I am always working on my woodie and welcome any suggestions.

 

[Scratchnsaw]

Welcome, glad to see another woodworker in the group. I am always working on my woodie and welcome any suggestions.

The wooden houses on those in particular would rot for sure. One of the biggest issues with most of those boats was the extreme amount of varnish trim that was used
with improper bedding compounds for long term. Water would seep behind and lay and the stale dampness would begin to eat away around the perimeters of the components. Few people paid any attention to this until it was too late.


The worse trawlers for mush was still the Marine Traders, beginning around all those windows and window opening tracks. The second biggest problems were always the fuel tanks. Yikes, what a mess that those would make in order to repair them.
With all the new age materials and building custom stuff now for seasoned owners that have culled thru stock stuff and its meaningless junk and waste of space, using wood as the form will also reduce weight when working in a matrix. The industry now has the advantage to create a more stable mass with less work when put into use and certainly burn less fuel per mile when comparing speeds for like sized boats.

 

[Capthead]

My boat is almost 90% cold molded now. I have wooded it and soaked many coats of epoxy in the wood and painted with epoxy primers. I replaced a lot of dry rotted wood and at the present I'm replacing the teak deck with glassed over Okume ply. It's a huge job because the bulwarks sit on the deck and I have to cut the deck out from under it.

 

[Scratchnsaw]

My boat is almost 90% cold molded now. I have wooded it and soaked many coats of epoxy in the wood and painted with epoxy primers. I replaced a lot of dry rotted wood and at the present I'm replacing the teak deck with glassed over Okume ply. It's a huge job because the bulwarks sit on the deck and I have to cut the deck out from under it.

How far along are you with the deck work right now? The current Okume sucks big time. Most of the so called marine grade plywood with the 1088 stamp is nothing more than just a stamp now. There is a huge difference in the inner cores, core thickness and uniform core thicknesses. Can you tell me more about what and where you got the plywood? In the future if you can also locate 1088 Meranti, I would go that route for that application in particular, if you cannot buy quality fir.


In the future of you wish to use any quality fir plywood, at minimum find a cabinet shop that uses AB Fir, which appears to still be quality stuff for structural work that gets glassed or as a substrate for decking.

One thing that comes to mind when dealing with aged wood that's rotted, people sometime use the method of dig out and fill with lots of thickened epoxy instead of digging out and fitting proper replacement wood in the voided regions.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Welcome to the forum Scratch and it's very good to hear from someone that has a reasonably objective stand on wood boats. They make better boats but now are generally too expensive for the common man unless there's a lot of expert do it yourself capabilities involved. One can dive in w little experience and pull it off but it takes more work than a FG boat. People had been dealing w wood boats for a long time before FG came along. And the wood boat maintenance isn't all that bad if one stays on top of the finish and refinishing work. Keeping an eye on every square inch of the boat all the time is necessary and few keep up. Then they tell horror stories about wood boats and dock talk travels well.

But if the extra effort in finishing, caulking and bedding is taken seriously and performed well the good wood boat could or may well be better than plastic. One would never need to peel a wood hull, replace rotten decks under FG or the wood backing of cabins. The old age nightmares of FG boats is indeed worse than wood boats.

Unless they are all FG like the Swedish Albin 25.

Anyway welcome and we DO have members w wood boats.

 

[Scratchnsaw]

Thanks Manny, I don't get bent out of shape in discussions of what is better. All boats are a foolish pleasure unless you use them for a fulltime income, iMO. For sure constant use boats and boats cruising or being used in tropical regions, wood boats can be a downside.

But personally to me any form of wooden boats seems to have a warming soul for me anyway because I have lived them, even while depending on glass boat for meat and potatoes on occasions. For sure after a full day on the open water on a wooden hull my legs thanks me.

When glass boats became the norm, complete horror shows were unknowlngly were being built into them, as many people learned way down the road, stemming from poor quality wood and mainly the issue of polyester resins and the poor quality or workmanship of unskilled and untrained workers that add crap to the surface of the glass without proper care in workmanship.

Anyway, I will scan about more later and get my net sea legs here. My wife is a big organizer and a list creator every single day. But she is also a list maker for doing the big loop in a new 24 footer that I will hopefully be completely by fall of the year, if the economy allows it to take place.
By the way, those Williards are rugged hulls, if its the ones I am thinking about.

 

[Capthead]

Scratch, I'm totally aware of the marine plywood. I have a great supplier and it's European ply. Some of what I'm using is called Aquatek.

 

[Scratchnsaw]

No problems, we have been really fighting a loosing battle in particular when it comes with Okumne. While the weight is reduced by comparison to like sizes, even the supposed solid cores has been less that quality stuff. Good luck, I found your thread and will follow it.

 

[Capthead]

Thanks, like the Aquatek better and it is much heavier and stronger.

 

[healhustler]

Welcome scratch. We can always use a another good woodworker's knowledge around here. There's something spiritual about wood and wood boats that we can emulate with our fine joinery and such, but...well, you know.