tiagosantos
Paddler
Well, I've gone and done it.. Thanks to the many folks here on the forum and especially John Abercrombie for the huge help I've had so far! what a great group of folks here on the forum!
A deal popped up that I felt was worth jumping on. I don't believe it's the ideal boat for me (although it is what I had been looking for before I knew any better..) but it was cheap and it'll do for learning a bunch of things all at once
It's in... Floating condition, but pretty rough. The more I look at it, the more little things I find that don't seem to have been done quite right, but it lasted all these years (looks like at least 10) so it must not have been that bad!
The biggest issues I need to fix soon are slight dry rot and delamination around the coaming and lots of bare wood showing on the deck and cockpit, where the varnish/epoxy has dried and flaked off or been rubbed away. The wood looks OK for the most part other than the coaming and some staining in the deck's plywood. You can probably tell how much I've worked with wood by my obviously very accurate and scientific definitions of the problems
The hatches also leak a fair bit so I'll see what I can do to improve that. The bulkheads seem to be sealed but they have a fairly fresh looking bead of silicone caulking around the edges, so I'm going to guess that's the only thing keeping the bulkheads sealed. I will deal with that some other time, though!
I'd welcome any suggestions about how to tackle these things, I'll start by posting what my ideas are - keep in mind these are mostly uneducated guesses! I've downloaded west system's wooden boat repair PDF and will go through it today to see how far off I may be..
At John's suggestion, I'm buying a carbide scraper to get rid of as much of the paint and varnish as I can. Then I've borrowed an electric orbital sander to clean everything up.
I'm thinking of sealing the inside of the cockpit with new epoxy. The joints between each panel have fiberglass tape and seem fine, so the wood just needs to be cleaned up and sealed again, I think. Not sure what I'll do with the deck - I'm guessing a couple of layers of epoxy and then varnish? Doesn't look like the epoxy itself is resistant to UV, and the varnish by itself wouldn't last very long..?
For the coaming, I could sand the surface as best as I can and then fiberglass over it.. Or I've noticed that there are some specific types of epoxy meant to be used on dry rotted wood to fill up the gaps and stabilize it. What would you guys recommend? The rot fix epoxy stuff isn't cheap, though.
Here are some pictures!
Finally - I'm going to guess this is a rather old Chesapeake 17 boat made from plans. There are a few differences to the current Chesapeake 17 kits, but to my untrained eye, it just looks like the differences are mostly down to whoever built it. Anyone thinks it could be something else? Oh, it also seems to be not quite straight, definitely corkscrewed a little bit. Just adds to the charm......
A deal popped up that I felt was worth jumping on. I don't believe it's the ideal boat for me (although it is what I had been looking for before I knew any better..) but it was cheap and it'll do for learning a bunch of things all at once
It's in... Floating condition, but pretty rough. The more I look at it, the more little things I find that don't seem to have been done quite right, but it lasted all these years (looks like at least 10) so it must not have been that bad!
The biggest issues I need to fix soon are slight dry rot and delamination around the coaming and lots of bare wood showing on the deck and cockpit, where the varnish/epoxy has dried and flaked off or been rubbed away. The wood looks OK for the most part other than the coaming and some staining in the deck's plywood. You can probably tell how much I've worked with wood by my obviously very accurate and scientific definitions of the problems
The hatches also leak a fair bit so I'll see what I can do to improve that. The bulkheads seem to be sealed but they have a fairly fresh looking bead of silicone caulking around the edges, so I'm going to guess that's the only thing keeping the bulkheads sealed. I will deal with that some other time, though!
I'd welcome any suggestions about how to tackle these things, I'll start by posting what my ideas are - keep in mind these are mostly uneducated guesses! I've downloaded west system's wooden boat repair PDF and will go through it today to see how far off I may be..
At John's suggestion, I'm buying a carbide scraper to get rid of as much of the paint and varnish as I can. Then I've borrowed an electric orbital sander to clean everything up.
I'm thinking of sealing the inside of the cockpit with new epoxy. The joints between each panel have fiberglass tape and seem fine, so the wood just needs to be cleaned up and sealed again, I think. Not sure what I'll do with the deck - I'm guessing a couple of layers of epoxy and then varnish? Doesn't look like the epoxy itself is resistant to UV, and the varnish by itself wouldn't last very long..?
For the coaming, I could sand the surface as best as I can and then fiberglass over it.. Or I've noticed that there are some specific types of epoxy meant to be used on dry rotted wood to fill up the gaps and stabilize it. What would you guys recommend? The rot fix epoxy stuff isn't cheap, though.
Here are some pictures!
Finally - I'm going to guess this is a rather old Chesapeake 17 boat made from plans. There are a few differences to the current Chesapeake 17 kits, but to my untrained eye, it just looks like the differences are mostly down to whoever built it. Anyone thinks it could be something else? Oh, it also seems to be not quite straight, definitely corkscrewed a little bit. Just adds to the charm......