How to remove a bow plank

We decided it had to go.


Someone asked me how we got it off. In small pieces. Actually, mostly in pieces that fitted up the vacuum cleaner. That’s the beauty of a grinder fitted with a sanding disk. Artesian work. And about 4mm of dust covering the entire garage and surrounds.

We decided to make some changes to the stem to make the plank fit better.

And while that was happening, we got another plank on.

And we got the seat tops cut out ready for later.





Well, how else were we going to get the front edge marked?

The Infamous Bow Plank

After reading what other people had gone through trying to get the reverse curve in the bottom bow plank, I had been dreading it.

We came at it slowly, with lots of dry fittings, and slowly pulled it into shape. It got glued on with at least a dozen temporary screws in it, some stiches and a pile of clamps.

It sounded like a few wood fibers had broken, but we weren't too worried until we looked at the curve after the clamps where out the way. It's suppose to have a reverse curve, but it looks too extreme.
















What really concerns us, is as the plywood comes around bulkhead one going aft it bulges, and then curves back in before bulkhead two. The straight edge in the photo helps show what I mean - the arrow points to where it dips back in.









We don't know if this is just how the Nav's lines are drawn, and if this is normal. Or if it's a problem with how this one's gone on.




















It looks all a bit messy in here at the moment, but we glued these blocks on to give us a solid anchorage to screw into when we fitted the plank.















It was when we started putting the second side on that we ran into serious problems. Although we were screwing into the stem, and had some clamps going to temporary battens, we obviously had too many clamps straight on the stringer because it started tearing the stem apart. The ply delaminated on at least three different layers.

We repaired that by running epoxy in, and bolting it together.

After that had several days to harden up, we had another go. This time despite using screws with large timber pads, we tore the plywood.

We've been left a little bit disillusioned at the moment, and trying to sort out our options.

Progress, but slowly

It's been ages since I posted. A few weeks passed where nothing happened on the boat, and then when something did I had to get hold of a camera.

The centre case went in. Those cross pieces are where we are putting the thwart. The side seats will extend to the front edge of those, and we'll put an end on them forward of bulkhead five.

Here you can see our mast step and the bracing on the forward end of the centre case.

The first and second planks from the stern are on. And the third stringer now.

I-love that stepped scarf.

Here's the glue part of stich and glue, with the cove and fiberglass tape applied.

And here's one I need to get to.

We've hit on a system now. I do the epoxying, Zac removes the excess once it dries, and Dad nuts out the fiddly bits. They give me a bit of flack for apparently being too liberal in my use of bog. (It's not so much around the area I'm gluing, it's the tools that really gets them. When things don't work quite right and the epoxy hits the fan (just when it's starting to cure) you seem to end up gluing other things (like hair).)

I remember when I was little (OK, younger! (for the unacquainted, I'm five foot three and a half)) someone asked my grandfather if I was any good at painting. He said, 'Depends what you mean by good. He does more than he's asked.'

Epoxy really does go the second mile.