Boat Repair, Restoration, Building
One fine June day, a 2013 Riva Iseo showed up at the shop after the owner asked if I could do varnish work on a wooden deck. He had purchased the boat used from someone in Miami, FL. Continue reading “Restoring the wood on a Riva Iseo”
Boat motors use the water they’re floating in to cool them. Some, like most outboards, have what’s called a “raw water” system. The water the boat is floating in circulates through the engine block, then exits with the exhaust. Most modern inboards have a “fresh water” or “indirect” cooling system. In this system, coolant like that in your automobile is pumped through a heat exchanger. The coolant is circulated through the engine block rather than the raw water itself. Continue reading “Adding a Fresh Water Cooling System”
I’ve done all I can to the hull from the outside. So it’s time to flip the boat upright so I can start working from the inside. To prepare for this, I’ve made 3 cradles to hold the boat in position once its upright. I used the patterns for some of the frames with one placed directly under where the engine will be mounted. Using the waterlines on the patterns, I was able to set up the cradles so the boat will sit level and plumb. Continue reading “Flipping the Boat”
At some point, if you’re going to build a boat, you’re going to have to put some holes in it. It just doesn’t seem natural at first. But it gets easier the more you do it. Best to get it right the first time though. Continue reading “Boring the Shaft Hole”
I never did get the fiberglass to work to my satisfaction on the topsides. I tried again with smaller batches in cooler weather, but still got the fiberglass veil I spoke of in my earlier post. So I stripped it off again, decided not to stain the boat but just let the natural woodgrain show, and moved on.
A man’s got to know his limitations.
–Dirty Harry
I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. — Thomas Edison
Adding a layer of fiberglass cloth to any wooden boat will add an enormous amount of toughness to it. And if you do it right, the fiberglass is invisible. That’s right — invisible. The problem is in the “doing it right” part.
Okay, let’s step back a bit. Continue reading “Fiberglass Setback”
Last time, I talked a little about cutting the flat along the keel so I could put a cap over it to keep from having exposed end grain there. My friend Steve asks, “Well, exactly how did you do that?” (or words to that effect). It did, in fact, take a little bit of doing. So I decided to explain myself a little better in a follow-up post. Continue reading “Cutting the Flat”
There’s not really too much to say. With this final forward plank, the planking of the bottom is complete.
As you can see from the glue squeeze out on these planks, there’s a lot of sanding in my future. But I’ll mark the load waterline before I do too much, because below that the bottom will be painted. So I can use fairing compound to help me in that area. Continue reading “Final Plank on the Bottom”
The twist in the bottom planks at the bow is pretty extreme. When it becomes impractical to clamp enough twist or curve into a plank to fit it properly, it helps to be able to get it closer to the final shape before you pop a blood vessel in the struggle. Continue reading “Steaming the Bottom Plank Blanks”
In my previous post, I discussed how the lap joints work for the planking at the chine, sheer, and at the transom. I also talked about why I decided to vacuum bag each strake individually along the sides (a very time-consuming process). Continue reading “Planking the Transom of the Palm Beach 22”