Restoring Reverie

: The Art of Restoring & Sailing a Classic Wooden Sailboat

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‘Tis The Season For Boat Work

Winter is here!  That means different things to different people.  For us, here at Camp Reverie,  it’s a busy time accentuated by the lengthening of each day. Today, we have sunset 9 minutes later than on the Dec. 21 solstice.   That means we’re packing up just a little bit later every day and getting more done with each passing week.

Winter has always been the time for boat work.  It was a time to take care of some of the large projects while the boat is out of the water and sailing is not a distraction. Endless projects  pile up during the warmer months that need to be addressed in the off-season. Projects, projects, projects; we sailors love our projects.

One of the reasons I look forward to winter is the fact that I can get outside and perform some of the heavy labor without heat and humidity getting in the way.  In the winter, you can always take off a layer if you’re too hot.  I haven’t been cold once this season. Keep it moving.

Thankfully,  we were able to take care of everything that needed to get done before the snow flew and have a formidable list to knock out before spring. Getting under the weather wire on the topsides project felt like a real victory as it left a clearer path to getting some other projects finished by spring.  There’s no hibernation going on here at Camp Reverie.  Well, maybe a little.

We can now get back to the removal of the deck and deck framing along with new sheer clamps and shelf, for good measure. Instead of hiding out from 90° F and 90% humidity, it’s lake effect rain showers,  lake effect snow showers and blistering cold winter gales.  I have had to shovel out a work area multiple times already and expect it to happen repeatedly over the winter.   Holland is in the Lake Michigan snow belt so we are no strangers to a stray flake or two.

One of this winter’s first projects was to measure out the  deck framing and sheer clamps to get a materials requirement for the new deck framing, sheer clamps and shelf.  I did that on a day when the wind was gusting up to 60 mph which shook and rattled poor Reverie.  It felt a bit surreal as I measured in the darkness with the aid of a shop light illuminating a small ring wherever I moved it.  With her interior removed, Reverie picks up vibrations from without and sounds sympathetic tones much like a stringed instrument.  On a good day, it’s pleasant and interesting.  In a gale, it’s a bit unsettling.

When the weather allows, I’ve been outside running rough lumber through the planer.  Last year, I picked up a nice 2″x 8″ x 12′ piece of white oak from Armstrong Millworks in Highland, Michigan. In late November, I paid a visit to L.L Johnson Lumber, in Charlotte, Michigan, where I picked out some nice 5/4″ x 12″ x 14′ southern yellow pine and some nice yellow birch for a furniture project.  The yellow pine will be used to replace the bad planks and , possibly, for the sheer clamps. Add to the mix about 100 board feet of rough red oak that was just sitting around and you have some work on your hands.

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There was 100 board feet of red oak and 50 board feet of  yellow birch on top of the boat wood.  No sense just moving it.  Let’s make it useful.

 

 

As soon as all the wood is processed, we can resume deck removal.  When I was on board measuring deck beams, I had a chance to look over the construction of the deck  framing and do not think the original builder of the hull and the builder of the deck/ interior are the same.  The hull is sturdy and overbuilt.  I am impressed by how well it has held together. The heavy frames with intermittent steam-bent frames is reminiscent of old work boat construction.

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Sturdy hull with lightly built deck framing and sheer clamp.  Part of the mystery.

Conversely, the interior and deck-beam construction leave something to be desired, in the way of craftsmanship.  The deck framing and interior won’t be copied from what was found.  Both the deck and the interior will be rebuilt as sturdily as the hull.  Instead of ash for the deck beams, there will be white oak.  The sheer clamp will either be of white oak or yellow pine with a shelf added to the sheer. More on that once the deck framing commences.

Winter shall proceed as such:  it’s outside whenever possible and lots to do inside when being inside’s a good thing.  Our front bathroom has become the varnish booth.  The fan works great for exhaust and we haven’t had any issues with fumes while I varnish up Reverie’s wooden blocks.

Stripping down the blocks and soaking them in hot oil was one of the first projects we did when we got the boat. The oil had over a year to dry so I gave them a sanding and have been dipping them in a can of spar varnish diluted with about 30% turpentine.  As I write, they have 5 coats on them.  They will get their sixth and final coat tomorrow and reassembled shortly after that.  All said and done, there will be close to 40 hours devoted to the block restoration project alone.

“O God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.”
~William Shakespeare – King Henry Vl

Along with the varnishing, there is always a bit more organizing and sorting of everything from boat hardware, to tools, to wood, to lp records, to books and to all the other things that get piled around and in the way.  We are removing the clutter and making a streamlined restoration machine.  I will leave you with a shot of some fine, vintage power tools that got new cords and cleaning as part of the indoor winter work.

Happy 2017 from Julia and Roger!  Thanks for following our project.

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Tools that are as old as Reverie!  Quality never goes out of style.

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What’s Done Is Done

“To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear!  To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse- the cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory!  This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.”

-Richard Adams, Watership Down

 

Last night, a task was put to rest that has plagued the restoration project for some time.  Last night, as twilight fell, I wrestled the 20 x 30 ft tarp over it’s frame and  drove away knowing I was done stripping, sanding and oiling the entire topsides of the good ship, Reverie.  A November Gale was kicking into high gear on the entire Upper Great Lakes with our Lake Michigan seeing 50 mph gusts before midnight.  It had begun to spit and gust earlier in the day but I had to finish leveling and blocking the trailer before another Winter set in.  With Reverie buttoned up for the storm, level and covered, I felt like I finally had some good news to share.

The stripping, sanding and oiling of the topsides is now complete.  I started the port-side last year and finished about this time last November, thinking I would be able to get the starboard-side done in the Spring and move along.  I jumped into it last April with renewed enthusiasm and resolve to finish this most unpleasant task.  What was it about this task, this minor detail (on paper), that made me want to do anything and everything but what needed to be done?

There was, first and foremost, the mess.  Everything about the job involved a mess.  Large piles of scraped paint and toxic sawdust required constant vigilance and tidiness. In April I got about six feet working on the starboard side from the bow back.  Last Summer, we were in the grips of one of the most humid summers I can remember.  Wearing coveralls, gloves, hat, goggles and respirator was like some form of Medieval  torture .  Eventually, I  succumbed to heat exhaustion and decided to put the project on hold.

While the planning went on, the actual work on Reverie came to a quiet halt, for the summer.  Instead, we got out on the water and had some sailing days aboard our little Com-Pac 16, Prudence; 85° F with 85-90% humidity is bearable when you are 10 miles offshore.  We sailed and sailed until the weeds clogged our boat launch to the point of us almost getting stuck in invasive Eurasian Watermilfoil.  Keels and milfoil don’t mix.

Click to access Eurasian_Watermilfoil_521353_7.pdf

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Just one of the brilliant days on Lake Michigan

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Invasive plants at Port Sheldon

By the time the weed situation shut down our sailing, we made time to get a thing or two done aboard Reverie.  Julia started removing the rest of the interior cabinetry while I did various odd jobs that needed to be done sooner than later.  She eventually removed enough of the galley to expose the engine which made it easier to get it ready for removal.

I ended up getting the last of the interior out with a hammer and pry bar, preserving only what would go back on board.  A lot of the wood had experienced some effect of leaking rainwater and had to be taken out of the equation.  We put everything into storage to be used as templates, if needed. The interior is so much easier to assess with all of the cabinetry removed.

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Reverie. happy to have all the rotting wood removed

By the time all this work was done, the weather had cooled down enough for me to buck up and get back to the scraping.  On a relatively large project, such as this,  it is a good idea to stick to tasks as distractions lurk at every turn.  Look, a bird!  Checking something off the list allows the mind to be released from further thought on the subject and proceed toward the end.  There’s a lot of that to come.

The starboard topsides proved to be a bit more of a challenge than the port-sides.  It seems a good deal of Reverie’s life was spent taking the hard knocks on the starboard side.  There, I found replaced planks (More on that later…  Much more).  There were areas that had been faired with what appeared to be an epoxy-based filler.  Oh yes, someone used 5200 for caulking the plank seams. I have seen 5200 recommended, in various online forums where free advice is handed out like champagne on New Years Eve; copiously and carelessly.  Dear reader, if you are ever thinking of restoring or maintaining a wooden boat and you choose to use 5200 to caulk seams, let me tell you, Old Nick has a special task in hell for you: eternity cleaning 5200 from plank seams.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 5200 will be used in this project to great effect, later on down the road but not here.

I had to modify my heat gun/scraping technique and managed to get the brunt of it done by sharpening a flat scraper and using it much like a cabinet scraper.  This produced a better surface than the method I used on the port, side reducing sanding time significantly.  It took 60 hours to scrape, sand and oil the port topside compared to about 80 hours for the starboard.

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Starboard Topsides scraped, sanded and oiled

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Port Topsides scraped, sanded and oiled. Trailer looks spiffy with some fresh primer.

The past few days were near record highs for November with temps around 70° F.  Both sides got two coats of piping hot tung oil and turpentine.  The boat smells wonderful! Reverie looks so different without the layers of cracked, peeling paint and exposed wood.

As the air pressure began to fall and the breeze became a gale, I put a quart of primer on the trailer.  It to looks happier.  I took a 12 ton bottle jack and it all rests  on cement blocks instead of the trailer tires. After I got the trailer leveled, I got the boat leveled a bit more.   It really helped to stabilize the whole thing and get the tires off the ground.  I gave the lug nuts a good soak of penetrant and plan put the tires out of the elements for the duration of the project.  With the wheels off, the brakes will be begging for an overhaul… .

Scraping, sanding and oiling below the waterline will go much better as there won’t be scaffolding involved and the paint seems to come off easier.  We’ll see.  For now, we can move forward and I no longer have that messy job to mess up my day. Today, my aches were a little less achy.  My step, a little more peppy. There’s a little vim in my vigor.   I even had to raise the rear view mirror in the car from so much slouching.  Yes, the world was a kinder place, now that that is done.  Onward!


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Tung Oil and Turpentine

We are well into November and the weather has been good to Reverie’s restoration project.  The leaves were late to turn this year due to a warm Fall but they have now fallen  rapidly and carpet the earth in all shades of red, yellow and brown.  Still, the mild weather persists.   The birds aren’t quite so convinced of an eternal Autumn.  They know what’s about to happen and are acting accordingly.  We saw our first dark eyed junco the other day while working on Reverie; a sure sign of the change in seasons.  The shoreline of the Great Lakes is, well, a great place to watch migrating birds.  We were even  lucky enough to see 4 endangered whooping cranes the other day on a back road drive from Holland to Grand Rapids. Their size is impressive.

On a somber note, today is the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the Great Lakes freighter, Edmund Fitzgerald. It vanished without a trace in a massive storm on Lake Superior and has since been found lying at the bottom of the lake broken in half by the mighty waves.  http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/the-fateful-journey-62/

102 years ago, the Great Lakes Storm of 1913 sank 19 ships with over 250 lives  lost on the open waters of these inland seas.  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/news/131107_white.html#.VkH8LdKrTwc

Today, is nothing like those days.  It is calm and mild and I’m going off to work on Reverie for a while thankful for this weather as I solemnly recall those who lost their lives on the Great Lakes.

Yesterday, we passed a waypoint in the restoration project.  After 60 hours of scraping, sanding, and the cleaning of every single fastener hole on the port topside, I was able to apply a coat of tung oil and turpentine!  This was a process that took a lot longer than expected but we are pleased with the results.  The mixture, consisting of 50% tung oil and 50% turpentine, was heated to near boiling to facilitate its penetration into the thirsty yellow pine planking.  I could see it immediately expanding some of the surface cracks that had begun in the parts of the topside that had been without paint for an undetermined amount of time.  I worked this delightful smelling mixture into all the exposed fastener holes with a 3 inch chip brush.  You could see the hot oil and turpentine being sucked into the holes. It made all the time consuming work worth it.  There are certainly faster ways to strip the hull down and sand it but I would rather spend 2 or 3 or 4 times the amount of time to get it the way I wanted it and err on the side of safety.

The frames, which are basically the ribs of the skeleton, are laid out in a pattern of one very heavy white oak frame fastened with heavy galvanized nails and then two smaller frames fastened with copper rivets.   These smaller oak frames are steam bent and still fastened tight.   We will most likely add bronze screws to the heavy frames but that’s going to require some investigation of the existing nails.  For now, I’m guessing they have run their course in usefulness.  When white oak and steel get together, oak wins.  I removed the flat-head steel screws to the engine exhaust flange that was backed up with an oak block and there was barely any thread left.  The use of quality, hot dipped galvanized fasteners is a money saver and they served well for over 60 years but we’re going with silicon bronze.  The oil filling the fastener holes is a good thing.  It  expands the wood and seals it from the oxygen needed to create rot.

 The whole port topside consumed a little less than a half gallon of the tung oil/turpentine mixture.  The tung oil is 100% pure tung oil and costs about $70 dollars a gallon.  Tung oil cannot be allowed access to oxygen as this begins the curing process.  I poured off half the gallon of pure tung oil into a half gallon cider jug leaving no room for air and will save it for a later date.  That will keep for quite some time, as is.  I expected to use more of the 50/50 mixture but was happy to have used less, seeing we’re approaching $100 a gallon for this elixir, once the cost of the turpentine is factored in.  “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.”  Last night, I had to scramble around for another half gallon container to put the rest of the 50/50 mixture in and came up with an empty half gallon bottle of Scotch in our recycling bin(now how did that happen?).   It was almost spot on one half gallon with a glass vitamin bottle to spare. Now I have to find some wood that needs treating today so as not to waste those precious fluids in the vitamin bottle.  That shouldn’t be difficult.   So, dear reader, I must be off and begin the next phase of the project which is to do the same thing to the forlorn  starboard side that now looks even more desperate compared to the freshly oiled port-side.  I will leave you with some pics of the progress.

Best Regards,

Roger

60 hours of scraping, sanding and oiling. Done!

60 hours of scraping, sanding and oiling. Done!

Reverie's lovely overhang. The one small plank is a former repair made of dissimilar wood and will most likely be replaced.

Reverie’s lovely overhang. The one small plank is a former repair made of dissimilar wood and will most likely be replaced.

Starboard topside looking forlorn and in need of help.

Starboard topside looking forlorn and in need of help.

Yikes!

Yikes!