The plan is to paint the hull above and below the water line
this summer.
Above the water line with a finished coat and below the
water line just the protective coat , anti fouling will be added before the boat
will be returned to the water.
The painting process will be a different chapter in this
blog.
Before is started to sand the hull I checked it once more
for other hull damages.
Although I was aware of them I decided this time to repair
them in a way which is in my opinion better than as original planned.
The original plan was to fill the small 5-10 mm deep holes
with putty of any other kind of wood filler.
I'm afraid that over time water will get behind the filler resulting that the wood will rot away with the chance of more damage to the hull than the present small holes.
It was decided to drill the bad wood out and replace it with
a wooden plug which would be glued into the hull.
First in the center of the wasted wood a small hole was
drilled as guidance.
The second step was to drill the hole on the size of the
plug .
The plug was fitted and glued in.
The biggest challenge was where do I get a mahogany plug of +/- 21 mm and a wood drill of 21 mm.
The size of the plug was decided by the hole saw I had, as
we all know the trick of the hole saw is the drill in the middle which would
have me ended up with a plug with a nice round hole in the middle, something
one would like to prevent.
What I did was that I placed the holes saw in a stationary
drill.
The next step was that the drill bit was kept as high as
possible into the hole saw to prevent that the plug would get a deep hole in
the middle.
The wood for the plug was chosen thicker than the actual
thickness of the hull resulting that the plug on the inside cut be cut to length
after the glue had cured.
As we all know the hole saw diameter is decided by the
outside dimension and not the inside dimension.
To get a plug which fitted I first drilled with the hole saw
the plugs, than measured the plugs and started to look for a wood drill of the
same dimensions which I did not had nor could buy.
To make sure that the plug would fit tight in the hole I
grinded a wood drill, as in the picture to a smaller dimension. Both side were grinded till the desired
dimension was reached.
This resulted that the home made wooden large plug would fit
tight in the drilled hole.
