Replacement of Longitudinal Deck Beams

The below update of October 2nd 2011is also added to the original firts blog to make it a continues story, it can be read under Older Posts, Firts Inspection Storebro 34

                                               Replacement of the Longitudinal Deck Beams

The Deck beams running forward to aft under the deck and against the hull consist of two parts. The aft part till approximately the  forward part of the deck house are made from Pine,  the part of the deck beam running from the forward part of the deck house until the bow were made of laminated mahogany, thin strips, 10 mm, put together in the shape of the hull. The repairs/replacement of these laminated deck beams will be explained in the below text.  As with all till so far found under decks wood these deck beams were rotten away and in some cases repairs was done which have not lasted that long even parts of the beams were missing near the bow.  To make in our opinion a good repair both deck beams, portside and starboard side, were completely replaced. Instead of using mahogany planks it was decided to use marine plywood and of 9 mm thick, and glue these strips with epoxy together, this way creating a strong beams which at the same time , due to the epoxy, should remain water resistant. The choice for 9 mm thickness was made since these strips of wood can easily be bent in the correct shape required to fabricate new deck beams.

The first step was to remove the planks against the deck beam to find out how the original beam was constructed against the deck and against the hull.

The next step was to make a template of thick paper in the form of the too be built beam. This was done by placing the thick paper against the hull and then cut out the form of the too be built beam. After this paper model was finished a template was made of door skin, thin wood which was used as a template to cut the marine plywood which has been used to fabricate the beams. Although on the boat it looks like a straight line there is a curve in this beam as well as that the beam has a torque from aft to the bow.

Beams were made by placing the first strip of plywood against the hull to copy the roundness and bend of the bow. The next step was to glue each layer against each other. Every day one layer was installed to make sure that the epoxy glue had time to cure. Also it was needed to wait a day to remove the screws which were used to press each layer against the other one.

When the beams were finished, they were removed from the ship’s hull and the angle between the deck and the beam was transferred onto the new beam. Beams were temporary shaped with a sander, final shaping was done after the beams were installed and the actual deck beams were fitted between port and starboard, this subject will be explained in a later stage.

Old deck beams were removed from aft to forward and to prevent that the deck would fall down a support was placed on the actual deck beams running from port to starboard under-decks. This support is also needed for the correct position of the new deck beams under- decks.

After the deck beams were placed in the correct position, this is time consuming since a lot of measurements had to be taken to make sure that the deck beams are on the same height, ports side and starboard side above the keel. When we were satisfied with the new position of the longitudinal deck beams they were supported in place with some hull planks.

When they were fixed the rest of the bow planks could be finished, installing these last hull planks is also time consuming since the planks not only run from forward to aft but also from the keel to the deck, so there are two curves in the planks. After a few planks which took a long time to get a correct fit for several planks a paper template was made before the actual plank was cut and fitted in place.

The planks were screwed with brass screws against the new longitudinal deck beams and the frames. It was at the same time found that the most forward frames were rotten so new frames were made in place of the hull; this was done before the old frames were removed and before the old hull was removed.  Since there is quite a bend in these frames they were laminated from oak and glued together with epoxy.

Eventually the new bow is finished, just left were some plugs to be installed when this picture was taken.

The following project is to replace the deck, deck beams between the bow and the deck house.

Bow Replacement August 19 2011

A new part has been added as well to the original blog firts inspection to make it a complete story explaining how the bow was replaced

                                                              The Bow Replacement

Although I was aware that some of the hull planks under the deck connected to the bow needed replacement I was not really prepared to replace the complete bow, a so called nose job.

Earlier repairs had been done by removing planks of the hull which are connected to the deck and replace them with plywoodn due to rot.

The result was that, in my opinion a part of the strength of the construction was lost. Not only the hull planks were rotten away , but also the longitudinal deck beams running under decks were rotten and gone in several places. Especially where this beam is connected to the actual bow beam. Although new wood was added and rotten wood removed,  I have the impression  that the actual problem, water leakage from the deck down, was never addressed.

After removing all the rotten and bad wood from the hull as well as under decks of the actual bow the situation did not improve, more repairs were found, which in my opinion were not done professionally. The result of these further inspections resulted in that it was decided to remove the complete bow from deck to the keel.  Although this is not a difficult job it has to be well thought through. Luckily I have my neighbor who helps me more than regular and who often thinks outside the box. His solution was simple: cut the complete bow out and just built a new one. So we did .

The actual bow beam consist of 3 pieces one center piece from top to bottom and two side pieces, these three  pieces are hold together with long screws and threaded bolts. The next step was to find oak beams from which the new bow had to be built and shaped. To prevent a lot of cracking and distortion of the new bow I have bought old used oak which normally will not move or crack anymore. The next step is simple just copy paste the old on the new.  To do this a lot of measurements were taken as well as shapes on different positions of the old beam which were transferred to the new beam.

When all measurement were transferred from the old bow beam to the new to be built bow the actual work started with cutting out the wood of a square beam and shaping this piece of wood into a new beam.

When the new beam was shaped and several times checked against the old one it was time to install the new beam, we must have done it right since the moment we placed the new beam against the ship it fitted exactly in the correct place no changes had to be made. The height was correct and even it ended up in the center of the deck. The beam was now placed in position with threaded bolts , connection between the inner bow beam and the new bow beam, and positioned at the top in the center of the deck and temporarily hold in this position  with some screws.

With the bow in place the next step was to install new hull planks, although this sounds simple it is far more difficult than replacing the hull planks from the aft side as was done in an earlier stage. The challenge is that the planks from the bow do have a different form than from the stern. They do not only bend from aft to forward but also bend from the keel to the deck as well as they are tapered from the  stern to the bow. The first plank at the keel was not to difficult but the next one had to much torsion that after three attempts it was decided to make this piece out of a laminated piece of wood. From there on it was just placing plank after plank one left one right to keep the bow beam in place.

Than the point is reached where the last plank reaches the top of the bow, at this point the new longitudinal deck beams have to be installed before more bow planks can be inserted.

The Planks were screwed against the beam and glued/sealed with Sikaflex Glue and Seal, this to create a flexibla seal between two different materials mahogony and oak. The planks were not glued with an epoxy glue or any other type of glue. This is the is done in the same way as original built.

The fabrication and installation of the replacement of the longitudinal deck beams will be another subject at the same time the finishing of the hull planks against the bow beam will be further explained.

Winter Time

Winter Time.

Winter time is not the right time to work on the hull or any outer construction of the boat especially with the weather conditions of rain and snow and the cold temperatures which prevented me from using any type of glue.

   

One thing which needed to be done was the cleaning of the bottom not only in the cabins but also in the engine-room.

As with all older ships when one cleans the engine room bottom a lot is found which should have been removed in an earlier stage.

A clean oil free bilge is not only important for the environment but also in case of leakage or minor flooding of the boat one minimizes the risk that dirt will enter the bilge pump which can result in a failure of the bilge pump.

Due to the hatches in the steering cabin to the engine room the Engine room of the Storebro 34 is good to enter and one is able to clean almost the complete engine room bottom.

This process has been taken several weeks to clean and removing dirt and grease from the bottom is time consuming, also since I’m not as flexible as 20 years ago and it was freezing cold.

At the same time an inventory has been made from all overboard outlets and valves.

I was a bit amazed that a lot of overboard openings do not have a shut off valve although they are below the water line, while this type of boat has been designed for voyages across big lakes and coastal travel.

I will install on all overboard openings new valves.

Also I noticed that the engine cooling water inlet filters are placed below the water line which normally is not seen in small yachts.

Now that the bottom is cleaned a start was made with the removal of the paint, this is done for inspection of the hull from the inside as well as to apply linseed oil on the hull.

The same has been done with the aft cabin and after removal of the paint on the bottom two small area’s were discovered which will need some attention in the summer, wood is damaged.

This means removal of parts of the bottom planks and placing new inserts.

The cleaned area’s received several layers of linseed oil to protect the wood.

Electrical Installation:

This is another part where one can work on during the winter time it is important to get familiar with the electrical installation and layout in case situations arise which do need a quick follow up.

I have the impression that most of the electrical installation is still original and the projection at this moment is to leave the installation as it is with upgrades where required.

Since there are no drawings with the boat and since Storebro in Sweden did not reply on my request for copies of electrical drawings I was more or left stuck with how all the fuses were connected to the electrical system.

Luckily I was supported by a Gentleman in Germany from the Storebro club who has sent me pictures of the drawings which are clear enough to check the present installation.

As with all older projects over the years more wires are installed than sometimes really needed and not always in a proper and professional way.

I found a type of spaghetti in the fuse cabinet and around the batteries.

First thing was to determine which wires could be removed which had no use, this was not only the 12 volt circuits but also the 220 volt installed in the boat.

The next step was to shorten all wires which were to long and could be shortened.

The 220 volt circuit with outlets were checked and upgraded to ships standards although not finalized it gives me the necessary outlets on board the ship which allows me to plug in tools for the coming work inside and outside.

The drawings were checked against the installation on board and most of the fuses are still serving the circuits as per drawing.

Some changes had to be made to allow to new equipment to be connected and changes we made to connect original installed equipment on the correct way.

At this moment about 50% of the electrical installation has been checked and cleaned up.

Installing Rivets

New part has been added to the original blog, to make it a complete stor, informing about the removing and installing of the rivets.
March 14 2011

                             Update March 14 Removing and Installing Rivets

The hull is riveted to the oak frames as well as on certain locations bronze screws are placed to hold the planks in place I presume during the actual placing of rivets.

Since the hull is flush, rivets are not shown on the outside of the hull; it has to be determining where the rivets are positioned in the hull.

Since the positions of the frames are know the paint is removed with a sharp scraper and hot air gun on the positions of the expected rivets.

This is an easy process which does not take to much time but make sure that all the paint is taken away so that the plugs visible.

In case of the Storebro wooden plugs can be located now after the paint removal, under the wooden plugs the rivets are fixed.

The good thing of the Storebro original built is that the wooden plugs are not glued into the planks and are easily coming out.

The easiest method I found was to use a small chisel to knock the plug out; one does not have to be to careful since the planks where the plugs are removed from will be replaced eventually.

The next step is to remove the actual rivet, going over the internet it is often mentioned to use a small angle grinder and cut the burrs of the actual rivet from the inside.

I have tried this but found out rather quickly that this is not an easy method for a wooden boat since damages to the oak frames occur rather easy.

Also on a lot of places the angle grinder can not reach the burr of the rivet.

Therefore I was looking for a different method in removing the rivets.

The easiest method I have found till so far is to drill the head off the rivets from the outside to the inside, when the head was removed the rest of the rivet was than punched out to the inside of the boat. The head of the rivets were drilled off, actually this is quite simple with a sharp new drill bit, and copper is a soft material. If you do not want to use directly a drill bit slightly larger than the shank of the rivet you can first drill a small pilot hole with a small drill bit followed by a bigger seize drill to remove the complete head.

Also in this case one does not have to worry that the wood is damaged since the plank will be renewed.

Then the rivet can be knocked out with the burr to the inside of the boat.

After the new planks have been glued in place and fixed with a screw the new rivets could be installed.

To prevent that the frames become a Swiss cheese the planks were drilled from inside to outside on the position of the old rivet.

The next step was to prepare the hole for the plug which covers the actual rivet.

This was done with a taper point drill which is of a set with a matching wood plug cutter.

After that the rivet was punched into the hole one has to do this carefully since the rivet is from copper and when one wants to make this a fast job there is a big chance that the rivet will bend in the hole.

For the next step you need a good friend or a neighbor who also loves wooden boats, I my case I’m blessed with all three a friend who is my neighbor and he loves wooden boats.

This since the next step the actual riveting is not that easy especially with rivet heads which are sunk into the wood. The rivet head on the outside needs to be kept in place with a punch and hammer while from the inside the rove is placed over the nail with a rove punch.

Nail is than cut to the desired length and than with a hammer rounded over the rove while from the outside pressure is placed on the nail head to prevent that the nail is pushed back through the hole.

Additional information can be found on the below web side.

http://www.faeringdesigninc.com/instruct.html

After all the rivets are in place the wooden plugs can be inserted in the holes.

Make sure that the grain of the plugs is in the same way as the grain of the planks.
In this case I glued the plug into the planks to make sure that they would not come out, boat will be out of the water for at least another year.

 

Next step is to remove the part of the plug which is sticking out of the plank this goes the easiest with a small sharp chisel. Sanding an in my case protecting the wood with several layers of linseed oil to protect the wood against rot.

Aft side Repairs february 2 2011

The Aft Sides

This short description tells you how we have handled the sides next to the deck house of the aft cabin.

Since the same problems exists on both sides only one side, port, will be described how changes were made.

First step was to remove all hardware and document the position of all hardware on the deck.

Next step was to remove the toe rail of the deck, this all was done by removing the plugs where needed and removing the screws to minimize the damage to the original construction.

Following the removing of the hardware was to remove the bottom plank of the aft cabin which rests on top of the deck, also in this case the plugs were removed and screws removed were possible in case it was not possible to remove the screw carefully the head of the screw was drilled of the shank this way it was possible to slide the plank over the original screw.

Before the bottom plank was removed the windows and window construction were taken out.

Since the windows are placed in a unknown compound it was difficult to remove them but with the help of an electrical heat gun the compound became soft and the windows could be cut loose from the wood.

With all above removed it was possible to remove the teak deck in small pieces. This was done till from aft till the forward cabin,

After removing the teak deck, which will be replaced due to the bad condition, earlier repairs were revealed which shows that materials were used which are common in shore side construction but not in ships construction.

That the news ones would be in the same position a temporarily support frame was built under both beams and fixed to the hull frames.

The new blank wood in the next picture shows the temporary supports installed under the rotten deck beams.

Both deck support beams were than removed and new ones were made from pine.

The new beams were placed on the support frame and fixed in position.

To make sure that the construction of the new beams will support the deck and hull the inner was kept longer than the outer this to prevent that on the same position of the ship a weld was made of both beams which could weaken the ships construction.