Cockpit Grates

[PAR]

I tried to upload from my machine twice. I may being having an issue with my firewall. I'll try again.

[capt jake]

Properties show that those pics are trying to load fromthe messing-about server.

When posting to a thread, look below at 'filename'. Click browse and point to the photo on your machine. After you find it and it appears in the 'filename' box, click 'add attachment'. That should do it.

[Frank Hagan]

I'm having trouble with the way the server handles the "permissions" on the files. For some reason, this happens periodically and then it seems to resolve itself.

We'll be upgrading the server later in the year, and perhaps that will help. Until then, I'll try and catch these and change the permissions manually.

[Guest Oyster]

Well by e-mail I received the pictures, and they showed up nicely, tried to load them from my computer directly to the message, and still gets the red-x. I tried to load them to Photobucket, and also received the red -x, after it says that it was successfully loaded. There must be some inscription or something else that involved in the shots. I sent them to your, Greg, maybe you can do something with them.

[PAR]

Lets try again . . .

[Stump]

ok...if i remember right, this thread is about wood? hatches made out of a particular type of wood were made by PAR...it's been so long....what type of wood again? :twisted: :twisted: :wink:

[PAR]

Pitch pine was the stock. It has good footing when wet, ages to a light gray, sheds water well and is resistant to rot, plus a good bit cheaper then teak, though not nearly as pretty.

The pictures make these hatches look pretty good. They have minor surface imperfections, like spots, some fungus streaks (common among some pines) and a few little knots.

[umop_apisdn]

What are the white lines in the hatches? What are they made from, and what purpose do they serve?

Thanks,

Noel

[PAR]

The hatches shown cover the batteries and the stuffing box. They are leaning against the forefoot of the boat in which they live (or will live when I'm ready to re-launch next month) The boat is a 46 year old 25' lapstrake power cruiser and has had 36 of it's 42 frames replaced, new floors, keel and stem repairs, planking, etc., etc., etc.

The bilge is deep enough in this boat to house the batteries, the hatch permits access and also is the step down into the pilot house (hardtop) so it has a white oak toe piece attached (which wears better) to it's forward edge. The other hatch (one with my logo and the dip in the center planks) covers the stuffing box (where the shaft goes through the bottom of the boat) and is access to the raw water inlet, strainer and a few other things. It is a lift out type of hatch (the battery box hatch is on hinges) which explains the finger hole (above the logo) and rests on cleats built into the sole support structure.

The stuff in the seams is a polysulfide seam compound, designed for use in decks. I taped off the seams, putty knifed the goo in, removed the tape then sanded it flush, though I didn't do a very neat job of it on the stuffing box hatch. The pine is 1/4" thick in about 2 1/4" wide strips, bedded and fastened to a sheet of 3/8" ply. This provides good footing, good looks and the strips can be replaced easily enough when they wear out in 10 to 15 years. The sole material (5/8" plywood) forced me to use thinner strips then I would have liked. 3/8" would last 20 years with reasonable care and wear, but would had stood proud of the deck, so I had to use 1/4". The hatch in the fore ground is about 28" x 16" and the stuffing box cover is about 28" x 26". They were oiled up a few days before the picture and still show some shine, but that disappears in a few weeks, though they'll still shed water for a number of months, before needing another coat of oil.

[Barry Pyeatt]

There are other factors involved in using various woods in any applications where they are exposed to the weather, humidity and temperature changes. They move! Hardwoods in particular move and expand and contract with changes in temp, humidity and seasonal variations plus sunlight exposure. End result is that if hardwoods are not fitted tight but separated by bedding compound and set in bedding compound they can move without affecting the structural components below them or to which they are attached. If they are tightly fitted, the entire structure will crack or break at some point due to the expansion and contraction of the components. Good point for traditional decking, hatch covers, etc. where woods come together at the ends to sides or even side to side. Leave a gap and fill it with the appropriate caulking or bedding compound and let it do its job to keep moisture out of the joints between them.

As pretty as tightly fitted hardwoods look on a deck they don't hold up well for that very reason. Caulk and bedding compounds can be remove and replaced relatively easily. But the wood components can have a good long life if some thought and experience with life expectancy goes into the planning and construction. Also the finished product looks pretty classy when you take the time to do a good job with it. Very traditional workmanship and in this world of plastic and glass boats, missed a lot.

Unfortunately a lot of the boats we see being built with lots of fitted detail work don't hold up well unless keep in a climate controlled facility. Weather and seasonal changes will take their tole very quickly. Many of the builders just get frustrated because maintenance is a lot less satisfying than building or sailing. But it is part of owning a wooden boat and unfortunately can't be ignored. It can be minimized however with some planning and thought in building and in use.

[PAR]

Barry made a few good points (that I failed to address in reply to umop_apisdn's post). Pitch pine is a good decking material, particularly when facing the cost of teak. The seams are about a 1/4" which are a bit big, but allowed even plank spacing for the widths I had. They would look better with 3/16" seams, but then I would have had a sliver of a plank to work in some place or use some flat grain on the edges of each plank (not acceptable for me). The joints are "slip lapped" (not ship lap, but close) having the laps under cut to permit expansion. They were bedded and stapled through the lap, then the seams "paid" with compound to keep the joints water tight as moisture content changed in the lumber.

If maintenance is done regularly, the pine will have a nice mellow golden glow (which will darken with each new coat of oil) If the maintenance is let go for a while the pine will weather to an easy shade of gray, still providing good fraction under foot. The oak toe piece will move a fair amount (moisture gain), but the seam compound has elastic properties to keep up and the pine will do fine with it's resinous content.

The toe piece on the battery hatch is made of two pieces of vertical grain white oak. The lower piece is lapped 1 1/2" into the plywood and a sacrificial piece fitted on top of this, being screwed from below. This upper piece can be replaced without disassembling the hatch, just six #8 - 3/4" flat head screws and some bedding compound, plus the replacement piece. It's this point that your foot will hit first, stepping in or out of the pilot house area, so it'll wear quickly.

Reparability is the key to good construction. Nothing is bullet proof, embalmed in goo and fabric or not, things will get worn, bashed, split, old and generally need to be fixed, upgraded, remodeled or replaced. With a little fore thought, much head scratching and pain can be avoided, by thinking about how it might have to come off or apart in the eventuality of the boat's life.

I guess I'm old school now (it's sucks getting old, I strongly advise against it, if you can afford it) but maintenance isn't a bother to me, though I don't carry near the amount of bright work on my boats anymore (I use to own a 63' ketch that was varnished from boot stripe to mastheads) I enjoy painting (maybe giving them a new look with a different color) fixing dings, replacing worn cap rails and water ways, etc. It's sort of like washing the car, you get to know every square inch (literally) and when something is amiss, it's seen quickly and handled, before it turns into the newest "issue". Why some folks don't like to fuss with their boats is beyond me. Owning a boat or a yacht isn't like having a second car, it's more like an investment property. Rental property is something you have to earn, most folks can't afford to have an extra property or two. If you build your boat, you've certainly earned her. If you can afford a yacht, you've worked hard enough to have that privilege. The rental property has to be reasonably kept or you'll never rent it out and it will burden your worth, so you keep it clean, upgraded and find good tenants. Ditto for a boat, built by your hands or not. It's a burden unless you can enjoy using it. A vessel in poor keep and repair isn't going to get enjoyed, it'll just take up prime parking space in the carport, becoming less valuable each day it goes untouched.

A good case in point is Oyster's garvey. He built it 10 - 15 years ago (can't remember how long ago) of some ply. It's seen plenty of fish and looked good a couple of weeks ago as he stopped by on his way through town. The forward coming was starting to separate from the bulkhead, but he's planning to cut most of the area out and put in a casting deck, so no worries. It'll get a face lift when he makes some modifications, but most folks would have been more then pleased to own it just as it was. It wouldn't look like this without reasonable maintenance, which if done regularly, isn't that big a job, which this little fisher clearly showed.

Sorry about the rant, it was a perfect epoxy day (mid 80's) and I've been chasing drips for the last few hours, because I used the supper slow stuff, instead of the slow stuff.

[adla]

Par, i feel your pain - i used a slow hardner plus epoxy fixing dings in the mast and a few other things today....and chased drips for hours. Funny how it makes sense 9 mo of the year to choose the slow slow, but no sense at all in nasty cold spells.

i really like fiddlin' with my boat...repainted the topside today (with high gloss) and whilst i might have been spitting and moaning while doing it...it looked so good several hours later i had a renewed satisfaction...

I like the look of the latex enamel on my wood boat...there is a charm there I wouldn't have expected.

i'd eventually like a grate for the cockpit...but, there is a BIG list ahead of that....and at least 1 research paper.

I enjoy these info packed posts! i'm a junkie.

a.

[Guest Oyster]

good case in point is Oyster's garvey. He built it 10 - 15 years ago (can't remember how long ago) of some ply. It's seen plenty of fish and looked good a couple of weeks ago as he stopped by on his way through town. The forward coming was starting to separate from the bulkhead, but he's planning to cut most of the area out and put in a casting deck, so no worries. It'll get a face lift when he makes some modifications, but most folks would have been more then pleased to own it just as it was. It wouldn't look like this without reasonable maintenance, which if done regularly, isn't that big a job, which this little fisher clearly showed.

Warning, do not try this at home. This is not an endorsment to what I am about to write here.

LOL!! I actually built that hull as an experiement, using the most common crap ever to pass for boat builing materials. Let me explain this a bit further. Have you ever heard of the saying about "the shoe shine boy has no shoes" or the "house painter was the last one to have a fresh coat of paint on his house" Well, that was me. I wanted a liteweight and trailable hull, that did not require big hp and lots of gas to push it, and take my family for a trip to the banks, and not the local money bank to do so.

I knew what epoxy and a skin of structual glass added to strip plank construction, so I took the old working hulls design, [for added space for five] and built the boat using 8 dollar 1/4" plywood. I also had seen the mega problems showing up in crappy plywood decking in fiberglass hulls, and said not for me. I did not want a water logged boat decking, so I used 1/2" pink board insulation, incorporating a grid system into the decking, and made a sandwich deck glassing both sides and laying it the boat. These sheets cost me about 2.80 for a single 4x8 sheet of it.

Yes there was a bit more labor, but time was on my side. I did it when I was really poorer than church mice from working in the boating business, learning to use alternative products, and pushing the extremes, depending on modern materials to create a liteweight hulls in small craft too.

I also used kingboard, 1/4" plastic for the coaming because I did not want the problems with end grains, warping,or a lot of finish issues of wooden grains. This material has a tendancy to expand and contract with temperature changes, the thinner stuff is worse, and has some issues with bonding, even with a 40 grit sanding which was done. The covering boards, which was all cutoffs of plywood from a large hull that yes was removed from the burn pile, facing it with the material, and coaming is painted with Sterling two part paints, which does crack when disturbed from under, and has some small issues in the curved sections which I used as per normal building desires as I hate square corners on boats.

This hull is painted with awlgrip on the outside, dark color blue, and inside is painted with an enamel, except for a partisin builkhead and seat trim of wood. This too will be gone on the update.

Its lasted with minimum work, and the interior is painted with XO rust, costing 8 bucks a quart from ACE hardware. I also use the satin white, tinting it to my liking giving me a new boat every couple of years with a day of work for only the inside. Its had some serious use and abuse, and pushed by a 40 hp. engine. Just this past weekend, I used it all day, leaving the dock at around 10 am, returning around 4, covering an area of open water of 30 miles, to the lighhouse and to a remote island of wild horses, and when returning I used 4.6 gallons of fuel. I carry a simple six gallon gas tank. I do carry a small jerry jug on these more open trips of two gallons just in case the weather gets up too much.

So my experiement worked indeed. 8)

SorryI think I just hijacked a cockpit grate thread with a powerboat contribution. :shock:

[Stump]

"I hate square corners on boats." - Oyster

That would explain why you hang out with us Oyster!! :wink: :wink:

[Guest Oyster]

That would explain why you hang out with us Oyster!!

Oh FWIW, I hang out here cause