New project, a few questions

[capt jake]

Just picked up a 1956 Skippercraft 16' runabout. Plywood on frame. Built by Larsen Marina, Burton, Vashon Island, WA.

It has several issues that are straight forward to deal with, removal of polyester cloth used on the foredeck to cover some previous issues, etc. At the sheer on the bow, the topsides are not firmly attached to the sheer clamp. I am not seeing any fastners there as of yet and it appears that the sheer clamp was peiced in place such that it probably was not glued.

I notice several areas on the hull that have blisters under which are steel fasteners (to the frames). I know that glue technology in the 50's wasn't near the quality of todays glues. Am I right in assuming that the hull is being held together by the fastners only at this point? They are rusting severely. Dig them out as best I can and drive a SS fastner next to it?

It had some minor hull damage on the keel. Plan is to strip all of the hardware, window frames and turn the boat over to better facilitate repairs. As long as I am there I was planning on epoxy and cloth sheathing to the hull. OK?

Leading off of the epoxy idea, there are several joints which show slight movement (corners at the transom mostly). I would assume this is somewhat normal for a boat of this type. As long as I stay away from the joints with movement when placing the epoxy/cloth on the hull, I should be alright, correct?

Several joints had silicone put in them! After digging it out, how to best prepare the surface for epoxy, or finish, etc???

1956 mercury 40HP. I am told it runs. The center pivot is siezed. There is a slight amount of movement there and it is quite possible that it will free up. On the transom mount, the previous owner cut the lower mounting flanges off to get the motor off. these are the only two permanant mounts other than the top two which hand tighten onto the transom. Any chance of getting that bracket? Not really sure how far to go into the motor (money wise) before it is a wasted effort. It sure looks sweet though.

This is a picture of the boat as it appeared this AM with the previous owner. I have the front deck pretty well stripped at this point.

Yes the cabin sides are mahogany under that ugly paint!

Oh, those special fuel fittings for the Merc, can those be removed from the old steel cans and re-installed into another can? Any recommendations here?

[Scott Dunsworth]

Jake, I Love it. I have searched for plans for a boat similar to it and not found any yet.

Wish you well with this project and please post some close up finished pic's.

Scott

[lewisboats]

Scott, I might be able to come up with a similar hull shape, and the associated ply panel shape offsets. You could punt from there on the interior framing and cabin.

[P Doug (WA)]

Sorry Jake, I don't have enough experience to be of any help. Do you read the WoodenBoat forum at all? Maybe post your questions in the building and repair section. You please be sure and post pictures of your progress.

[lewisboats]

Somzink like zis?

[lewisboats]

Jake...I would think you would want to stabilize those joints that are showing movement. Me thinks that the transom should not be an item with wandering tendancies!

You don't say whether the fasteners are nails or screws...but I will assume they are screws. S Bronze or 316 SS would probably work. For SS (308 or 316) I would drill out the holes oversized, fill with thickened epoxy (a calking tube and gun would work wonders here) then redrill and screw. That way you are isolating the metal from any potential wet wood and anaerobic (pit) corrosion. The bronze could just go into the wood, but it is softer and not as strong as SS.

After cleaning out joints of Silly I would do a rub of Acetone then some sanding to get the Acetic acid residue off the surface. You should be good from there.

I have a friend named Max Wawrzyniak (war-zin-nee-ak) who is the author of Cheap Outboards (available at http://www.Duckworksmagazine.com and http://Amazon.com). He recommends that folks who don't want to spend large amounts of cash on their OBs avoid Mercs. They tend to be difficult to work on and need special (read expensive) tools and techniques. He hangs out at Duckworks forum (yahoo) and a couple of others and readily answers questions if you can provide the info on the engine. His personal collection is on the order of 150 OBs from 1918 to 1979 and he can usually tell you the potential problems with a motor with just the make, model, year and size along with the number of cylinders.

Good luck on what appears to be a nice little boat.

Steve

[PAR]

Stainless is not the way to go if you are going to be in salt water, bronze is the real choice. Stainless under putty will rust reasonably quick.

Silicone is difficult to remove completely, even after hitting it with most chemicals. Sand any exposed areas back to fresh wood and use epoxy if this is your preferred adhesive.

Plywood over frame construction of this era, will have some movement in the frames, unless they are laminated. I guess they are sawn and screwed or bolted, maybe with some glue. The adhesives used will probably be brittle and worn out by now, plus iron sickness in the fastener holes will promoting this movement. I would solve the movement problem by getting at the cause, not the resulting opening seams. Firm up the framing with adhesives, restored the holes and use new fasteners.

If she is steel fastened, every effort to get the old iron screws out of her should be made. They are over their normal life span and causing problems.

The keel problems you mention may be superficial. Many of this construction type use a false keel. A keel cap that hides garboard seam or keel joints. If you are lucky, the damage maybe limited to this piece, which is designed to be replaced. When you skin her with fiberglass, remove this false keel and re-attach after you are done. It may be a grounding shoe, not the keel proper and should not be fiberglassed.

If it does not come to life easily, I would toss the old engine, but keep its cover. Old engines are like old girl friends, only nice when you can fondly remember the good old days when they were reliable. Make a plate to fit under a new engines powerhead, to accept the old engine cover. It will look like the old girl friend, but will be the sweetheart of today.

[capt jake]

Par, The frames themselves are still fine. Thougth the joint from frame to Deck, frame to dash joints are loose. Removing the old galvanized fasteners won't be a problem them. I will be able to get epoxy in most of the joints prior to installing new fasteners, but not all of them (without causing more damage to other joints).

My biggest concern at this point are the fastners in the hull. They were probably galvanized nails (to the stringers) which are totally gone. I was amazed at the amount of plain nails holding trim and coamings. The nails in the hull panels will more than likely be impossible to remove as they are unrecognisable as nails or screws.. I am contemplating digging out as much of them as possible and running a #6 screw right over the top of what is left.

After that I am still debating over epoxy/cloth for the entire hull or simply epoxy/cloth to only the joints and priming and painting the rest.

[Joel]

John, Check out this link. This type of screw extractor could be a big help

http://www.mcfeelys.com/subcat.asp?sid=543

joel

[Mr. Bunzo]

About the motor: You might try the Oldmerc.com site. I have a 1962 6Hp on my weekender (it was free) and the Oldmerc.com site was helpful to me and reasonably priced for parts. Be careful about overheating while testing, that impeller in the water pump has a tendency to get brittle, it may self-destruct and pump rubber in to the cooling passages. Good luck on the restore.

[PAR]

Capt. Jake, on those areas that are showing some movement (gaps) disassemble enough of the pieces to see if an adhesive was used. If so, then epoxy away. If no visible signs remain, which wouldn't be that unusual, the joint may have been designed to move a little, to absorb and share loads in near by areas of the boat (very common in stick built hulls). It will be a judgment call on your part, but don't go crazy with the epoxy, you may need to remove, replace or repair that area again, which epoxy makes difficult.

Most times these gaps open when the fasteners lose their grip on the assembled pieces. The holes "egg" out, moisture gets in, etc., etc., etc. The iron fasteners in your boat will have lost most of their ability to keep a joint tight. They have to come out, or they'll keep causing "iron sickness" in the wood, which weakens and eventually ruins the piece.

The McFeely's tool, Joel mentioned, works pretty well. I have several, made many years before these became available. Many times the fastener is so bad that it just breaks off deeper in the hole. After a few of these on a project, I just skip trying and use a set of sharpened tubes I have and bore around the fastener. I remove the spent fastener and most of the bad wood in one shot, usually filling the hole with a glued up dowel as soon as it's removed. I use TiteBond III for these if above the waterline and resorcinol or epoxy below.

Most of these old iron fastened boats were designed in an era when replacing all bottom planks every 20 years was common, recovering decks at the first sign of break down, regular painting, caulking etc. was performed annually. With the advent of 'glass boats, maintenance has taken a back seat for most folks, but these old boats can't tolerate neglect for very long, before becoming much bigger problems. A deck canvas that has been on for two years longer then it should have will also need deck planking repairs. A chine strip that hasn't seen fresh bedding or caulk a few years longer then when it was last pliable will likely mean some planking rot.

I work on these old beasts each day and I know this isn't your first rodeo either, so try to stay positive (in spite of my negative comments about iron sickness and old fastener holes) Try and get those old fasteners out, which ever way you can and plug the holes with good material. Yep, you'll have a bunch of plugs, bungs, trunnels, and grain matching to do, but she'll love you for it.

That looks a lot like a 1962 Holmes I restored about 4 or 5 years ago. A very similar hull shape anyway. If she has any of her original hardware, I'll bet the bow light looks like it fell out of an episode of "Lost in Space". These old critters have a lot of character to them and a style all their own. They're fun to be seen in and usually very cleverly built.

[capt jake]

There was soem glue in the joints, but it mostly had failed. I decided to remove those fasteners on the transom anyway. The movement I was feeling was from a trim piece attached to the transom, so I might have been OK but now I know I am. It turns out that the majority of the gaps were there when it was built as I found an oil based putty in them. Reddish in color and farely pliable still.

The steel nails used to attach the plywood are not going to come out. They are too far gone and there is a TON of them. I am planning on removing all that I can get at and inserting bronze ring shanks next to the existing nails. Then filling with thickened epoxy.

Thanks for the tip on the removal tool. I had forgotten about those and surely could have used one the other day.

Any idea what the reddish colored putty was used to install the glass? It has the smell of crayon and is waxy in texture.

I have the bulk of the parts stripped from the boat and the paint is stripped down to bare wood (windows, coaming, etc). I have soem repair work to do to those tomorrow adn re-fasten teh major bracing. After taht I can get to rolling it over to get going onteh bottom.

Not bad for three days work!

[capt jake]

Inside the bow, the hull is double planked. Surprisingly, there are bronze nails there! I wish the rest of it was bronze.

I found one very small patch on the hull near the transom. It is about 2" by 6" installed with soem sort of goo.

I have almost all of the upper boats removed to the side deck. In looking at teh bolts at teh chine, they are rusty also. Unfortunately, getting to these will need to cut a hole in the hull. I am thinking about just leaving those and calling it good. The joints there are tight.

The way these bolts are installed makes removal very hard. There are drilled into the top edge of the frames and then a nut is installed on to the bolt. There is a hole cut in the frames to install the nut, and they aren't very big. Very simular to the nut installation on the Weekender Aft keel.

[PAR]

The red goo is no longer available (it's lead, though you can make it if you're clever) and thick oil based materials like Dolphinite are used instead. It's a sin too, because the stuff worked good, clearly still soft. If pieces were joined with this style of bedding, the joint was intended to move and share loading with other structural elements of the boat. Don't lock this joint down with epoxy or other hard adhesive, you'll just have things breaking that were fine before, trust me. A hard adhesive with create localized point loading, which the individual pieces weren't design to cope with. They need their near by brother, structural members to bear the load burdens when they get close to maxing out, load wise.

If you have bronze and iron fasteners below the waterline this will go a long way to explain the poor condition of the iron fasteners. The bronze fasteners will likely come out looking quite pinkish, even reddish in color. Healthy bronze fasteners shouldn't look like that. Electrolysis has had it's way with the dissimilar metals on the boat, dramatically weakening them, chewing up the iron and de-zincing the bronze ones.

Pick one or the other, unless you're going to be in salt a fair percentage of time then you have little choice but to use bronze.

I would use screws instead of ring shanks, they hold better. Saturate the area around each fastener with epoxy before you put in new fasteners, then go back and fill after. Also try to space the new fasteners as far away from the bad iron ones as you can. The wood around those old nails will be trash, punky, flaky, non fastener hold junk, plus will have enough iron to cause problems with the new fastener. Try to burry the old ones that can't come out with a few treatments of epoxy and filler, maybe isolating the iron from the new fasteners, with the hope water will not get in and cause trouble again.

I'm not sure what's going on with the chine log, do you have photos?

[capt jake]

Thanks Par. I am really bad about not taking before and during photos. I will have to get out there tomorrow and take a few (now that it is totally taken about).

That red lead putty stuck to the windows and was really hard to get them loose. good stuff.

Edited to add:

That red putty was also used in joints where the joinery was obviously not as tight as they has intended. There was a 'weldwood' type of glu on all of the joinery, but the putty was pushed into some of the cracks to smooth them out.

The main benefit of the screws over nails (from my perspective) would be speed of installation as well as no 'pounding' to fracture any more of the delicate glue joints.

[capt jake]

OK a few pictures to help fill in the blanks.

Various states of disassembly. All of the red paint was stripped day one.

[capt jake]

And now some more details...

[Norman Colter]

Wow, wow, wow!

I think I'll stick to new boats.

Norm

[PAR]

Jake, it looks pretty much as you described and how I figured. The chine bolts will be frozen, use a nut splitter and drive out the carriage bolts. A grinder can cause more problems then it's worth (fire, scalded wood, etc.), maybe a hacksaw if you don't have a nut splitter. Those exterior chine rails are notorious for having rot behind them and should be pulled for inspection.

The side decks have an interesting method of attachment, but not that uncommon. I have old bits of mahogany about for just the reason you need, to make odd bungs from old stock. Cedar will do in a pinch and if you don't look too closely.

The glue they probably used was plastic resin ( the powered stuff) or a formaldehyde based stuff. If not in the bilge use TiteBond III, if expecting frequent moisture contact, use epoxy or PU.

I'm terrible about photos too. I'm now at an age, where I wish I could open up an album and show folks some of the stuff I've been part of over the years, but I've never been much on "brag books", leaving my work and customers to speak for themselves.

You've hit the nail on the head when it comes to screws. I don't like nails, though they are quick and cheap. I much prefer screws for the holding power and the delicate nature they can be installed. I can drive a screw in places I can't swing a hammer or would dare, possibly risking damage to near by pieces, if I slipped, not that I've ever slipped with the business end of a smack me hard thingie . . .

[capt jake]

Wow' date=' wow, wow!

I think I'll stick to new boats.

Norm[/quote']

Ah Norm, it isn't really that bad. This boat is actually in surprisingly good condition. Especially if you factor in the 50 years of age. I have seen boats much newer that look far worse.

Cost was right also, heck, for $200 you can't buy enough plywood to complete a hull of this size.

I am figuring about three months to get it mostly completed, excluding wiring and motor repair.

Par, I will take the extra time and get those fasteners out. On the bungs, I dont' have a plug cutter that size, so I may have to find a shop to have some new ones cut. It is an odd way of fastening for sure! Can't get a wrench on those nuts at all. I have been cutting theff off and driving them out piece by piece. Have to cut each bolt about three times. :roll: