Life after planking
The job list certainly didn’t stop after the shutter plank was installed. Here are a few projects from around the boat.
Jon and Rodger have been working on the hawse pipes and the pipes that were used to route the cables for tying a whale to the side of the ship. Here, Jon is working up forward on the starboard side. First, checking the fit of the pipe,
and then adjusting the fit by sculpting the hole with a chainsaw.
Walt and Jamie have been working on the rudder. Here, Walt is forming rivets to hold the new bottom piece in place.
Jamie has been resetting all of the wear plates in epoxy.
These wear plates fit just inside of the pintles.
Here’s the finished patch with one of the wear plates above it.
The painters have been at work on the rudder as well! The red bottom paint looks very nice.
Up at the top of the rudder, Walt has glued in a filler piece where the wood was checked.
This area will also be held together with a bronze band, but the patch will stop future water infiltration through the check.
Along the transom, a thick pad of wood, called the fashion piece, fits along the end of the hull planking.
The original transom had planks that ran by the hull planking, leaving vulnerable end grain exposed to the elements. The builders covered the exposed plank ends with the fashion piece. This was an adequate, quick and easy solution. Our solution to the end grain problem was to have the hull and transom planking meet in a miter. This is a more complex and time-consuming solution, but it offers far more protection for the end grain of both the transom and hull planking. The fashion piece still has a purpose though. It acts as a pad, or bumper to protect the hull/transom corner from being damaged if the boat bumps into something. The fashion piece also has a sweet, curved shape that is visually pleasing, and covers up the fact that there is a step in the hull as it goes from the waist planking and beaded covering board to the bulwark planking. This step would be obvious when looking at the boat from behind. You can see how the fashion piece jogs over that step here.
This will eventually have a curve that hides that step. When everything is painted black, it will all blend together. Right now it’s still in rough form and the curve isn’t cut yet. It does have a cool shape cut into it to allow it to fit up tight against the curved hull.
Mike has been working on the chain plates,
and the oarlocks for the whaleboats.
Elsewhere on the boat, it’s all caulking, puttying and final fairing. More photos of that soon.