Splash boards

Along time ago in  galaxy far......  Well that was the movie.  These splash boards are from a more elegant time.  They swoop down from the CB trunk  and wind up all the way down the side of the cockpit.  Like everything else, these boards need a lot of work but I'm going to restore them as best I can and reuse them.  I know I could not make replacements like this.

The two little chunks of wood under the boards are from the cb case.  They are trim pieces for the top of the case.

CB case outside

This is what I got done today.  Not much.  It took about 20-60 grit paper to get the old varnish off. It just wanted to stay on the boat!

CB case inside

Another tidbit about this boat.  They fiberglassed the inside of the centerboard case.  I wonder how they did that!

Centerboard case

I got the CB case out of the boat.  I used my Dremel multimax and cut the case from the keel.  It came off fairly clean.  It was glassed from the inside out to around the bottom.  I'll take it apart and rebuild it.  

The other thing I did was make the fwd deck stringer.  There was half of the original in the boat so I duplicated the half and then flipped it over.  It all came out on center.  You might see a problem developing on the deck.  The center strut that runs from the bow to the CB case is not lining up.  The boat was racked so I guess thats where its starting to show up.  We'll keep an eye on that and see what happens when I start putting the back of the boat together.  

Falling in line

I had a vision for stabilizing the boat.    I thought of a bow and arrow...  I screwed cut in half 2x4s joining both sides of the boat.  I then put an arrow from the keel to the brace.  Those two braces brought the boat back into alignment.  (at least from my eye)  I then dry fit the transom back into the boat and it fit like a glove.  All the little broken deck frames got pulled back into alignment. In fact so much that I could put the nails back into the frames.   I'm liking this so much that I'm not going to do any more work today...

Along with that I soaked the drain plug in WD-40 overnight.  The whole thing came apart.  It's ready to go back in the boat.

Transom

I took the transom off the boat just to see what condition it was in.  Turns out to be a nice chunk of mahogany.   It cleaned up nuce.  I'll just fill in the holes and re-drill where needed.  I also got the scarf glued in.

First fix

I had three goals today.  Cut out the broken  side and make a new one.  The second goal was to paint the Cates bottom red. And the third goal was to finish repairing a canoe that I'm going to donate to my church for there auction.  I got all three done.  This is the new gunwale.  The picture of the Cates is here.
http://fletchercatesrestoration.blogspot.com/2012/02/back-on-track.html  The canoe is not posted...

You can see where I cut the broken one out.  I'll fit the new one then scarf it to the existing wood and then we can true the boat up by attaching it to the transom.  Also note the come-a-long that is holding the boat together.

Great finds

I started poking at the boat this morning and found a great slice of history. The original builders plate.  I also found the number of this boat.    Moth boats traditionally have the boat class number stamped in the keel just behind the CB case or actually carved into the side of the CB case.  This boat has the number carved into the side of the  CB case.  Great find!

This boat is looking better every time I pull things out.  I've determined that all of the parts to the hull are here.  I just pulled out the floorboards and they are in great shape. I also found the original rubrails, the rudder gudgon and the mast boss.  Before this boat was tossed onto the scrap pile in Chestertown, it had to be stored indoors.  There is still solid varnish fwd under the deck.  

Kind of looks like a boat

This is a project I've had for a few years.  I've done enough boats that I think I can do this one.  We'll see...