Bottom Progress Report

After a tough weekend of work, progress to report.

About a third of the port side bottom is now back on, refastened with silicon bronze screws and 3M 5200. In other words, it ain't coming off again. Ever. As my mother used to say, "It's from here to the retirement home."

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before the new plywood could go on, I needed to replicate a replacement for the badly rotted section above the keel, which I have since learned is called the keelson. (removing the keel is the highlight of the previous post).

I used a fairly intact piece as a template to fashion a test replacement out of pine. I didn't want to risk any Philipine mahogany until I was sure I had the angles and dimensions down. As it turned out, the test piece wasn't exactly right, so this was time well spent.















From left to right: the pieces of the original keelson, the test piece, and the finished piece.

















The second eight foot section of keelson, which will go on after the bow section of bottom is removed.

I mounted the first section of keelson using, silicon bronze fasteners and 3m 5200. Once it was cured I was able to block up the boat again, easying my nerves about letting that much weight float free.















New keelson meets old. I also replaced the block immediately above, which was badly rotted. I then sprayed on some bilge paint, for the factory-fresh look. I needed to see some progress over what this was looking like just a few weeks ago:
















Ugh.

Now, on to the real work: getting some planks back on. First, we glued and stapled the plywood into place.

















Seven planks on, many, many more to go.