N2760 Grimalkin

[jeremyf]

Well there you go !
I guess I have to keep the name or the Pendle Witches will have me !:X
Small update - re -extended mast is good - less bumped heads.
Anthony, my keelboat sailing neighbour and I had her on the Avon this sunday, great fun again but oh dear did we make a hash of things.
We WILL do better next week!
Our roll-tacking was very poor at Anthony had no dry suit - and boy did that water look chilly so not enough effort by either of us, other than that by the time we finished we just about had her under control and my goodness does she point well !:)

[jeremyf]

Refurbishment Starts.
A good bit later than planned but frankly Lesley would have beaten me to a pulp if I hadnt done the garden etc etc first.
Work with the hot air gun has produced startling results, the timber is even better than I thought and I am hopefull of a good cosmetic result.
The area stripped in the photo has produced a whopping 1.9Kg of varnish scrapings !  Thats going to help.
Plan is to strip inside bare and epoxy with SP 203, adding some fillets around the Center case, transom and knees to stiffen her up a bit.  Then varnish with an epoxy compatible material.
A couple of questions though :-
1) What about the areas under the gunwhales on the inside - I cant get my hands in to strip and I dont feel inclined to 'Un-deck' her. Will this be OK just to run the epoxy up to overlap; or does someone have a cunning solution ?
2) With regard to stiffening fillets, could someone please advise me what kind of dimensions / radii I should be looking at?

[Tim Gatti]

Jeremy - just give me a call if you want to talk about filleting!  My number's in the book.  Tim

[jeremyf]

Thanks for that, at the moment epoxy seems a distant dream !
Another 10 hors scraping and more inner hull is revealed - total mass of varnish bits removed so far - an unbelievable 4.9 Kg, that is two full large bin bags ! I just hope this will be worth it .
Very pleased to see some nice mahogany being revealed.
 

[jeremyf]

Scraping at last finished, with some 5 Kg of varnish and other Yuk removed.
Starting to look quite OK as the overall picture might show.
However as the inner and outer view of the transom show all is not well there.
Firstly the old fitting screw holes are black and ugly, but as the inner view shows there is a crack from the corner of the port flap hole across. I guess epoxy and microbaloons will fill this but what about the aesthetics ?  Should I let in a new chunk of timber to replace the center section ?
Any ideas please ?

[Tim Gatti]

Hi Jeremy - yes - it looks a well used and abused transom.  How are you off for overall length?? One option might be to add a thin external ply/solid timber plate to cover the damage and tie together the split (see attached pic of N2255 - although yours would be more aesthetically shaped I'm sure!)  But don't go down this route if adding it it means you will then exceed max hull length.
Alternatively, if you are handy with a router you could route out the affected area 3-4mm deep and epoxy in your new transom plate to cover all the damage
Another way would be to try and get some epoxy in the crack but also to add a couple of narrow matching vertical mahogany battens on the inside of the transom on either side of the transom knee to hold it together. Then either drill out and plug the holes, or use a sharp countersink on them to get back to clean timber and then fill with appropriately coloured epoxy.
Or indulge in some serious transom surgery....! Hope that helps. Tim.

[jeremyf]

Hi Tim,
Thank you, I think I will go for routing out a 'slot' the width between the drain holes and letting in a strip. As I will be doing something on the inside epoxy wise I am not over concerned on strength, more looks. I may well go for timber to match the styling line on the gunwhales. I guess I will never match the mahogany exactly so I may as well make it a feature !
The easy way out of a capping piece is out due to the length issue and I am not feeling up to surgery  ( I want her back on the water)
Regards

[jeremyf]

Several hours of sanding, and several more to go I guess, but getting there !
A visit to Dinghy Craft and some advice ( and timber) from Mr Herring has given me a solution to the transom issue, a piece of Mahogany will be let in to the area between the transom flaps, epoxied and filleted etc.

[jeremyf]

A few minutes attention with a fine bladed saw and I remoddled the transom to fit around my new bit of mahogany. 
 
A quick slurp of epoxy and the hole was filled.
Now to cut it back out again - and to talk to Mr Gatti on the art of 'filleting'.

[jeremyf]

After a while sanding she has come up quite well - not exactly invisible - but at least servicable!

[jeremyf]

Saturday pm 16th May - finally sanded enough to move on to the filleting stage. I think if I had realised how much work was involved I would not have bothered.  I shall be seriously depressed if she doesnt look good when finished.

[jeremyf]

Following advice from Tim, and armed with a supply of Tesco Icing bags I launched into filleting stringers , knees, transom and bulkhead with gusto. Turned out to be less than 3 hours work in the end. 
I now need to invert her and do the bulkhead/ foredeck seam and the foredeck/stringer seams then phase 1 of epoxying is done. Just need then to 'sterilise ' the garage.

[jeremyf]

After closing up the garage, taking dinner and a couple of glasses of Merlot I couldnt resist nipping back to have a self-congratulatory look at how things had gone and saw to my horror I had left a piece of masking tape in place !
Dash it ! I thought............
 
May well leave it there and varnish over it.

[Tim Gatti]

Hey - nice one Jeremy - I said the filleting wouldn't take long once you got down to it.  The one thing I've learned is that you always miss one bit of masking tape. She'll look fantastic once that first epoxy coat goes on.  It's a real drag having to sand it all once it's gone off in order to provide a key for the varnish - but remember - it's a once in a lifetime job and you won't ever need to do it again .... on 'Grimalkin' anyway, there may be other boats waiting though!?.Tim

[jeremyf]

Thanks for that Tim,   but  You  dont know my wife !!
I did fully expect to find last week out how much  Cheshire Cat could be stuffed down my throat ( or elsewhere) , she has calmed down a bit now  as she can see the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis but another one !! Oh No No No........
I am going for 2 coats of Epoxy, 1 of 2 pack varnish  and then as many ( hopefully 1) coats of yacht varnish as needed to get the deep gloss I want.
 
Must say that getting the fillets in place has given me an uplift and the rest should be easy.
Thanks for your encouragement.