This one is for George!

George, a faithful and generous patron of the yard (and owner of a rather lovely ketch) has been bugging me to continue posting, so I will update this humble log with a few comments.

So it's been a busy winter...

I worked on the cedar planking...



and worked...



and worked...



but planking is always a little rough before fairing...



so i faired...



and it started to look good, but those thrice-cursed old galvanized telephone pole bolts the boys used for keel bolts wouldn't move, so I cut the keel free...



being an easy saturday, it only took 9 hours to drive the old bolts out...



but by gar, ya hit something hard it enough, it'll move. (eventually)



keel bolts or no, she starts to look pretty as the sun sets and warms up that cedar.



Build a boat, how hard could it be?

-Cullen T.M. McGough

And yet the boards do shrink...

Ah spring. That magic time of year when the sun shines, the birds sing, and a young man's fancy turns to... planking.

So the planking goes pretty well. The cedar is wonderfully pliant stuff. The flexibility of the wood makes up for a lot of my hackwork. On the other hand, I can plank a strake light-tight one afternoon, and by the next day the wood has shrunk up by a 1/16th. Ah well. Should swell like a bastard when it hits the ocean.

Here's some early planking from the garboard up:


And a view down the side:


And now from the sheer down:


And a quick shot of the fwd compartment, with that oh-so-solid locust knee. (turned black by dust and several shelackings of lindseed oil.)


And a last look down the side.


That's all for now. More pictures when the planking is done.

Is 13 ...lucky?

I just noticed there are 13 strakes. Ah well. Must be some ancient, lucky, tradition of new england boat builders. I had some more progress, but the last 2 weeks have been a sore trial by weather up here in Maine. Endless winter, and more than our share of storms. Everyone in the whole region is grouchy and getting cabin fever. Lets hope for a quick thaw.

More Planks, New Deck Beam

Yep. Title sez it all. I'm afraid this journal won't be very interesting until I finish the planking. I suppose I could list all the curses I mutter every time I stand up to quick and smack my fool head against the underside of the hull, but even that only provides passing merriment.

Plank + 5

Five full strakes of cedar on the boat. Whew! Staring to look like something that might float again. To be honest, I have some worries about the expansion that will occure when the boat gets wet again- the deadwood stack aft has some significant shrinkage going on. All I can really do is try to oil the hell out of it- (actually I'm using a lindseed/k5 mix) and hope there is enough give in the screws and planks. Ah well! Nobody said a 75 year old boat would be easy...

I forgot to take the camera today, I'll get some pix of the snazzy new planks on monday.

It's been getting slowly easier- but then again I'm pretty fussy, so I've been a real fascist about getting the planks tight. Don't tell anyone, but I made at least one horrid butte. I'm tempted to rip it out and do it again. Sigh.

Butte Blocks (for the people)

More progress. I have started the second tier of planking. This cedar is a joy & delight to plane down. I have a big old wooden smoothing plane I bought last year off ebay and it just eats the planks up. Gah. It's like spreading butter on an english muffin.


Here's a picture of some of the lovely yellow locust I'm using for butte blocks.


And here's a butte block in place, lovingly smooged into place with sikaflex and screwed down with bronze #12 screws. (In truth, I might prefer bolts, but my accountant glares at me every time I bring that up.)

Fan mail

Whoo! I must be getting famous. I got a nice letter today:

"Hi there--
I read your posts on the Wooden Boat website with interest--and your profile says you are a boatbuilder in Maine.  I think you would definitely know the answer to my question--

I just bought a (Maine built) boat with a considerable amount of brightwork--yep, part of the charm.  The boat is kept outside for the winter (I'm in Connecticut) and now I'm beginning to think about just when I can do the varnishing.  She's supposed to be launched in early May...but the yard will be abuzz with all sorts of bottom sanding, etc., going on.  I am thinking very bad thoughts about my boat neighbors putting evil grit into the wind that will destroy my efforts at varnishing. 

-->Just how warm does it have to be to have varnish set up and dry nicely???  The brightwork is great--I will probably only do one coat this spring and then another this fall.  BUT I think it's going to be too cold in April to start the varnishing--what do you think?

Best,
Carolyn"

to which i replied:

Hi there Carolyn,

The manufacturer of your choice of varnish will have the *ideal* application temperature printed on the can (or somewhere else on their product literature). However, the general rule of thumb for varnish is the same as for paint, you want at least 50 degrees (f) for a coat to set properly. One real challenge in spring is the variation between night/daytime temperatures, and the dew that falls in the early morning.

If this is a seasonal touch-up coat, you shouldn't stress too much about your results- the base coats will maintain the "luster", the top coat merely provides the "gloss". Just make sure you scuff the surface well and *really* clean off the dirt, grit, salt, etc. from the surface. I like to lightly scuff the surface with 220 grits 3m paper (others like scotchbrite or various other scuffing agents) and then vacuum it, and THEN use a tack cloth to remove any traces of grit.

If you're stuck in a boatyard environment, the best you can really do is set up a windbreak and pick a time when there is little activity- try late afternoon.

If Connecticut may is anything like Maine may, you should be fine- but do it in the afternoon after all the morning dew has burned off. (And have patience, if you want to do more than one coat, wait for that first coat to set, even if you have to wait more than one day. All tackiness should be gone.)

As a last resort, comfort yourself that you, and only you will be aware of the HIDEOUS, TERRIBLE, HORRIFYING gaps, gapes, smears, streaks and runs in your varnish. All your guests, family & friends will give the customary courtesy glance at the bright work and go back to talking about their jobs/kids/stocks/etc.

As a person who loves wood, remember that varnish is an illusory, temporal distraction. Only the soul of the ship and the wide open sea, are real.

Good luck!

-Cullen T.M. McGough

Plank Your Heart Out

Hi Sportsfans,

it looks like the next few weeks will be nothing but me plank, plank planking. I tried out my spiffy new camera today, and here are a few shots:

This is a shot of the port side garboard.


Here's a picture of the garboard on the stbd. side where it hits the tailfeather.


This is one of the nice clean pieces of cedar I've been working with. Wonderful to plane. It cuts like silk.


Nice sunset shot of the framing.


And a glimpse at the (gutted) interior.

Back At It Again

Ok! I've been away for a week or so on a trip, but today I got back at it again. After the usual amount of fussing, I cut the rest of the garboard planks (fwd) and screwed the suckers down. Smooth sailing from here, right? right?

Other exciting news: my lovely and talented ladyfriend gave me a digital camera for my birthday (last week) so I'll be able to post day-to-day shots from now on! (Well, it's exciting for me, anyway.)

If you live anywhere in the northeast U.S., then you know it got hit hard last week with a snow storm. I came home to find part of the plastic over my "roof" collapsed. Bit of snow on the fwd part of the hull, but since everything is (a) viciously coated with linseed oil/kerosene and (b) somewhere around 3 ℉, I'm not too worried about rot, just now.

Sunday is The Day I'm Not Allowed To Work On The Boat, so nothing else 'till monday!

About %!@#*%ing Time

I finally cut the garboard planks today, after a few kind words of advice from Paul Rollins. It has been snowing all day long, but I was excited to actually have the Micky Finn far enough along to get to this bit.

The cedar looks great and only required a little tweaking. Of course, now that I get down into it, I notice a bunch of little details that have to be squared before I can actually fasten the sucker down. (Forgotten butt fasteners, frames that need slight alignment, etc.)

But no matter, on Monday I'll crack into it. Or be into crack. Hard to tell the difference, some days.

Up in The Attic

Miserable weather today. I came home early from work before the roads got too bad. I have finished setting up a workshop/painting room in my attic, so I spent a few hours scraping the old sun-eaten varnish and dirt off some of the parts of the boat I'm going to keep. Today I worked on the tiller, companionway hatch and the cool skylight that John Noone gave me. (He claims Sam Crocker built it. It may even be true.)

Some (Winter) Cleaning & The Old Knee Gets a New Home

Unseasonably warm weather today- I took advantage of it to slog through the mud (formerly the front yard) to remove all the broken bits and pieces that have been accumulating.

The unusual thaw also startled me- all of my jack stands started to sink into the mud, leaving the ship balancing all on her own. I quickly righted that, but it's a good lesson. Remember: used pads under the feet!

After it got dark, I took an hour or so and sanded down the old forefoot knee and part of the old stem, cleaned out the rot, removed old nails etc. Me mum wants to hang it over her kitchen.

Oh so cold....

I managed to get two (2) of the keel bolts out. Boy what a tussle! The rest will be ok to wait until spring when things thaw out a bit. I took the opportunity (if you call having no planking an opportunity) to get the sabersaw in there and cut the old rusted nuts off the top of the bolts.

Good enough.

Tomorrow, we plank the garboard! whoop.

Keel Bolts

Still working on the keel bolts. Not much fun.

Finished Rabbet, Battled with the Keelbolts

Finished the new rabbet on the stem and sloshed everything with a nice coat of linseed oil. I'm itching to start planking, but this is too good of an opportunity to beat those old keel bolts out and replace them. As the ballast is cast iron, the best replacement is going to be wrought iron (hard to find) or steel. I managed to remove a few of the top nuts, and torqued off the rest. That pretty much ate the day up (sun is setting at about 4pm now). On Monday I'll head back at it with the sledgehammer and exercise some extreme prejudice on the old bolts.

Just to note: the old bolts seem to be galvanized. I haven't seen much evidence of electrolysis, excepting the one bolt that was under the mast step and used as a ground. That one is cooked. Underneath, the bottom of the bolts were packed in with thick tar. It seems to have worked well.

Rabbet Almost Done. (Still.)

Worked more on the rabbet in the stem today. Nearly done now. Tomorrow (saturday) I'll have all day to myself. Maybe even get to plank a bit.

Save the Napkins

I have been unable to find a formal plan for Micky Finn. I have heard rumors that somewhere, one of his kin has a sealed, heavily armed, hardened underground bunker out in Omaha that houses the collected works of Bud McIntosh. But in the mean time, I have relied on the physical structure or the Micky Finn, the cover of Wooden Boat #51,

and a napkin sketch of the ship to lead me down the path to victory.



For kicks, I superimposed the ACTUAL Micky Finn over the PROPOSED Micky Finn and it looks like this:

Additional Old Pictures To Some Day Be Put In Chronological Order

This is a shot of the stern below the waterline at sunset. Lovely colors- all toxic no doubt. Bud & Ned thoughtfully coated this ship in all the righteous poisons of the day.



A sweeping look at the cabin top and cockpit. Built for fairweather cruising, the Micky Finn has a large and comfortable cockpit. The white striped lines in the picture show the remains of the glue/paint/spit/birdshite that was holding down the canvas cover to the deck and housetop. The replacement deck & house top will be a modern affair, most likely okume covering the original pine boards and then a fiberglass/epoxy sealing coat. Someday, when my significant investment in scratch lotto tickets begins to show a return, I'd like to laydown a proper teak deck over the fiberglass, but in the interests of going sailing before I die, I'll have to make do with fiberglass/okume for now.



Interior detail shot. Of interest is the extensive (some might say phanatickal) use of oak knees to support both the cabin top and the the house top ends. She might sink boys, but she'll never be crushed, by gawd.



Deena sez this is the "prettiest" picture. Feh. Clearly, she has no appreciation for the manly art of Duffing Around Out Back in the Shed.



Another look at the decks, sweeping forward. Note: everything forward of the bit post was Done In by rot. I have asked Paul Rollins about this. His opinion: back in the Olde Days, ship builders would let the stem head rise above deck level, using the top of the stem as a rest for the bowsprit. The Problem with this, is it allows moisture to trickle down the exposed stemhead, course along the rabbet, and seep back through the deck covering. Modern design dictates that the stemhead be sealed below a layer of (hopefully) waterproof decking and any bowsprit, anchorblocks, etc. are supported by secondary structures bolted through the deckbeams. It is somewhat ironic that the greatest danger to a wooden boat is the fresh water from above, not the saltwater below.



This is a picture from early in the re-framing process. Note that every 3rd frame or so has been replaced. In this fashion, a boat may have it's frames replaced without loosing shape or structural integrity.

New Breasthook Installed

Whew! I finally mounted the new breasthook. (Wonderful bit of 2" flawless yellow locust, lovingly buttered with linseed oil and sunk in a tantalizing bed of sikaflex, presented with a side of recycled silicon bronze bolts, serves four.)

It has had been my creeping worry that the massive 4" x 2" oak clamp would start to make a bid for freedom, ever since I removed the old stem. But rejoice! With the installation of the new stem and now a new breasthook, I am nearly ready for Cape Horn.

Tomorrow I hope to finish the last bit of shaping in the rabbet, and this weekend, I will crack into that large stack of cedar that has been waiting patiently since October. Lucky s.o.b. that I am, I think I have the means to do the garboard in a single plank. We shall see...

I'll ammend this post in a bit with some more of the older pictures. Sadly, I only get my updated pictures every other week or so as I take the film back.

Rabbeting the Stem

I finished rabbeting out (rough) the stem after work today. I did most of the work with a large gouge chisel and a skill saw set to 1". Tomorrow I'll go back over it with a rabbeting plane and a flat chisel. It's so dark this time of year, I don't get much work done in the evening. The light is gone by 4:30 at the latest. On the whole, the new stem looks good. I managed a fair job on the joinery between the pieces. I sealed them together with sikaflex and several 5/8" silicon bronze threaded rods. Since I used yellow locus for the stem, there are a few ugly knots and patches, but if properly soaked with linseed oil & poison it should work well.

Some recent luck

I got a call from a friend last weekend (Paul Giroux) and took a trip down to Amesbury MA. A friend of his, John Noone was moving to Spain for at least four years. ("Until the next regime change," sez he.) Anyway, he had a great boat shop he was clearing out and sold me a sweet little 20hp Yanmar diesel to jam into the MICKY FINN. It needs a bit of cleaning up, but it's only had 100 hours or so on it. Wicked good deal. John was a great guy. He took pity on a poor waterfront blackguard like myself, and loaded the truck down with useful odds and ends. I got some lovely bronze portlights and a fantastic locust skylight. God speed, John Noone!

Some older pictures

Here are a few older pictures of the boat and the ghastly things I have done to the poor old girl:

The Micky Finn getting ready to be moved from Paul & Martha Dunphy's Mother's House:


The Micky Finn in the backyard at the Rollin's Boat Shop:


The tailfeather exposed. You can see half the planking has been removed.


The Bow. Sadly, the bow had been patch and parceled over the decades. The stem head has rotted from the top down (possibly red oak) and the forefoot & knee are made of several pieces of differing ages. It will all have to be removed.


Some flowers on the winch block. Under many, many layers of paint those blocks are actually lovely mahogany. I haven't decided yet if they are worth re-furbishing vs. replacing. (Restoration is a tricky balance of "preserving the original" vs. "please god, while we're still young".)


Bare-arsed. The planking on the boat is still the original New England pine from 1937. Amazingly, the pine had not a speck of rot or worm. (Ye fancy-pants-obscure-tropical-fruitwood-planking snobs can ponder that one for a while.) If not for the iron plank fastenings, the boat would have lasted out the century mark.


My winter shed. (Like a ship in a bottle! Bill Coolidge tells me.)


Alas! Trouble 'round the bit! Both the stem head and the bit post seemed to have been made of some lesser wood. Years of moisture at these two trouble spots have made the forward deck a candidate for major renovations. Luckily, the shear clamp still looks like it came out of the box. 4" x 2" steam-bent oak all the way 'round. Some of the deck frames will have to go, though.


The Ballast. Cast iron. Ever-so-freshly chipped, scoured and re-painted by me. Cast-iron monster, it is. The keel is a bit weathered but sound. I have been feeding it linseed oil by the gallon.


A Detail of the rotted stem-head.


The soft underbelly. While the planks are in amazing shape, the iron square nails have rusted away to naught, particularly below the waterline where electrolysis has had it's way. Sadly, this also means that most of the oak framing has been split vertically by the expansion of the rust. They shall all have to come out. But who can complain? Most of the gaffers who wander through the shop are far rustier below the waterline than this poor boat...


Out with the old! I have lucked upon some lovely yellow locust. Hard as nails and very rot-resistant. Should make a lovely replacement stem. Sadly, the old stem is little use as a template, and I don't have any plans for this boat. I'll have to pretend I'm like one of the old gaffers and just eyeball it. (Few things are more tooth-grindingly appalling to a neophyte like me, than to watch the boss (Paul Rollins) simply contemplate a boat, wander over to the wood pile, select a piece, make one cut, and have it fit like a glove. How?!? Why?!?!) I have decided measuring tapes are for sissies.


A lovely fall day. As you can see, I have just (finally) finished re-framing the entire boat. I got a wonderful load of white oak and miles of N.E. white cedar from a chap Herb Smith (of Appledore fame). I had to gut most of the interior, but I finally got all the frames replaced. (Novices take note: reframing an old boat TAKES LONGER and thus COSTS MORE than framing a new boat.) Ah well. There is something to be said for the soul of an old sailing vessel.


Closer shot of the re-framing. Ye Old-Timers will be appalled at the wasted oak at the end of the frames, sticking up. To which I say, just as in love and war, a man gripping a steaming hot oak stave covered in blistering oil will make swift, commanding decisions, with few regrets.