Hello Wood Boat Community,

As some of you know, I hit a wall down on the Rogue this Fall and the wall hit back.  It left me with a little "rip" in the front quarter panel of my bow and I've been working on it for several weeks.  I'll post the pics and show you how I approached the project - I'm sure there are a number of ways to go about it... I did the best I could with the tools I had.  Here you go...

"Ouch"  The split relieved a lot of pressure from the bend of the bow and one side slid under the other.  My biggest challenge initially, was figuring out a way to sync up the sides and make them "flush" again.  Here's the view from the inside...

 I tried a number of things that didn't work until I came up with this... a cargo bar that I used to push from the inside out.  

Keeping the pressure from the "inside", I took some small pieces of oak and used bolts and nuts to "true up" the sides of the split.  I left it like this for a couple of weeks.  When I carefully removed them - the sides were pretty close together.

For the inside, I was afraid a small "patch" of plywood would be too rigid and not take the "bend" in the bow, so I got a new piece of mahogany big enough for the front panel.

I used a lot of epoxy for the inside panel and bolted it with brass screws and wing nuts using the same holes I used for the oak pieces.  The panel took the bend in the bow beautifully.

As soon as the epoxy dried, I remove the wing nuts and cut the brass screws so they were "flush" with the sides.  Then I applied several coats of epoxy, sanding after each application...

After multiple coats and lots of sanding, I had a very smooth side again.  I used a little oil paint to match the color of the wood and painted over the brass "stitches" and the scar.

After two coats of finishing epoxy... here's the finished product.... you will always be able to see the "scar" - but from 15 feet away, you have to look pretty hard.

That's it... ready for another wooden boat adventure.  I love this boat.

GH