Comment

Comment by Brian on April 3, 2009 at 3:57pm

Wow AJ, great work. I remember seeing this boat last spring. You have done exactly what I'm trying to do, which is restore an old boat without losing its story. I don't think it'll be ready for this years boat show, but I'll get final pictures to you eventually. However I did just post some progress pics today.
Again great work, and I'm looking forward to seeing her in person.

Comment by Jesse Ronnow on March 22, 2009 at 7:33pm

AJ,

Wow. Beautiful job on the boat. I hope mine looks half that good when I get finished. Thanks for the story.

Jesse

Comment by Rick Newman on March 22, 2009 at 9:37am

Ah hah! Makes sense. I never considered cutting a vertical scarf joint on the bottom frame. I was thinking about a horizontal joint someplace further in towards the center of the boat. This forum is great for the exchange of info especially with the added abilities to utilize photos to show the details. A wonderful thing. As mentioned in the other blog and as I had assumed the older boat has a variety of surprises, perhaps educational opportunities is a better way to consider it. Much like an unrun river. You might have a guide book, a handful of experience and now you must make decisions, often split second to determine your course. Before the event you have a romanticized viewpoint of the event to come. After you have made it though the rapids the truth of the situation has been exposed and your reactions and revelations are perhaps much different.

The challenge of new rivers and their rapids bring excitement and raison d' etre. Wooden boats are my new raison d' etre and this forum is great fuel for the fire! Thanks to all that make it possible by both sponsoring and contributing!

Comment by AJ DeRosa on March 22, 2009 at 7:08am

Rick,
We removed the frame joint about 8'' on either side of the chine log. The joint was rotten and so was part of the chine log. Removing the joint exposed the chine log and made it easy to cut out the rotten part and glue/screw in a new piece. A new frame joint was then put in place. The plywood sistered on the bottom frame is screwed/glued to the entire frame.

Sorry this picture is poor but it does show what you wanted to see. We made the cuts then beat the frames out with a hammer. Fasteners seen sticking up through the bottom were cut off.

Comment by Dave Z on March 22, 2009 at 6:44am

I always thought that a drift boat would make one hell of a sled ride.

Great work as usual AJ.

Comment by Rick Newman on March 21, 2009 at 9:53am

AJ, great restoration and series of photos. When you replaced the frame member on the floor did you remove the old frame by cutting off mounting screws or drilling / removing screws from the bottom side. I notice that you are gluing and or clamping a piece next to the frame member. Did you sister in an additional piece or was this a clamping system? I am interested because of the repairs I need to do to my boat.I am reluctant to disturb the bottom's surface as it is one of the few parts that is in "apparently" good shape and I don't want to add unneeded labor. It looks like you also supplemented the chine log with an additional piece. Was that a reinforcement for a broken chine log?

You had mentioned that you were going to add a series on doing in-place scarf's. How close are you? My current boat repair plan calls for a partial side replacement from gunwale to chine equal to the length of the damage. It seemed better to try a scarf on just the ends and not add the complexity of an extra scarf running parrallel to the chine halfway up the side.

Long winded I know, but I really enjoy the wooden boat concept and want to get one of mine on the water. However my wife's plans for work on the house and yard don't match mine for work on the boats!

Rick Newman

Comment by Randy Dersham on March 21, 2009 at 9:07am

What a great restoration record. This is fantastic.

I've got to find out about that rope seat set up.

Comment by Greg Hatten on March 21, 2009 at 7:25am

Wow... way to go AJ. I remember that boat from the Festival last year... you did a great job restoring it and keeping it authentic. Awesome "re-launch" too... very appropriate!!
Are you going to enter the Iditarod next year??
GH

Comment by AJ DeRosa on March 21, 2009 at 7:24am

Randy,

We did our best to keep the boat as original as possible. The bolts on the rail are original, complete with square nuts. The cut down shear rail at the transom, ala Bob Pritchett, was done later to accomodate a small kicker and these bolts were newer, sporting hex nuts. Our work, the new transom piece, is installed using stainless fasteners. The anchor arm(see photo) is a wonderful old homemade piece. We just cleaned it up and brushed on some penetrol. We forgot to bring a real anchor so I hung the little 10# er that we use on that Avon raft.

We stripped the interior to expose the 60 year old plywood and the joinery in an attempt to find clues to the original builder. We found some rot in one of the frame joints. We cut it out and replaced the rotted pieces.

All the interior pieces, seats, deck, braces etc. are original except for the rear floorboards that were trashed. w

We rebuilt the rowers seat from original parts. The edges of the rope seat were made from a single mahogany dowel that was spiral cut on a lathe, then cut down the center to forms a pair of guides for the rope seat. This is very cool and we took great pains to restore this interesting piece. The best part is that it creates the tightest and most uniform rope seat that I have ever seen. We will be borrowing this idea for our new boats and retrofits on our older ones.

A home brew of linseed, turp and pine tar was used to give the rich brown color to the old fir panels that were in extremely good shape. Shows you what a simple combination of paint and proper storage can do for the longevity of a wooden boat.

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When we removed the original chine caps, which by the way were installed with aluminum nails that had a , twist in the shank, to have a look at the chine joint we were amazes at the shape of the wood. We anticipated a possible bottom replacement but found the joint square and the the 1/2' fir bottom in fine shape.
There were signs of an old shoe but we could not determine what kind it was. There was a line of old screws on the bottom along frames 1 and 9 . These screws were short, were not used to attach bottom panel to frames, so we assumed they had held some type of shoe in place at one time.

This is the one place where we moved from authentic to practical. We laid a 20oz. triaxial epoxy/graphite bottom over the 60 year old fir and bedded new oak chine caps with modern googumpucky. This was always intended to be a working boat. It is scheduled to taste the sweet water of the upper Salmon and the Bitterroot before splashing into it's familiar home waters of the McKenzie this spring

Comment by Dave Z on March 21, 2009 at 7:15am

AJ,

looking good. It still shows her age, which is really nice. I like that look. You guys did a great job bringing it back to life.

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