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Permalink Reply by chris towles on August 21, 2011 at 12:15am

My plywood end grain looked like that when I got my boat. Mine had real high sides though, so I just gave it a haircut so to speak and chopped the top 3" off the plywood and was into good wood. If you don't need to cut height off, you could try to build a router jig that would zip off the top 1/4 or whatever you need to get into good wood. I would then build one of the gunwales to have a 1/4" lip that covers the whole end grain ply. My endgrain is well buried inside the gunwale assembly and sealed with much epoxy. I don't anticipate ever having problems with if now

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Markley on August 21, 2011 at 6:41am

Chris...

What did you ever do about checking after you got done sanding? Oil or Epoxy and Paint?

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Permalink Reply by Dave Z on August 21, 2011 at 5:04pm

Looks good!  Rabbited frames is what I wanted to see.

scraper her down, heal her wounds, slap on some paint and love it.  Nice boat.

 

(and loose those seats!)

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Permalink Reply by chris towles on August 21, 2011 at 6:10pm

I had heavily checked plywood when I started. I gave her mucho sanding, power and hand, then oiled the crap out of it. It looks great. I have had some issues with mold, however the mold took to the newer wood better than to the old stuff. I had a few spot on the old ply, but not too bad. My roomate just got a 16x48 this year and he redid the interior. I was all epoxy, no covering. To no surprise it was heavily checked peeling etc. He probably spent 80 hours scraping that thing with a heat gun and I think he's scared of epoxy now. But he sanded it good after, and used watco teak oil and it looks great. I think on those oil heavy checked pieces if ply, if you can get the paint off and get to bare wood go for it. However since this boat has already had paint, it might be way easier to scrape and sand the ply, prime, and repaint. If you want the all wood look scrape the frames and boxes down to bare wood and oil all that stuff, oil anything new you put on the boat it'll look like a woody in no time.

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Permalink Reply by Terry E Walsh on August 22, 2011 at 6:18pm

What a great deal! You can put a lot of TLC into that boat and she will treat you good for a long time. I have a1960 model and she is still perfect, with no leaks. AWSOME!

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Permalink Reply by AJ DeRosa on August 23, 2011 at 2:24pm

Stephen,

This is a nice find.  Sure, its needs some work but will result in a fine old boat.  The things that I have seen on Ostrem/Boat Specialties boats are there.  The rabited frames and full ply wood floor are consistent with what I have seen but the knee brace cross member is very unique.  The other thing that stands out is the use of bolts at the shear rail.  All the Ostrem boats I have seen, only around 5 or 6, were constucted with nails at the shear rails.  The name plaque on the front brace looks original so this could be a rare find.    I would love to learn more about this boat.  Do you have any idea as to the time of it's construction.  I believe that Ostrem was building in the fifties and sixties and maybe as late as the early seventies.   Hopefully a few of the senior builders will chime in and help solve the mystery. 

I'm sure that Roger could shed some light on this and perhaps Steve Steele.  As a kid Steve and brother Stan can remember visiting the shops of the Willamette Valley builders like Hindmann and Karous and quite possibly Ostrem.  If my visit to Steve Steele's shop this past spring is any indication, he is always happy to spend time talking wooden boats, especially the older ones.

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

AJ

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