Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Remove chines, save the rest

Greetings to all on this great site. I am new here, but have had my faithful friend "Troutwood" for 22 years. It is a 17 1/2' wide bottom from Tatman Boats. The boat has served me well for over 2 decades. Thank you Tatman Boats. Last year I got a slow leak and I finally have gotten around to flipping her over and taking off the UHMW bottom to get a good look. Things were quite a bit worse than I thought. I was lucky that Randy Dersham guided me to the best way to remove the bottom and scarf together 4x8 sheets to make the new bottom. (Thank you so much Randy for your time). After the bottom was removed completely I encountered quite a bit of rot in the chine. It looks like there is no way to save it with epoxy/fillet repairs. That being said, does anybody have a good suggestion on how to remove the chine without damaging the thin 1/4" wall panels and the frames. I have a full woodshop so milling out new stock will not be a problem. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on October 14, 2011 at 8:23am

I don't know, I'll leave that up to someone else. I am finishing the frames, chine logs and gunwales with Penofin Marine Oil and 400 and 600 grit wet-or-dry. I figure that wood finished with oil can both look good and if need be refurbished easily.

I am hoping that my choices for finishes; polyurethane over epoxy on the side panels and plywood, porch paint on the interior floor over epoxy and S-glass, and a concrete/deck protection product called Restore that has a rough sand-like texture and is close in color to the oil-based porch paint applied to the floorboards will work out well.

I have not tried all of these products but am hoping that by using all these products on the same boat i can see how they work and how they compare. I hope that the testing is successful and that I can provide input to others in the future. If not I will have learned something and can share that too.

Rick Newman

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Permalink Reply by Ray Cotnoir on November 25, 2011 at 7:27am

Recovered from Thanksgiving feast. Time to get back to work!

New chine logs ready for installation. Back when I first built the boat I had attached the chine log to each frame as well as 1/4" side panels to chine. Is that the current technique. Thanks in advance.