Christine's Makeover Part 2

Damaged bottom chine

The past few weeks have been insane!!  I've been getting my ass handed to me by work and life.  A good friend allowed me to borrow his heated garage so that I could restore Christine.  I told him I could get it done in a week.  Nope!!  What am I stupid? Anyway, It's been 3 weeks and at this point, I'm getting close.

Here's what has happened so far:

As you can see from the picture above, the bottom chines have done their job at protecting the boat's outside bottom edge.  These bottom chines are actually designed to be removable and replaceable. They are not epoxied on like the gunwales.  Although they have taken a beating, they are still in good enough shape to leave on for another 8 years, after a good sanding of course.

Gunwales

The gunwales are in good structural shape but were in dire need of a sanding and spar varnish.  A couple of years ago, my girlfriend got the worst sliver I have ever seen.  Most carpenters/woodworkers know, there's nothing like hardwood slivers!  She bled so bad into the Beaverhead river.  As she was recovering, I started to catch fish and we declared that it was because she had chummed the water.

Fisher's seat bench

Rower's seat bench (rower's seat to be replaced too)

You can also see that the seat benches were in bad need of some love!  Christine is designed like an aluminum boat with side rails which give the bow structure and adjustable seat benches which tie the boat together.  It is called the "skin stress" design.  When you build a boat, it is like your baby and you worry more than you should about everything.  When we flipped the boat to sand, epoxy, and paint the outside, I was worried that the boat would be too weak without the benches in place to give it rigidity.  When turning it over it was very clear that Christine was rock solid and that I could have flipped it myself probably with no chance of structural damage of any kind.

Side rails were badly checked

Checking happens to douglas fir plywood as it ages and is weathered if you do not use fiberglass cloth when you epoxy it.  I was in a hurry to finish the build 8 years ago and completely out of money.  I figured that some interior surfaces would be ok with just a wet coat of epoxy and 3 coats of polyurethane boat paint.  While they held up ok, after 8 years, they looked horrible!  I was embarrassed when people would look in the boat sometimes.

Inside front of boat after sanding

 I also left 4 small areas of the interior unglassed.  These areas checked when I had to leave the boat in my driveway in the middle of a hot Missoula summer to go work in California a couple of years ago. The area of the hull in front and behind the side rails were not glassed and checked too.  Here you can see some of the checking, the side rails, the front compartment with the doors removed, and the sanded gunwales and horns.

The horns before sanding

The horns were in pretty good shape but were in need of a good sanding and spar varnish.  You can also see that the front casting tray was glassed and although it was dirty, it was in perfect shape.

The back of the boat after sanding

Here you can see the back of the boat after sanding and with the back compartment's door removed.  I had originally planned to attach a seat on this platform so that there would be 2 fisher's seats and one rower's seat (3 inline classic trout boat) but it soon became apparent that it was a perfect for a dog platform.  As I spent more time on flat water and fell in love with carping, the platform, which was engineered to be super strong, became one of the coolest features of the boat.  When I fish by myself on flat water, I stand on this platform (see it here) and when we're carping on the rivers we just row the boat downstream backward and the fisher stands on the platform.  The only bad thing was because I had planned on having a seat on it, I never added a non-slip surface to the paint.  Therefore, dogs would eat shit when they attempted to jump into the boat, up onto the platform, and with wet paws.  It was also a bit slippery to humans with bare feet.  So, I will be adding a non-slip material to the paint when I paint the surface of the platform.

Another issue was that I only made one drain hole.  That was a serious first-time boat builders mistake!  I drilled a second drain hole and hid them both right up against the floor boards.  When In use, the boat has a rubber floor (that restaurant floor stuff you see in boats) which fit perfectly in between the floorboards and make the floor a flush plane.  This also makes the wingnuts on the drain plugs flush so that they don't catch fly line or get damaged.

The back platform was glassed and was in good shape.  It just needs some grip and fresh paint.

Found net

Here's a little side project that I thought would be easy to do while I had all the sanders, tools, and varnish out.  I found this wooden net at the bottom of the Red Rocks River.  As you can see it was down there for a while and was covered with muck.  I sanded it and spar varnished it.  While it spent enough time underwater that the wood colors were lost, it is still structurally sound and a good net.  I need to attach a new bag to it and bam, cool net!

Sanded benches

This is the benches after sanding.  They are nice and soft and smooth now and I love that there is some aging on the wood.

Sanded boat still trailered

I sanded everything I could while the boat was still trailered because, why not?  At this point, the entire thing was sanded inside and out (everything I could get to) and ready for faring, epoxy, varnish, and glass.

The whole boat sanded

There was a check on the front left of the bow which was bad enough that some material needed to be removed.  To fill what I took out, I fared it with a mixture of epoxy and sawdust.  This makes a peanut butter-like material that you can use to fill anything.  Making a faring compound is an art in itself.  You can buy epoxy thickeners from the manufacturers but sawdust works great.  The type (or grain size) of sawdust can make a variety of faring materials.  Sawdust from sanding is great for what I had to do.  Larger grain sawdust, like you'll get from sawing, is better for doing structural faring.

The inside with glass

Here, the areas which needed to be glassed got a wet coat, faring (that spot in the front left), glass coat, and finish coat.  You can't tell there is fiberglass because it kind of disappears when you apply the epoxy to it.  It's really cool but a ton of work!  The side rails, the front bow, and the rear bow are all good for the life of the boat now.  No more checks!!

Front of glassed boat

Here you can see a lot of things.  First, the gunwales and horns have been sanded and received 2 coats of varnish (they'll get one more).  You can also see the epoxy/glass on the front right bow is ready for sanding and paint.  The door is removed from the front compartment.

Seat benches with 1st coat of varnish

This is a picture after the 1st coat of varnish.  As of now, there have been 4 coats of varnish.  They are freaking shiny and beautiful!!  You'll have to wait until the "Christine's Makeover Part 3" pics to see how good they look!

Upsidedown boat

When we flipped the boat, we realized that there was a spot on the bottom which had sustained damage through the epoxy/glass and which needed to be repaired.  Also, there was as another surface wound on the side which happened when I ran into a sunken rail car in an attempt to save my girlfriend's dog who was about to swim through a dangerous obstacle. Those areas received a wet coat, glass, and finish coat.  Additionally, I put another coat of epoxy over the whole bottom because there was just enough left to do that and, why not?  It's is the part of the boat that gets dragged over gravel bars etc.  We prioritized the bottom so that I could trailer the boat again after 3 coats of paint and get it out of my friend's garage after 2 weeks.

Tipping off!!

This is my friend helping me by tipping off the boat paint.  At this point, the bottom chines are sanded, epoxied, and have 3 coats of varnish.  The bottom and sides have been repaired, epoxied, and has 3 coats of boat paint.  We have trailered the boat and brought it back home to paint the inside and put it all back together.  I will put the first coat of inside paint on right after I finish this!

Stay tuned for the finished product.  I'm so excited to not only have my boat in tip-top condition but also because I have added some new features which will make life a lot easier and safer on the water.

I have been asked a lot of questions over the years by boat builders and folks who are refinishing old boats.  If you have any, let me know.  I'm always here to help the boat builder community.  While all boats are awesome, wooden boats, specifically ones that YOU build are somewhere up there next to godlyness.  You can have your Adipose, Clacka, ot Hyde!!  You will never know the feeling of sailing through space and time in a vessel you built or feel the pride and joy when people constatly give praise on the river!  If building a boat is something you've always wanted to do, DO IT NOW!