First, after everything is cut to a nice press fit, both sides get covered with glue. The glue in this case is what Wayne calls "Golf Club Glue" for the center of the piece. This is a two part 50:50 glue of some sort, and I have to investigate exactly what it is. Wayne and the guys use it to double plank hulls (Which is their standard approach to fixing sad caravel planked hulls.) and they used it when MAYAN was rebuilt in 2005. It is a stretchy form of glue, that will hold well and dry while also letting the wood move more than West System.
The outer edge of the piece and the lips covered in West Epoxy that has been thickened with Honduras Mahogany dust, heaps of it. One of my jobs was holding the angle grinder in a trash can with a piece of wood and grinding it into dust. It took me a while to get the hang of grinding a piece of wood with a powerful grinder, one in each hand, without being able to see anything as the top of the trash can is covered with a blanket to contain the dust. You grind until the grinder starts to overhead, which is darned quick, and then stop and clean everything out, capturing the dust.
Here's Ruben putting the port side plank into the cabin side.
Next it is time to clamp the plank down. Pressure needs to be built up in the center first and then towards the outside to allow the glues to migrate towards the edges. We were in luck with MAYAN, she has a large bulwark and it is at exactly the right height. On the port side Rubin had rigged up his normal clamping system, and I helped out with some braces and wedges to the bulward. He liked that so much we did the entire starboard side with just braces and wedges.
In the picture above you can see the clamps, with the forward one reaching through the port hole and the after one reaching over the cockpit combing. The plank that is between the clamps is a piece of beautiful Honduras Mahogany that is an off cut from two covering planks that we were installing. "Don't break that by tightening the clamps too tight! We need that wood for the next pair of dutchmen." said Ruben.
According to Ruben, clamping is a big challenge and often more difficult than getting the bits of wood and the hole for the dutchman exactly right. "If we were installing this repair in a painted surface, we would simply drill holes and hold all this in with wood screws. Then we'd plug them later and no one would ever see it. But, you want this to be varnished, so we can't injure the wood like that." Ruben is from Peru and his syntax is often more flowery than ours. "Injure the wood" I like that.
Once we'd started the glue flowing it's all hands to the clean up. Putty knives for the big ugly bits and lots of shop towels with alcohol for the final clean up. The biggest problem I had was a real knack for getting the glue on the back of my hands, my knees and my arms. Ah well, I used to have the same problem years ago building stuff with epoxy; somethings never change.
Now, it's off to the starboard side to repeat the process.
This plank is smaller so there wasn't a need for a central block in the ultimate clamping. I installed a central post and wedges while the glue moved/migrated and then removed it once we'd moved to what you see above.
The posts and wedges are all made from scrap that I found laying around the boat yard. I was shocked to find that one of them was teak, old and battered, when I cut into it. Ruben says it came off the rail of a boat built in the 1890s, the wood was still oily and beautiful inside the piece. "You should save this" I suggested. Ruben just laughed and pointed at a stack of wood twice as high as my Mini, "You can put it on the stack with all the other old teak we've saved from boats that have died." It seems that Wayne and the guys save every piece of teak they can and that has allowed them to deck a number of 20 and 30 foot boats with the scraps left over from deck rebuilds. Ruben informed me that the beautiful 30' Danish cutter that is a few boats down the dock was due to be re-decked from the pile. "We like to use the old wood. It's stable and doesn't wander." Rubin continued.
After we've cleaned everything up, Ruben goes around with small wedges and adjusts the pressure to right where he wants it. In the picture above you can see the tiny wedges he has driven under the 2X4. Prior to using a 2X4 for this purpose, Ruben has used the joiner to insure that the surface is completely flat and true - a great use for what used to be the side of a palette that an engine was delivered upon.
Below you can see a close up of the tiny wedges and the glue continuing to migrate out from behind the plank. The reason for the West with the sanding dust becomes apparent as well. While the Golf Club Glue is great for holding the plank, it is white when it dries. The West Epxoy full of dust will blend in with the varnished Mahogany cabin side and you'll never see the joint. Well not unless you're waking up from too much fun on the side deck.
Next up will be filling the hook-scarf joints further forward on the cabin side. As I write this, Ruben is probably already at work cutting the odd splines that he'll need. Because the hook scarf runs across the grain at various angles, the spline needs to be cut with the correct grain angle to avoid being visible. It'll be interesting to see how he cuts these.
Back to work.
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