1956 Collegian restoration

81nautique wrote: I'll be calling on some locals to come out and help with the flip, beer and lunch will be on me.

Just say when...

Amazing work. Thanks for sharing all of this

Riley wrote: Interesting how in the boat's original production, it went together and looked good with the hatch and deck being that far off.

I agree, I think since there's nothing square on a boat your reference points are difficult to establish, sort of a moving target. Step back a few feet and it looks great just leave the tape measure at home.

Next up was the simple, quick job of replacing the deck frames!   That's when the fun started! LOL.

I replaced the forward frame and then started laying out the opening. Set my side frame pieces in place and put a framing square on it and "What the.." it was out of square by more than a 1/2". I started measuring everything I could to try to figure out what needed to be fixed. Turns out I needed to fix everything. There wasn't a frame member on the boat that was square to anything or even parallel each other. We then measured the actual hatch and found it to be 1/2" longer on one length than the other, again head scratch, HUH!

So i went and reset the forward frame where I thought it needed to be and layed out the opening again, now it's square but about an inch off center at the transom, Sound familiar? Same problem they had when they replaced the deck years ago.

At that point I was dumbfounded on how to fix it because we moved frame members several times, each time we fixed one issue we caused another one elsewhere. We finally decided the only important measurement was a centerline to use as a reference point, nothing else matters, If we had a centerline to the keel of the boat and worked our frame members square off of that then the rest is what it is.    At least we would end up with a square, centered hatch and we could build around that.

I know I've been hard on the factory in the past but I can see where these boats were mass produced and not labored over for a day trying to get the hatch just right. They had boats to get out the door and there was a lot of "good Enough" to go around. For the most part they did look good when completed, it's not until some guy with nothing better to do on a Saturday tears them apart 60 years later and thinks he has the right to criticize what someone did to put food on the table so no more critique from me, only comments. Lot's of respect for them because I don't think they had a lot to work with, Correct Craft was darn near broke at the time, you can see where nothing was wasted. there were no nice 5 or 6/4 boards to work with, everything was built up using 3/8 thick pieces because it was faster and cheaper than actually doing the millwork required using heavy dimensional lumber. They were still craftsmen but were not held to a higher standard I believe because of issues out of there control.

Anyway, I ramble but I think about this stuff as I'm dissecting the past. So here's where we ended up on the hatch, Compete except for a little fairing in when we get to working on the deck. I'm going to try to reuse the hatch if I can but it may be easier to build a new one rather than fix this.




Centerline





Meanwhile Dana spent a good part of her day cleaning and sanding the bilge, That was a lousy job but she never complained. As usual I'm so darn serious and there she is singing along to the radio wearing her fingerprints off and of course a high five from her helper who never seems to be too far away.


A little crazy but it sure beats shoveling snow!

With Snow Friday evening and temps in the teens all weekend, not having any winter hobbies ( I don't even like going out to shovel snow) Dana and I decided it would be a workshop weekend. She lended a hand last weekend and actually had a good time so I think she may be hooked. I know she didn't want to work on the Hurricane with me because that boat was a bit intimidating to me as my first wood boat project. I had a lot to learn and was unsure of every step so she just decided it was best to stay out of the way unless I needed a second set of hands. This boat is completely different and as I said I still have a lot to learn but everything is so much clearer now as to how to proceed that this "Hobby" has now become fun where as the Hurricane wasn't fun at all, too much self imposed pressure on that one to be perfect and in the end it still wasn't.

So here's what we did this weekend for fun! Might not be your idea of a good time but it works for us.

This weeks goal was to get the transom finished, rebuild the hatch framing and start cleaning the bilge to prepare it for paint.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to trim the transom ends down to match the shape of the sides and figured a jig saw would get it close but then I'd spend quite a bit more time fine tuning it. I finally decided to fasten a scrap piece of 1/4" plywood to the side of the boat to use as a guide for a mutli tool. I trimmed the ends off flush to the plywood then set up a router at a 1/4" depth and used that to copy the contour of the sides exactly. Worked great and all I had to do was finish cutting the top and bottom ends where the router wouldn't reach. It was almost too easy and worked flawlessly.

Tripling up on gloves helps with the real messy stuff... just gotta remember to put more on before you’re down to none.

Hey Magic,
Project is coming along nicely. Just make sure you protect yourself from that nasty stuff.. We don't need you looking like Bone's there !!!!

Moj'

Got a days work done Saturday, This transom looks simple but it is kicking my butt. It has a slight compound curve because it leans in at the top. Getting this all to line up before final fastening took hours. By the time I got it all glued up I was covered in 5200, The stuff is fantastic but after 10 years of working with it I just can not avoid making an absolute mess! I start with nice clean gloves and long sleeves and about an hour later I'm covered in the stuff to my elbows and the gloves come off because I can't pick anything up and everything I touch makes it worse LOL. It's probably pretty entertaining to watch.

I really wanted to try and do an epoxy glue up but I think that would have been even worse working vertically. When I glued up the transom frame pieces a few weeks ago I ended up breaking out in a pretty substantial rash on my arms so I think I've finally acquired an allergic reaction to epoxy, From what I understand that is a slow process and becomes worse with your exposure to it so I'm trying to avoid using epoxy now whenever possible. I'm going to be exposed to a lot of it on the next boat so I hope this is something I can learn to work around.

In any case I'm happy with the results but I'm on my third boat and I realize I still have a lot to learn.

Next weekend I hope to get the transom frame ends shaped in and add a few more pieces that are needed to support the top deck, then I'll move on to the hatch frames. I plan to pull all that out and replace it with new.









My wife has a healthy obsession with Halloween and the props never get put away.    This guy "Bones" ends up doing something different everyday. Keeps us laughing. He wasn't much help but he did manage to stay cleaner than me!

TRBenj wrote: Is it out of the question to split the hatch? How’s the Hurricane configured? That does look like a heavy beast. How about some old window weights and pulleys? More period correct?

I like the window weights the best, LOL

I think splitting the hatch would go too far away from the original look. I was thinking of adding some sort of cantilever hinge to the existing hatch with the cantilever being hidden under the deck and attaching some shocks to that.   Somewhat out of sight. Lot's of time to think about it yet.

Is it out of the question to split the hatch? How’s the Hurricane configured?

That does look like a heavy beast.

How about some old window weights and pulleys? More period correct?

8122pbrainard wrote: How to size and select gas shocks

Thanks for the chart Pete, That will be helpful. Any other ideas other than gas shocks? I hate the idea of putting them on but I can't leave this hatch as it is.

This massive engine hatch is a problem I'm going to have to address sooner than later. It probably weighs 40-50 lbs.


I can see where it slammed open at one time, I'm assuming the chain and little #8 screw that was holding it pulled out of the frame and let it slam on the deck. The wood around the hinges is all broken away from that.

Then once I got under the deck I noticed that it also slammed closed because that frame member is also broken. This thing is so heavy I won't feel comfortable with it until I come up with some way to prevent that from happening again. Maybe try to hide a gas shock somewhere. I have time to figure it out but I don't want anyone's missing fingers on my conscience

Open to suggestions from the engineering crowd.   

Started working on the transom framework. Had to build a steam box. Nothing fancy, just some scraps from previous projects and an old garment steamer.



Then built a buck matching the transom radius to bend the frame pieces. I don't think Correct Craft steamed these when they built the boat because there were just layers upon layers of ring nails holding it together, seems like they just added a piece and nailed the crap out of it, repeat.


I decided to go with the same approach I did on the Hurricane which was to laminate the frame pieces together with epoxy. Fitted the pieces individually and then built some temporary framework into the transom to fasten to while the epoxy cures.

JoeinNY wrote: I think you have this all wrong, Obviously CorrectCraft was way ahead of the competition here. First they located the weight in the boat perfectly to ensure it was level while riding down the lake with the average size male in the drivers seat, then they painstakingly found the exact center of gravity of the boat to know where to install the lifting ring. Then they designed the asymmetrical rear deck around the lifting ring location using a perfect vanishing point perspective so that without a ruler one would never know the back deck was not perfectly symmetric.   Truly nautical art, I am surprised you didn’t appreciate it right away.

If anyone could make sense of it I knew it would be Joe!

81nautique wrote: May be on to a good name for her "Pot Luck"

Or maybe "Mish Mash" "Miss Mash"

Looking good Alan but we wouldn't expect anything less from you Master Magicman.