Dana and I were no exception and although our entire family remained healthy boating was on the bottom of the priority list this year.  I only splashed a boat one time and that was the day we sold the Hurricane,  our 200 never left the storage unit this year.   Being overly occupied with the business, the poor Collegian didn't even get a glance all summer.  I thought about tarping it and putting out of sight for a few years as I just lost all interest in it.

This weekend I finally mustered up enough ambition to get back to work.  I've been dreading this because I knew when I stopped in March that I was fooling myself in thinking any of that bottom could be saved.  I was seeing so much damage from the oil soaking that I just didn't want to believe what was ahead of me so I stopped. 

So here's where we are after a day and a half back at it.  I've pulled most of the bottom off, first picture is of the outer keel cap, it is so soaked it is completely black with oil.  The inner keel is no better showing rot at the prop shaft hole and black as night throughout.  The keel will get replaced up to the stem.

Do you know who did the bottom? There are "restorer's" out there that will do back yard jobs but was this one of them or was it the owner doing a DIY project? 

I won't state who it was Pete but it was done by a boat shop.  The crazy thing about this is the keel was definitely wet before they did the bottom, maybe not as bad as it is now but it was wet.  They did a pretty decent job building a new stem but they didn't replace the keel and did a half assed job repairing a mushy transom.  The frames are wet as well and there will be few I have to replace.  I don't quite understand the thinking in not replacing any wet wood,  it's the least expensive part of the job.  

In any case, I'm over it.  I am even considering putting new topside planks on now instead of reusing the old ones.  This has gone as far back as the Hurricane went so saving a few dollars on old planking doesn't make sense.  Might take me a few years longer than I though but this is a good looking little boat and with a little more experience under my belt now should really turn out good. 

I was hoping it was a PO DIY job. It's sad when you see something like this from someone who probabaly avertises themselves as profesionals. 

I picked up some lumber Saturday for the bottom frames,  I'm going to replace 7 of them.  Unfortunetly I had to get white oak as my local shop didn't have what I needed in Mahogany due to pandemic related supply issues.  The white oak is heavy and hard as a rock but it will do the job fine, just a little more difficult to work with.  

So the photos tell the story.  Notice how the strut block was never even touching the keel, the 5200 is untouched.  The block was also held in place with one common nail on each side instead of screws and that was a factory item.  you can also see how the keel popped right off at the frames and the 5200 wasn't sticking to anything, again the keel should have never been reused. 

So are shims used to adjust wedges?

You can see where they coated the frames with epoxy before putting the new bottom on.  Notice there's no 5200 on the frames, it just pulled right off.

Where it did stick out towards the chines the frames broke away during demo so as I stated I'm going to replace all the frames

Fitting the new keel.

And first frame removed. 

The trade off is strength though, the new ones are pretty darn stout,  The old 2 piece ones really just fall apart once you take them out of the boat and the wonderful piece of joinery on the prop shaft pass through is a marvel.  That is not factory and was probably butchered when the bottom was replaced.  

So here's this weeks photos,  still a bit of a mess but there is a lot of progress.  

Old vs new keel.

prop shaft frame

When we removed the transom off this boat we were able to save most of it so I secretly brought it down to the basement for a makeover and presented it to Todd and Renee for some wall art in the toy shed.  

Moj'

Old Strut support

new strut support

That is simply a channel to prevent water from becoming trapped in that bay between the last frame member and the transom.  You can see all the frames have a similar notch at the keel so water can run to the lowest point of the bilge.

Biggest issues I've seen are there's a learning curve with the materials and processes and acquiring the right tools.    AND Clamps, never have enough clamps.   I'm doing a few things differently than the factory to try to improve,  even some things that would have improved the Hurricane.  Learn as you go and try to do better than yesterday.  I'm also getting better with 5200 and epoxy.

Make sure you don't put a completion date on it, these wood boats take time.  Unless you could work on it every day the progress seems to take an eternity.

BUT, I'm going to side track slightly from boats and show a project I did over the Christmas break that got me back working on the boat.  It's relevant because up until this project I was in a bit of a slump with everything but my day job.

So short story, my son and I have a common interest in music and talk quite regularly about it.  He plays guitar and builds his own effects pedals.  He ended up buying a second amp to kick around with, it was a beat up old Peavey.  We started talking about making a new cabinet for it, one thing lead to another and I had a new project.   I had some Mahogany left over so we decided to try to build a cab that would have a sort of vintage look to it.  I also found some left over Lacewood so we added a new pedal board to the list.

I spent a couple of weeks in December on these two, collaberating with my son on colors, materials, hardware.  Love the way they came out but most of all it got me to pick up my tools again.  As soon as I was done I got back on the Collegian and started kicking butt again.  That was a deep rut that I hope I never fall back into again,  gotta stay busy.  Enjoy.

original cabinet

New vintage Mesa Boogie look in process

The finished product

and the finished pedal board

I so enjoy watching YouTube/Discovery Channel/... videos about craftsmanship and woodworking in particular.

I literally spend hours on end watching them. So I truly enjoy topics like this one. 

And since I moved to our new beautiful house outside the city centre, where I now have my mancave/hobbyroom, these videos got me into making my own hobby woodworking space. 

Up untill now I have been working on making my (mobile) workbench: