Toe Rail Moulding On

The toe rail is on, that was an all day job yesterday. I'm going out there today with my camara. I'll get some pictures, then paint it in. It'll have to dry about a day before I go for the second coat because its oil paint, so while that's drying I'm going inside to put some braces underneath my decks, and then caulk all the way around one more time. If there's time left I will work on finishing my interior vinyl work, buffing the exterior vinyl and brightwork, and maybe building some storage shelves for the front of the V-berth. I need to build some holds below decks to make all the space down there useable for storage, but I'll have to buy some more plywood for that, and probably will wait until I see how much she is going to leak on first going into the water. I've cut and pieced scrap so much for my decks and kitchen I dream of little bitty pieces of plywood butted and lapped with tons of screws in them growing into a ship the size of an oil tanker. I'm getting an early start this morning so I can beat the heat. It had to be close to 100 yesterday, but I must be getting used to it, because I just kept right on going.

More Picture of My Owens

Here is a picture of the whole boat with the roof on. Only thing lacking exterior is to get the toe rail moulding back on. I wussed out and bought some cheap wood because to get the mahogany cut and milled to match what was there was $275, and cash is tight. The wood I bought cost under $25. It's treated, and I'm going to paint it green like the rest of the boat losing the mahogany accent I was picturing, but it has an aluminum strip that goes on it so that will be enough accent for now, maybe I'll redo it when I get the cash.

The before picture of the headliner is just where I pulled the insulation I put in back so you can kind of see what it looked like before. The after is what it looks like now, the stuff you see hanging down in the back is insulation in the places where I did not have enough vinyl (the store did not have enough, they're ordering some).

The windows were just bare wood. I have some of the curtains done. I'm not all that happy with the pirate print, but it was cheap, and it looks ok.

Getting the last of the wood on the outside is my current goal. I figure I will have plenty of time to get the inside finished once I move in (one more week). God willing I will get the motor running soon without any huge expense, and I'll have a full fledged operational cabin cruiser instead of just a floating apartment. Here are the pics.

Working Inside the Cabin

I've spent the last several days working on the inside of the cabin. I also got the external roof back on her, and screwed down. I have about half of my headliner up, with some foam insulation under that to hopefully keep out the heat of the sun. I bought some blue cloth with a print of pirate ships and treasure chests on it to make curtains out of, and a bunch of rivets and a hammer jig to assemble them with. This should be a fun way to get the curtains done without having to sew, and might add a little more shiny metallic highlight to the interior. I wanted brass rivets to match everything else, but the craft store only had chrome, oh well, it'll do.

I'm not happy with my kitchen counter, and I have a sheet of white plastic laminate to try to put over it. If I can manage to cut it, and get it glued in without breaking it I think I will go with that over the plywood because it didn't take a finish like I wanted it to. Still need to do some interior painting in the V-berth, and a little more cleanup if I can remember to take this little vacuum I have out there. Also need to take the camera and get some new pictures so I can share this part on this blog if anybody is reading it anyway. Lots to do, no clue about my future, might have to sell the boat so I can move unless I get a job like I want somewhere around here, or the engine running so I can get the boat to where I am going and come back by train or bus for the car.

So much to do and so few funds left. Oh well, there's always day labor and temp work.

Still Going

I'm like the enegizer bunny when I get out to the marina. I have a lot of other stuff to do including looking for a new job, but the work on my Owens continues. People tell me if I wanted to do this much work I should have bought a Chris Craft, and then the restoration would really be worth the money. But I have actually had a lot of fun and it relaxes me to have something to do with my hands. This project is coming together.

I stained the rest of the wood topside to match what I had already done to the upper brightwork along the side of the cabin. It looks a little better all matching, but I may eventually sand it all off and try to get back to the yellow orange color it started out. I do have a picture of that which I will post here.

The inside of the cabin looked like a wreck, I wish I had taken a picture. It looks a lot better now, and I built a new kicthen countertop for the galley out of plywood. I may laminate some white plastic laminate over that, I haven't decided yet. I'm planning on buying some white vinyl and upolstery tacks and rigging up a headliner of sorts, but consistent with the love for wood this project is all about I am going to install it between the cabin roof rafters leaving wood showing every 18 inches or so. I think the white vinyl withshiny brass tacks will give me a good look consistent with the overall existing design.

Then I'm going to build some storage behind the kitchen counter, and move the original shelf up high so that I canget into that space. I really should rip the original cabinets out since their doors don't close right, and they are not long on storage space, but I'm leaving them as is for now.

I'm going to look for some material for curtains, and maybe rig them with brass rivets or something so I don't have to sew. I always poke myself with the needle when I try to sew, and I'm never happy with the results, so I'm looking for options to get curtains made.

THE ENGINE- it still hasn't started. I've had a copuple of shade tree mechanics look at it, and at this point buying a new battery seems to be the most common advice. I've had battery chargers running for serveral nights without accomplishing anything. Nobody seems to think there is much obviously wrong with it, just that either the battery or the starter is very weak. I'm still holding onto the funds to buy the last of the wood because I feel like the motor has to start before I go there, or it is all pointless.

I'm actually being lazy and taking today to catch up on my writing and send off some internet applications. This was the worst possible time for me to end up out of a job. I'm still not sure what happened. I guess I just didn't make myself enough a part of the clique. I should have made them fire me so that I could at least get unemployment, but I have never really liked being unemployed. I'd rather have a bad job and something to do than be unemployed and sit home depressed watching TV. Despite having invested a lot of time and effort in Degrees, at this point I'd almost rather go back to working with my hands where your job performance is a noticeable tangible real sort of thing, because I did a great job for those people, and they didn't notice, or maybe they just didn't care.

You can't see it in the picture, but there are two coats of epoxy and three coats of white paint on the decks and the top of the cabin. It's not as perfect as I might have liked, and I'll have to do a little caulking where and there to be absolutely certain it is all water-tight, a few of my repairs settled or gave a little. The original decks were put in before the cabin, and if you cut the wood the right size it will not fit into place, so rather than decontructing the whole cabin I just trimmed it and rigged it, and like any rigged up operation I missed some problem spots until they became evident from walking on them.

Decks in and Epoxy on

I finally got all the new plywood installed for my deck. Working on my old plywood Owens has been a lot easier than working on an old lapstrake hulled boat would have been. The decks are now solid all the way around, and there is a coat of epoxy over the top of that. I may get another coat of epoxy on today, and after that I will paint the whole deck white. Between waiting for the caulk to dry and waiting for the epoxy to set I got the back rail risers rebuilt and in. The last two things carpentry/constructionwise that need doing are putting in windows, and replacing the molding all the way around the outside upper edge of the hull just beneath the gunwhales. Oh yeah, I also have to find somebody to help me lift the roof into place after I get a couple more coats of paint on it.

Then the big worry will be getting the motor to run. Once I get those three things done she could go in the water, although ideally I should get the bungs back in the gunwhales and all that wood sanded and finished to the right color first. Once she's in the water I just plan to build up a strong oil finish over time on all the brightwork, and to fool around inside the cabin trying to make it feel like home. If I had the money all this could be easily finished before my July 31st move in deadline, but since I was asked to resign from my job due to unfortunate personal animosities and some misunderstandings intentionally inspired by some underhanded backstabbing coworkers funding this last stage may be a little problem. Oh well life goes on, and it was a low paying job anyway. I don't have any new pictures today, but I'm going to work on her right now, and I will take my camera.

A Hard Day's Work

Here are some pictures of my Owens I took today, one shows the staining I did the other day and am not tremendously happy with. The other shows before on the decks, but I haven't done the after shot yet. The decks down the starboard side were soft to walk on down most of the length of the boat, but towards the cabin there was a lot of good wood where it had only rotted a few inches in from the outside edge. It was almost 100 degrees today, and hotter than that inside the cabin. Getting the old wood out took about twice as long as I had expected it to, and was hot, hard, dirty work mostly with a chisel after I used both the circular saw and a hand saw to cut away as much as I could get to. Laying on your back and working several feet overhead with a chsel in 120 degrees or so with bits of rotten wood falling in your face is not my idea of fun, which is why this job got put off so long. I left it with the new wood cut but only partially installed, and in a lot of ways I don't think I did a great job today. I took a lot of breaks, my heart really wasn't in it, and my concemtration was lagging. Most of what I cut is not a perfect fit, and some of it is downright bad. However, if I buy some epoxy and fill the gaps, she should be watertight. I was planning to avoid buying more epoxy if I could because it is expensive, but it will fill even these gaps, and will be the best way to waterproof the topside, so it looks like the expense is justified. Of course that will take several days to get all together, and, of course, it is supposed to rain tomorrow. I promised the old girl this should be the last time she tastes the rain below decks. Anyway, I'm tired, and I need to get these pictures posted and go to bed. I have to work in the morning. Oh well the deck pictures didn't come out too good, that will have to wait.

Tenative Plan for this Week

My schedule for this week has me one day on and one day off at work, so I'll have every other day to work on finishing this boat project. First two things to do are to replywood the deck on the starboard side, and rebuild the risers for the decorative wooden back rail. I'm probably going to have to piece the risers together from mahogany scrap although the idea of buying extra thick stock from the lumber yard has kept me from taking this step so far. I'm just going to go on and do it with the wood that I have because keeping costs as low as possible has become a real priority on this job. Of course, these are tenative plans because what actually gets done depends upon where the shade is, how hot it is, how I feel, and what catches my interest while I am actually there. I also have to buy some more paint and paint the decks in after they are finished, paint the top of the cabin, and finish painting the top roof. Those jobs should take a couple of days, and then I will try cutting glass and replacing the windows, and also finish the wood around the windows. I put stain on the top brightwork I was sanding which may have been a mistake. A natural color oil finish might have hidden the imperfections an old boat like this naturally has, but it doesn't look too bad, and maybe the sun will fade the dark spots a little bit if I hold off oiling it anymore for a week or two. I felt like one coat of oil was mandatory just to protect the wood. The stain may all get sanded off eventually, thats one of the great things about working with wood is it gets prettier as you sand off your mistakes. I'll try to remember to take the camera and get some new pictures.

Explaining the pictures

The pictures I just posted show the whole boat, the before and after on the roof, and the before and after on the bottom paint. I'm not going to say much about the bottom paint, because like I said it has secret recipe additives, and is kind of experimental. The roof was in real bad shape. I made it about 6 inches shorter in the middle, and scrounged a curved piece of wood to frame it in. I then cut 3 pieces of scrounged mahogany into shape and screwed them over the inside of the curve lapping over the "rafters" to hold them in place, and with the vinyl or canvas between the two layers of framing. I had to plane two of the pieces I'm calling rafters, for lack of a better term, to get the middle piece to screw down. I then free form sanded all three pieces with my big sander to make it look like it belonged there, and finish sanded it with my little orbital sander which broke about halfway through (I bought a cheap one 2 days ago, maybe the store will take it back). I settled for half sanded and slapped some mahogany stain and a little oil on it, and called it done for now, it might get a better finish one day.

4 Days Work

I had 4 days in a row off work and spent large parts of all of them working on my boat. My Owens Flagship was built out of Honduras mahogany and mahogany plywood in 1963, and she was obviously well taken care of in her early years. She has a lot of problems now, but I'm getting her squared away slowly but surely.

I got the green paint on two coats, and bought the paint to do a third just for looks and gloss. I got one coat of bottom paint with some special additives of my own on. It's a secret recipe. I have the piant for at least one more coat on the bottom.

I rebuilt the roof, it still needs some epoxy (which I'm out of right now) to firm up some soft wood I left on the front. Hopefully I killed the rot, there was an actual capped mushroom, probably shitake, growing out of the aft end of the roof. It ate the whole back crosspiece, and softened a lot of the plywood. I'm probably going to paint the wood side with linseed oil and black copper oxide which I hope will stop anything the bleach didn't kill.

I rebuilt the side decking on the port side by the cabin, it required climbing in and out of the head about 50 times, and I'm not as happy with it as I had hoped, but I can walk on it without falling through, and I weigh about 190 lbs.

I tried to crank her up with no luck, the gas is really old, and I don't have a siphon or want to cut my only garden hose to drain the tank. I scrounged two batteries which the guy who gave them to me said were working just a couple weeks ago. I scrounged some glass for the windows. I got two coats of paint on the removable roof it needs about 4 more because it was really cracked. I looked at the cabin roof its in about the same shape, but I didn't get to it yet. I scrounged some mahogany I hope I can cut to put on my back rail risers. I scrounged the plywood to do the starboard decks. If you're wondering why I am doing so much scrounging it is because I am about broke, but that's another whole story.

I have so many irons in the fire at this point on this project it would be hard to name them all. I have the sanding about half done on the brightwork. I have tried to clean the vinyl that is on the middle part of the side of the cabin. I found a dowel below decks that will fit the holes, but it's not mahogany and it is straight grained instead of cross grained like a bung plug should be. I'm going to ask around at the lumber yard and see if they sell or can make the bungs I need.

I'm really tired out, and "down in my back", as some of the old folks in my family might say. It takes me about an hour of working to loosen up and be able to walk normally. Going to work is actually a rest break for me, and I haven't had to do that for several days. Anyway, here are some pictures of what is going on with the old girl.

The Problem Areas

Ongoing work on my Owens Baroness includes painting the hull, sanding the mahogany brightwork, painting the bottom, repairing the runnels just below the deck, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting, oh yeah getting dowell pins back into the gunwhale and the brightwork to port. All that is underway and under control, but there are problem areas I have not yet addressed.

My biggest worry is the engine which I have still not attempted to start. Lucky for me, since I am not a great mechanic, I have a friend who has offered to come and help me with that.

Another problem I have not yet addressed is the point of the bow. There was some rot there, and it had previously been filled with bondo or wood filler or something, but there are cavities, and it really should be reworked. That would be a huge job requiring massive disassembly to put it ship shape, so I am planning at this point to pump it full of silicone caulk and top that with some latex wood filler.

The decks above the gunwhale on both sides of the cabin are soft, and need to be replaced. That's do-able without too much disassembly, but requires chiselling more dowell pins, buying more plywood, and working precariously on a high narrow space, I expect I can do it in about a day and a half, but it will be a hard day, so I am putting it off.

Three other projects require buying mahogany at $10 per board foot. All the molding just below the gunwhales, approximately 70 feet of it has to be replaced, it fell apart on disassembly, although it looked mostly intact before that. It was obviously original making it over 40 years old, that's pretty good service for thin exterior wood in a damp environment. The back rail risers had been replaced with pine that didn't hold up, and need to be rebuilt with mahogany, that's probably only about a half day's work if I buy a router, and less than that if I pay the lumber yard to mill the mahogany, but it's nagging at my mind every time I grab that rail, so it will probably be the first problem area addressed. Third is the roof, this was built on a mahogany frame that is rotted away almost completely, and is a real two day custom carpentry job barely within my skills (and I'm a good carpenter) with the tools I have on hand, once again, I might get it milled, but it could cost me and I'm about out of money.

The last problem, I almost forgot, is the windows, about half of them are broken out. Luckily, a boat at the yard that is being destroyed has a lot of really big windows, and I think I can get enough glass for free, and cut it myself (or more probably cut myself), and sand the edges round. (Note to self: wear the leather gloves when fooling with the glass)

2 Coats of Primer On

After a little hunting and turning down some insane paint salesmen's suggestions I found some white primer I could afford. I painted 2 coats onto the plywood hull of my Owens which had already been sanded for surface preparation. It might not be the ideal marine primer, but I think it should hold up fairly well, and actually appears to be very much like what was on her for texture and feel. I got some funny looks, because it is actally a latex paint which is water based, but once the water evaporates the latex bonds into a plastic envelope. The only real worry with going this way is adhesion to the old surface, because the oil paint I am putting over the top is frequently painted over latex with no problems. It said "oil fortified universal primer" on the can. Maybe I'll regret it, maybe it will be the best thing I did on the whole project, time will tell, and I'll try to do an update six months after I get her back in the water. I brushed the old surface free of dirt before the first application, and hand sanded between coats, and will hand sand again before putting the green back on. Her are a couple pictures of her primed out. Blogging about it, just like doing it, I forgot about cutting the air vent back in. I just grabbed the circular saw, and whacked it out from the outside and then cleaned up the corners with a chisel from the inside. Then I put the rail back on the starboard side (I think this all happened between the first and second coat of primer). Naturally, it was about an eight of an inch too small, and I had to trim it some after I thought I was finished. Here's a picture of that too.