Installing keel bolts #1 & #2

Back to the bilge.
I’ve covered new keel bolts with epoxy, to inhibit rusting from oak’s acids. Björn has made the bolts 200um thinner than nominal 20mm to accommodate for epoxy layer.
On top of that they are covered with Farm80 liquid rubber. Holes in the timber were soaked in linseed oil to minimise friction upon installation.

Anyhow there is a tight fit so I needed to use heavy hammer and wooden block to bang them into place.

Following Björn’s suggestion I’ve installed two nuts in ballast-keel pockets. There is, unfortunately, no space to have both also in current floors.

Of some reason I’ve specified the second bolt too long. It caused me problems when I banged it into position and it went too deep to instal bottom nuts. I had to back it up which is difficult as it sits tight. Very time consuming activity. In the end I was forced to cut 2cm on top, to make it fit the existing floor and enable having cabin flooring on top. To save the bolt length - as I plan to replace the old floors #1 & #2 next year with higher floors - I’ve installed 5 washers under the top nut, to have it reachable for the long wrench.

Then came time to close the ballast pockets with lead. I’ve casted them too big to accommodate lead shrinking on cooling - and to get tight fit in ballast pockets. Anyhow some additional shaping was needed prior installation.

I’ve covered the whole pocket and keel bolt nuts with rubber (Farm80) - in case there will be water leaking through these plugs. There will definitely be condensation there - that’s why pouring molten lead into pockets is by no means better. I have no way of doing that and also I want to have simpler way of inspecting these nuts in 10-15 years than melting lead, again, with acetylene burner. Liquid rubber should then protect the bolt and nuts from excessive rust.

I started with smallest plug - for keel pocket #1. Banging it into place with 5kg hammer, in confined space, is not an easy job.

It went 2/3 of its length and then stopped. Each hammer strike caused it only to deform on the outside until it became apparent that it will not continue. I had to remove some excess lead from the sides in a hope that this will make the plug go deeper.

It helped but only for 5mm more.

I then heated it up with MAPP burner until lead on the edges started to melt. Heavy hammering on this hot lead has moved the plug a bit further and the whole thing has deformed into flat pancake.
I, in turn, was sweating and heavy-breathing through the gas mask!

It was clear that it will not go any further - and I was exhausted from swinging this heavy hammer. I cleaned the excess lead with flame, carefully gathering all melted metal in steel pot.

It seems that keel pockets are indeed not regular cuboids but instead a pyramid, with very slight deviation from 90 degrees. In the beginning the lead is able to deform enough to continue its way deeper into this form but after a while the friction - and metal deformation forces - are too big to overcome with just a hammer. Heating it up with flame makes the metal a bit more pliable but not enough to go all the way to the keel bolt.

Well, no problem really. My ballast keel will be lighter by one or two kilograms. That’s nothing in 1.5 tons of iron.

With lessons learned after the first one I moved to install the second plug. Same procedure - Farm80 on everything in the pocket, heavily shaping the plug with chisel and mallet and off we go.

It went halfway and started to deform. I was exhausted so I left it for next muscle-building session but I see that the concept works: it is possible to hammer this in place and deforming lead fills the opening tightly. To be on the safe side I will anyhow cover it with Farm100, to be sure that no water can get into the pocket.

To catch some air - and do some work without gas mask - I moved to my workshop to cut plywood for the second berth. Old berths are used as a guide.

With jigsaw in hand I suddenly scratched my head - why do I make new berths and not instead re-use the old frames? I mean - they are not old, just one season. The only fault with them was this damn vinyl cover. Otherwise I am proud of them! Re-using them will save me lots of time - and plywood. Tape net is very strong (it’s a 2.5 tons anchor tape) and will provide very good ventilation for foam madrases. With plywood I would need to drill countless holes to get the same effect. Additionally these berths are elastic and very light, they will function even without foam on top - in case Marek will not manage to finish the madrases job before the summer.

Hence I carefully removed the vinyl cover and foam from both frames and my last year work re-appeared.

So I moved to next task: final-shaping of drainage holes in the new cockpit floor. Copper tubes which are used for draining are not regular - hand work! - so some filling with rounded filler was needed. Slow job.

So now the cockpit floor structure is ready for covering layer of transparent epoxy. I will leave the top face bright so I can see if anything happens to the plywood during its life. The bottom and engine room will be painted with white Danbolite.

It was a good day. Weather was sunny and it was 15 degrees! The wind picked up to 20 m/s but it seems that my workshop can withstand it.

I took this opportunity to epoxy-fill damaged plywood walls in engine room. On my next visit I will sand them to planarity, for good fit of cockpit structure.

Jim and Lennart were also working on their boats. It’s good to chat with wooden-boat folks!
They are far in front of me, in terms of preparations, almost ready for going to water.

The sea is still frozen but with these temperatures it’s a matter of a week or so and the boatyard will get buzzing with life again.