Preparations for launching
Same night after moving Glypto to my new place I re-started her renovation. She got one more layer of järnmönja on her bottom and several more layers of Owatrol oil on freeboard.
It’s convenient to be able to take the boat out of the way when oil or paint is drying. This way my girls don’t stumble upon wet paint when they pass through.
At the end of each session all cotton rags or paper towels soaked with linseed oil are burned, to avoid risk of self-ignition. I like this small ritual.
During these few weeks of working on Glypto this summer I’ve applied numerous layers of oil on her freeboard. With each layer wood looked better: colours got deeper and surface shined like behind the glass. By accident I have used Owatrol oil in a totally wrong way. What I thought is that I use Owatrol D2. Hence I followed procedures as for D2: saturated wood with D1 and then applied many layers of D2, with 12 hours (at least) intervals, to allow each layer to cure. Totally about 6 layers of D2 (as I thought) and 4-5 layers of D1 prior to that (wet-on-wet).
Only recently I discovered that oil I use is in fact not D2. It’s another sort of Owatrol, especially made for hardwoods. That’s good.
What is not good is that one needs to follow different application scheme: oil must be applied on bare wood (not oiled or impregnated with D1) and it needs to be done in 2-3 layers, wet-on-wet. Same day. And then it’s done.
Well, I’ve made it all up-side-down but the result is stunning! I dare to say it looks better than boats coated with standard D2 which I saw in the harbour. So my failure turned out to be harmless - nothing is peeling off or delaminating, all layers have cured properly and are hard.
One may say: why in the heck have you not read the label on the can?!!
It’s in German!!! Me being Polish… German language… we just don’t like each other.
So that’s why it happened!
I needed to re-fasten freeboard planks on the stern: not only were there different type of screws (even one in plain steel!!!) but they all lost their holding power and there were big gaps which would not close in water.
I’ve used 1mm wider and longer bronze screws. With some surgeon practice I’ve managed to remove all old screws in one piece so I could use old holes and avoid drilling more in her old planks.
One needs to get creative to clamp planks and bring them back together. As always - you cannot have too many clamps!
I’ve re-drilled old holes for bigger, longer screws and to get into fresh wood. New screws were bedded in Ettan - for easier driving-in and to seal everything from moisture.
Ettan was also squeezed into seams. Most of it was squeezed out again upon closing the seam so I can be sure that it is tight. Yet another coat of oil on the whole boat and the job was done.
Since I will drag this boat on stony beaches I wanted to protect keel wood from being damaged. Brass rubbing band should do the job. I bought mine from Toplicht, non-drilled.
After measuring on the boat I drilled and countersunk holes and went into attaching it to the boat. After some forming to fit the shape the brass sits as if it was born with the boat.
While being at it I removed painter fitting and took to my shop. The chrome plating had lots of cracks and looked ugly so I removed it. Nice brass appeared on the surface - that’s what I like.
I want it to develop patina and turn brown-green, not to shine chrome.
The most tedious and painful for fingers was the job of closing all gaps between planks. Again I used Ettan as a traditional way of doing this. Not only it smells good (tjära!), is natural (beeswax) but is so soft that when wood swells it is squeezed out without damaging planks. But it’s a pain in the ass to apply, especially on very hot day like we happened to have then.
I formed Ettan-spaghetti which was then squeezed into seams with fingertips. All seams, the whole boat. I got painful fingers for a week after that!
I’ve found that wetting hand with water helps keeping Ettan from sticking to everything when rolling but is not making it any way less usable upon application on seams.
Fender line was finally attached along the whole boat.
She looks complete with it - with just one more detail:
-as a last thing before launching I needed to get my boat her name. She is Glypto, of course, but her name was not on her stern.
Now it’s there!