Keel bolt #3 - Last mile

I have finished drilling - it led to nothing meaningful, with so slow progress it would take weeks to go through 20 cm of the remaining bolt.

Having now nice cone left after drill in the bolt’s top surface I could hammer it back down through deadwood without risking much that it will “mushroom”. Drilled cone on top should instead make the bolt collapse into itself under hammering.

To check if the bolt will move at all I hit it hard with a heavy hammer. After four deafening blows it started to move down, with each blow it went easier. Good sign - seems that all this iron oxide slug has been compressed to form a bottleneck and now I’m moving away from it onto more clear channel.

To guide the long, 12mm diameter bolt which I will use for hammering the keel bolt I’ve made a quick & dirty wooden jig.

Two wide wooden blocks are drilled through with 14mm drill to accommodate 12mm pushing rod.

On the boat I’ve made temporary floor and connected the jig to it, to stabilise everything for heavy hammering.

The jig is a 2-part construction. After I hammer the bolt deep enough to reach the top wooden timber I will remove the wood and continue while having the bottom timber protecting the rod from buckling and guiding it straight onto the stubborn keel bolt #3.

A few heavy blows have put down the keel bolt to its original position. I hammered it further down to reach the bottom of the keel pocket.

To cut the bolt I planned to use acetylene burner. While it is possible to melt steel with this tool it prove to be dangerous in current conditions - after reaching melting temperature and as the steel started to drop from bolt threads the condensation which has built around the bolt, in keel pocket, started to drop onto the white-hot metal causing explosions of sparks and melted steel.

I switched to mechanical methods - drilled a hole through the extruding bolt, enlarging the diameter until the bolt has split with 12mm drill bit. Remaining pat I was able to easily break by fatiguing the steel.

Bottom part of keel bolt has been cut away

Probably due to excessive heat the bolt is now moving almost freely in the hole so, without hammering, I was able to get down next portion of the keel bolt.

If I had reciprocating saw would this be a piece of cake but - as I don’t own this tool (yet) there will be some elbow grease needed to saw manually or drill away the remaining bits, as they drop down into keel pocket.

But at least things are progressing in the right direction.

Once I’m done with this bolt I will cast lead plugs to close keel pockets after installation of new keel bolts.

The remaining bolts will wait until I do deadwood replacement - probably next season.

Next portion ready to be cut out

Keel bolt #3 - Drilling, tapping

While I’ve decided to continue drilling I wanted to try yet another approach while the bolt is close to surface: to drill smaller hole in bolt’s core and try tapping it for M8 or M10 bolt. That would give me another chance to pull the keel bolt.

Piloting the hole with smallest drill I dared - 4mm - and enlarging it to 6,7mm for M8 tap took me an hour. Unfortunately - it is hopeless. The bolt did not rust evenly so I have a portion of good metal core on one side and rusty bit on the other side. No way a thread will bite into it and hold during pulling.

Trying to drill on healthy part is too late - tapping bit will not reach that far into the hole.

Anyhow - I have now 1cm deeper pilot hole which would make it easier for 14mm drill to bite. Then I will need to steady continue grinding through the bolt.

Still no electricity - and I cannot use oil lamps as I use compressed air to dust away metal bits. Why “compressed air” container is in fact propane-butane mixture is beyond me. Probably easier to liquify than air but no open flame allowed in vicinity.

Once we have electricity back in boatyard I can try yet another option: freezing down the bolt to -50 C and trying to crush it with impact drill. That method should be safe for surrounding oak - unlike electrolysis method or pouring phosphoric acid into the hole. First I will heat up the bolt with soldering iron and then apply freeze spray. That should make a thermal shock and make metal brittle enough to crush with impact drill.

Sources for freeze spray, in Sweden:

Maston TECmix Coldspray (-55 °C) :
http://carsystem.se/produkter.asp?refnr=1646&action=single&parentrefnr=1633

Kall spray E-COLL (-45 °C):
https://www.esska.se/esska_se_s/Kall-spray-400ml-lokal-kylning-till-45-C-E-COLL-907570602590-16590.html,shoptype_set=b2c

Keel bolt #3 - Back to square one

Still no electricity in Rosättra. Working in oil lamps light, +3 C, snow is melting and roads are covered with wet ice. Quite miserable weather indeed.
Luckily I have surplus of lamp oil - there is no place one can buy it now, candles and lamp oil is out of all shops in the area!

My friction fixture worked fine.
So fine that I was in high hopes that I will finally extract this damn bolt and move to other jobs.

Well - NOT!
After extracting few more millimetres the bolt broke with big bang… This time inside keel timber so no way now to grab it again for further pulling.

What next?
Having the metal interface so close to timber surface I could punch it for getting a grip with metal drill. And so I did - started drilling again, with metal pipe as a guide. After 1h with 12mm and 14mm drills I moved by 5mm.
Not impressive.

I went down to measure how much metal is still in the hole.

I estimate that remaining bolt is 15cm long, from the top of the yellow tape up till the visible screw hole (keel timber level). All in dead wood.
30h of drilling, if all goes well. Doesn’t sound like lots of fun to me.

What options do I see now?

1. Continue drilling

2. Slam the bolt back down into the ballast pocket and cut it with acetylene torch

3. Sister the bolt with one or two side bolts.

For now I still consider the first option. I will try using smaller drill bit to make it easier for big drills - and hopefully faster. The risk is that if the smaller bit breaks in the bolt then option one is closed.

Option two requires building a new fixture which will guide the pushing rod straight into the hole. Challange here is that I have very little room to sway a heavy-hammer - frames are in the proximity and I don’t want to damage them.

Option three is the one I like the least. That means giving up - not my kind of baby.

Well, we’ll see how it turns out.

Keel bolt #3 - Linear actuator

Still no electricity in Rosättra and nearby villages. Landscape like after carpet bombing: fallen trees everywhere.

Keel bolt which I’ve left under tension did not move at all. So much for the theory.
I’ve fabricated linear actuator to help it move in the hole.

Of course, linear actuator is a fancy name for a screw with a nut, working opposite to Roman screw, but I like fancy names.
First I’ve tried with M12 bolt with matching nut because I have tools to easily work on it while in the ballast cavity. Unfortunately - it did not work: M12 threads did not have enough holding power to push up the keel bolt and instead the nut had slipped and damaged the threads. Too bad - with no electricity on site I can not make another one.

Fortunately, I had a short, 5/8 UNC threaded bolt which I bought at the same time I was shopping for long UNC screws for bolts extraction. It happened to be a bit too long so I grind down the keel bolt with battery drill and Dremel bit.
Generous amount of lithium grease on threads and under the fixture, few hammer blows to fit it under the keel bolt in its keel pocket and we were ready to go.

No one can convince me that swearing does not give you +50 to strength.
It always works for me - and Polish language being rich with these words gives plenty of power indeed. I’ve used them all during “pumping” my actuator. Tight space, two parallel 28 wrenches and growing darkness did not make the job easier. Luckily I was alone in the boatyard because I was VERY loud, swearing.

After grunting, swearing and falling on my back a few times the actuator finally made the damn keel bolt to move!
Not a spectacular move but - counting the threads - it moved by one thread turn! That’s circa 3mm on 5/8 UNC, vertically.
I continued for a while and - exhausted but hopeful - I went up to the cabin to see if the extraction jig is still under tension.

It was not! The chain was slack! Hurray!
That means that the whole keel boat has moved, not just the bottom part staggering sideways into oak!

I’ve lit my oil lamp to have some view of the situation and started pumping the jig. Slowly!

The bolt moved a bit higher but after a while something snapped with big bang and the jig fell into pieces. Shit!

Luckily, it was not the bolt - the small shackle from yesterday has given its life, leaving its closing pin inside the keel bolt. Not bad - at least I have something to grab with next approach.

I’ve rigged the jig again and started pumping. Bang! … and into pieces again.
The chain has snapped from shackle’s remaining.

OK, what next? Browsed through my toolbox and found appropriate sized shackle to fit around the bolt tightly. The chain was then rigged on the keel bolt but below the new shackle which - in turn - gripped on the small shackle remaining pin. Pumping again.

Keel bolt moved up a few centimetres until I reached full extension of both hydraulic jacks. Re-rigging with wooden spacers under the jacks - it was not possible to shorten the chain as the heavy shackle closing chain loop has deformed to the extend yielding impossible to open her. I will need to cut her later.

Good - I’ve cut some wood with handsaw, gained more range for the jacks. Rigging again - and pumping. Bang! Rig in pieces: chain has slipped from the shackle.
OK, rigging again, aligning chain on the keel bolt. Pumping. Up few mm and - bang! The shackle pin split the bolt and chain slipped. Rig in pieces.
Damm it!

Now I was left with bent (… imagine forces involved to bend this thing!…) but otherwise rounded keel bolt extruding from the bilge.

How to grab this thing now? Drill another hole and mount new shackle?
Possibly but risk is that it will split the keel bolt again.

Somehow I needed to connect chain to it and continue pulling up.

Back to my toolbox - and I’ve found a short splice of steel line, from my very first boat, back in Poland.
Let’s give it a try although I foresee short life of this.

Well, but let’s try this concept - based on friction only.

Rigging the jig again and pumping carefully. The keel bolt moved 3 mm up and - bang! Jig in pieces.
As expected, the spliced steel line has broken. But it worked for a while which proves the concept!

The whole operation took me at least 5 hours, mostly setting up the jig after each failure and figuring out next steps. It was -3 C and my oil lamp has used all oil so I was left in total darkness, with only small flashlight. Time to head home - and build a new fixture - “friction fixture”!

At least there is hope now to extract the whole keel bolt #3 and avoid hammering it down through oak and iron and cutting piece-by-piece in ballast pocket.

Driving home through total darkness, in winter weather, passing fallen trees and dark houses with few candles denoting that there are folks inside. I hope they rely not only on electricity for heating, it is going to be freezing tonight!

After Alfrida - havoc in the boatyard

Hurricane Alfrida went over us this night and most part of the day. It started yesterday evening, when I was working in the boatyard. After second time when lights went down I decided to head for home - otherwise I could be cut off by falling trees.

Today we went to check the place after the windy night. Turned out I made good decision to head home early: the road to Rosättravarv was totally blocked by trees.

What a disaster!

Without waiting for fire fighters, locals went out with chain saws and tractors and started cleaning out the mess. The road was still blocked so we’ve left the car a mile away and walked between fallen trees.
Still there was no electricity in the area.

Quite a few folks from my boat club were already in the area so we could chat while approaching winter storage field. My hart was pounding - seeing all these massive trees on ground I did not see that my boathouse-workshop could survive that.

To my relief - and surprise - it made it! Just one tarp got lose but I could fix it in 3 minutes.
What a luck!

Some boats had not been so lucky.

After texting Joel and Leif that their boats are OK we went to check on Meritaten, in the hangar. She was OK, just my anti-rain cover (leaking roof!) got loose but I will fix it later.

Keel bolt, of course, did not change the position.

On the way back we bought some hardware to build simple linear actuator - I have yet another idea how to help this bolt to move from it’s hole.
I will try that tomorrow.