Glypto retired. Cabin table finished (for now).

March 16, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

While renovating small dinghy Glypto I’ve noticed how much needs to be done to make her seaworthy again. There are places where one can tell that she indeed has around 100 years.

I could patch her quickly and use close to land for short tours but she would just become worse without proper renovation - few planks need to be changed, keel plank developed a crack, false keel would need to be replaced. The old bedding on lapstrake joints is hardened and mostly gone. To do it properly I should remove rivets and bed each plank during re-assembly. Not to mention broken frames.

Since quite a while I was playing with a thought to retire her and build new dinghy. Now, when we move to new place I will have space to keep her indoors, as an armchair in reading room. With her freshly renovated freeboard she will look great as an ancient furniture.

To finish exterior renovation I was waiting for proper weather to paint the bottom. I use traditional mönja, with hematite instead of lead. Today was the perfect weather to do the job.

I scribed waterline before I stripped her from all paint so now it was easy to tape it for mönja.

I also planned to apply second layer of Owatrol D2 but she looks good already and will not be exposed to water any more so I skipped it.
Applying mönja took considerate time - one needs to brush it into all cracks in wood and application should be thin. Otherwise she will never dry. As indoors object she needs only one layer so I took my time to do it properly.

She will visually benefit from white water line. I’ll paint it when mönja is dry - which will take few weeks.

I moved back to Meritaten, to finish assembly of cabin table. The mount was coated with several layers of epoxy and ready to accept massive brass screws which will hold it to the bulkhead.

I bought these screws from Toplicht for something different but never used them. Now came their time.

Two screws are holding crossmember to the face of bulkhead. Two additional anchor the mount to the side.

Side screws will need to be trimmed flush with the mount, otherwise they will interrupt mast which is standing on the keel close by.

The table will be mount in fixed position relating to boat axis but I kept possibility to slide it into or out of pentry area. This is done by using thin plywood which is permanently screwed to the mount but can slide in rails under the table. I needed to add few millimetres of spacing below the table to allow for it. Three thick bronze screws hold the assembly to the mount.

Then came the table. It is now offset from the main axis towards starboard but still enabling sitting on both berths without hitting the table with knees.

In folded position there is enough space to go front of the boat.

So it’s done! However - wobbliness. Well - it is still not rock solid!
Upon deeper investigation I found the source - it is not the mount, it is the sliding mechanism which is causing it. Since plywood needs some play to slide between two brass rails it is causing the table to not sit solidly. It’s better than it was with brass legs but still I’m a bit disappointed.

We will need to live with it for one season. I need to move now to spring jobs on the outside - scraping and varnishing, deck renovation etc. Spring weather is here to stay and soon I will need to book launch day so time became short.

Gluing

March 09, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

My girls were away so I could once more turn out bedroom into epoxy workshop.

Stained parts with pre-drilled holes were ready for gluing. WEST Flex epoxy, already thickened, is well fitted for this job.

Moderate clamping force together with guiding screws gave nice epoxy squeeze-out which I turned into fillets. This side will be hardly visible anyway so allowing fillets, even though not aesthetically pleasing, will add lots of strength.

To use all prepared glue I’ve spread it by hand on non-visible surfaces. I’ve made one mistake, however - the wood was brought to apartment from cold storage. At room temperature it releases gases and that forms small bubbles on epoxy surface. I might consider sanding it before applying epoxy coating, even though these are on hardly visible surfaces under the table.

Cabin table mount

March 08, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Time goes fast and spring is round the corner. I will again need to cut my to-do list for this winter and move to ordinary spring jobs. Before that I need to finish one more thing: cabin table mount.

Instead of standing on wobbly legs the table will hang from bulkhead, giving free access to cabin sole and hopefully offering steady working and dining surface.

To make the mount solid I will use two, perpendicular bulkhead surfaces. This should spread the load and offer several anchoring points.

The main member is made from thick mahogany plywood. Two solid wood mahogany pieces will be screwed and glued to it, giving a surface to mount the table and adding stiffness to the assembly. Additional cross member, at the right angle to the main plate, will add lateral stiffness.

I cut mahogany plywood first. All edges being trimmed with American walnut. On the main member I glued and nailed trim bits but that proved to be unnecessary mess, resulting in much cleaning and sanding to get rid of white glue stains.

Trimming was then nailed with copper nails, both as reinforcement and as a decorative element. The whole assembly will be encapsulated in epoxy so these nails will not oxidise and should maintain shiny copper colour.

All parts were trimmed with block plane and then sanded. One needs to be careful with modern plywood - the exterior layer of mahogany is 200 micrometers thick, orbital sander can sand through it in no time.

I moved to cutting and shaping mahogany beams. Pieces I have were rough sawn so a good deal of smooth planing and truing was needed. Nice workout.

Some basic geometry exercises to match pieces at required angles.

After pre-drilling all holes I was ready for dry fit of all parts.

Screws are used mainly as a guiding pins for gluing, the main holding agent will be WEST Flex epoxy. It has lots of strength and offers extended joint flexibility which I think will be needed here.

Before leaving boatyard I installed POD heater to have it in place when I will install the table. This should assure that I don’t place the mounting screws where the heater is mounted.

Back in my home workshop I disassembled the mount, sanded smooth and started applying stain - boat table is made from dark mahogany, I want these new parts to match the table as close as possible.

With stain in place walnut trim blends nicely with mahogany, I like how copper is contrasting dark wood.

All components ready after staining. The next step will be gluing, followed by epoxy coating.

Norrsken. Pentry finished

March 01, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

We are back from Far North.

While Stockholm winter this year is a joke - up there, in Abisko and Kiruna, weather was serious indeed: lots of snow, minus 15 C and snow storms almost every evening.
We managed anyhow to see spectacular northern lights - standing in the middle of frozen lake, surrounded by mountains, snow and silence. Three evenings in a row!

Back home, after 17 hours in a night train, I needed a day to have some rest but today I went to boatyard to finish pentry renovation.
All pieces were already prepared and varnished several times. I started with covering the whole cavity with my home-made beeswax-turpentine-Ettan paste, to seal it from moisture.

Next came all plates, screwed to the cavity with bronze screws. New closing board was mounted on brass piano hinge.

Albert was right - mahogany finish looks good!

Closing board was meant to be hanged on chain, to form auxiliary working surface. After mounting it and dry fitting I changed my mind and kept it without chains: it was too small to have any meaning and hanging on chains added unnecessary clutter.
I prefer it simple.

At the back wall I mounted hooks for coffee mugs - always handy when close to the kitchenette.

Kardan hangers are ready for Origo kitchenette to be mounted.

Covering board is kept closed with two spring-ball catches.

It took me a while to adjust them so that they keep the board steady and enable closing it - metal file came in handy when I missed 1mm in alignment.
In the end the pentry is finished!

I moved to less spectacular task of finishing wooden plugs which were glued few weeks ago - on cockpit hatch and bench.

As a last thing this evening I started cutting thick plywood which will be main member of table support.

One has to use what one has at hand - these plywood pieces were off-cuts from some other job so I let my “cubismic” imagination do the thing:

This plywood will be reinforced with solid mahogany, to form 3-dimensional support system, resting on 2 sides of half-bulkhead in the cabin. Table will be hanged on top of that.

Banging bangs, varnish meditation and smelly goo

February 15, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Last two weeks were very busy with not boat-related events so I could devolve only a couple of hours here and there to carry on on Meritaten. Not only due time constraints but mainly for shitty weather my boatyard visits were short and few.

Small, not headlines-making jobs like re-drilling and banging old screw holes in pentry area. I have few hundreds small mahogany plugs and now was the time to install many of them.

To keep me from being bored by that I frequently encountered stubborn old screws which could not be removed. Probably set in epoxy. Fortunately they were brass so I can let them be, just cut their heads flush.

It’s too cold to use epoxy so I switched to PU-glue, rated for outdoor use. For furniture inside the cabin epoxy strength is not really required.

I took as much as possible home, to work in warm and dry conditions.
Kitchen box plates were sanded and cleaned in the boatyard and taken home for varnishing. My family was not exactly happy seeing our bedroom as varnish workshop for many days.

Good training before coming annual hull varnishing on Meritaten. It reminded me again how calming and contemplative this process is - even though, to keep wet edge, one needs to work really fast. Epoxy-coating is a piece of cake compared to varnishing.

Pentry plates should be ready by tomorrow so I started preparing traditional coating to be put between new plates and current kitchen furniture. Last month visit in Annell Båtvarv inspired me to use this old method. And the fact that Anders is also a beekeeper, like me, added to that!

Recipe is simply beeswax with linseed oil, with added some kind of biocide. In my case I use Ettan which contains tjära and beeswax. I add chunks of Ettan into linseed oil and top it with a bit of used turpentine left from brush cleaning after varnishing. This way everything has it’s usage.

Contrary to bitumen-based pastes this mixture does not attract water and stays humid-free. It is used on wood-wood or wood-metal interfaces which are not exposed to high heat - like between frames and hull or inside the cabin.

A jar with chopped Ettan in linseed oil sat in a pot with hot water. Wax started to dissolve slowly.

After an hour the smelly goo was ready - while hot it has a thin, oily consistence.

When allowed to cool down into room temperature it becomes creamed-honey paste, easy to distribute over the surface yet not dripping.

Today I went to the boatyard to check the situation after recent storm. On the way I saw few trees broken by wind so I was nervous about my small workshop standing in the plain. Luckily it survived with no harm and Glypto greeted me with her Owatrol-shiny freeboards.

I took some thick mahogany plywood from this storage and went to Meritaten. I got this plywood from Rosättra båtvarv for free and now it will become really handy in constructing hanging table in the main cabin.

Originally I planned to substitute the box-like table with a new one, made from teak I got from Tze. After giving this more thoughts and inspecting my old table I dismissed the idea - old table is heavy and solid, made from massive mahogany with handy dove-tailed box for storing things when folded. The only problem with it were legs - wobbly! The idea was smart: double-bent brass pipes supporting the table were mounted in bilge, on floors timber. All brass and massive. Table could be swung to the side when not in use, giving free passage to fo’c’s’le.
Unfortunately - it was unstable. We had to be careful with the table while eating because any mistake in using the table as a support while moving around resulted in the mess when the table started to move!

That’s where the new table idea came from and now back to square one - the same table but mounted on the bulkhead, permanently. It will no longer swing but will be stable. I made simulations today to see where to mount it so that there is a passage up-front and still the crew can sit comfortably. Some reinforcements of the mount will be needed but I have enough mahogany to build it quickly.
And I will not have to drill holes in my brand new cabin sole!

So as to not waste the fact that I’m on Meritaten I took engine door/cockpit sole hatches and sanded them for coming varnishing.

Having freshly opened can of varnish at home (Epifanes!) and all setup in place it is a good opportunity to do them now. I didn’t varnish them last year and they got heavy beating by Sun and rain last summer - it was high time to re-coat them. I was just too lazy to unscrew brass handles but even with them in place varnishing went smooth and effect is pleasing.