Anthony began cleaning our 1047 U22’s bottom planks and sorting them into two groups – use and replace – yesterday. We usually unearth a few broken fasteners when stripping bottom planks, but never in our history have we discovered that more than seventy-five of them have snapped at the point where the threads and shank meet, or just about fair to the bottom frames. About half of the chine plank screws are snapped as well.
We can only surmise that the fasteners failed as a result of crashing into the rocky bottom, especially since virtually every screw in the aft third of the bottom snapped.
Bottom line, that most of the fasteners snapped during the crash tells us that the canvass lining and paint were all that was holding bottom planking planks in place. Ouch!
That said, Anthony must drill and use needle-nose Vice Grips to back out what remains embedded in the frames. We will then toothpick every hole using hardwood (ash) toothpicks dipped in Gorilla glue. This video from 2019 illustrates the process and what our U22 will look like once she has been “porcupined.” Once the glue has cured, we reach for our Fein MultiMaster Oscillating Cutting Tool to give her bottom and chine framing a “quill-cut.”
Then all the stubble will be sanded fair before we begin flooding the frames with Smith’s Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer.