Songbird is on her way back. Rick has roughed in what will become a solid white oak bottom bow.
Degreasing the keel is ongoing, and the process confirms that its oil/grease is on the surface only.
Joe has begun replacing all of the frames from the firewall to the transom on both port and starboard. Preserving these vessels requires endless skill, but also the ingenuity that Joe exhibited in reaching for and tapping frame members using a small ballpeen hammer. If/when a series of taps returned a spurt of oil to the surface, the frame in question has failed beyond reason and will be replaced.
The starboard chine frame must have “enjoyed” several destructive visits by our resident genius. Using twenty-four inches of quarter-inch Luan plywood and sheetrock screws does not a sister make. (This is even worse when those screws are being “driven” into wood that is rotted to powder through and through!)
Each of the boat outfits had their issues – think of Chris-Craft’s use of a “rule of thumb” instead of a ruler to lay-up its hulls, with the resulting horror that the two covering boards on the same boat can differ by an inch or more in length. However. Century’s strategy of using quarter-inch-thick strips of mahogany for laminating a bottom bow strip-by-strip with the strips being installed and glued-up piece by piece is perhaps the worst methodology we have encountered to date.
Each of the boat outfits had their issues – think of Chris-Craft’s use of a “rule of thumb” instead of a ruler to lay-up its hulls, with the resulting horror that the two covering boards on the same boat can differ by an inch or more in length.
Songbird will have come a long way towards being strong and true by week’s end.