Vintage Boat Preservation
Yes, this video is long by YouTube standards, but we have been receiving calls, emails and texts asking us to shoot a video focusing on paying Sikaflex into deck seams the Snake Mountain Boatworks way.
Here it is. I hope it fills in the gaps, if you will excuse a terrible pun.
I cannot tell you how satisfying it is for the crew to finally gaze on the fruits of months and months of hard work and painstaking attention to every detail when we debut a boat who has completed or nearly completed her preservation, as is the case with this 1955 20′ Lyman runabout today.
We have chronicled her progress from the dirty, tired-looking boat we pulled out of a one-story barn in Charlotte, VT a couple of years ago through today, her debut.
Now, we are not completely finished. As you will see in this clip, her brass stem trim, and her stainless transom trim and rub and splash rails must be installed. Installing the helm seat benches and the trim that closes the seam between the ceilings and floor panels await a few more coats of varnish. The rebuild kit for the water pump is “in transit.” And there is some minor touch-up here and there we will attend to soonest.
Our upholsterer is nearly finished fabricating the helm and aft seat bench and back, and the engine box lid cushions. She is matching the combination of a very light Lyman tan body with almost crimson trim.
The 2006 Venture trailer has surge brakes, and will soon have its custom-fabricated bow tower installed.
But she’s 99% ready for prime time, and especially for her sea trials, if ever the ice finally melts in Lake Champlain. At that moment she will be available for inspection and to ride her beautiful Venture trailer to her new port.
Very few of Century Boat Company’s “Cowhide” Palominos with their distinctive Avodire decks and glossy black topsides and covering boards were built in 1956. Fewer still have survived. Hull No. P5652 is one that did, along with her original Tee Nee trailer and 30 HP Johnson Sea Horse outboard.
As we have observed during her preservation, she is the single most original Century we have seen to date at Snake Mountain Boatworks. Our work was purely a cosmetic preservation as nary a single piece of wood has been replaced. We saved, polished and re-used every hardware fastener. All of the hardware is original, having been prepped and plated by New England Chrome Plating, East Hartford, CT.
Fran Secor, noted Johnson rebuilder and restorer, has been able to save her original engine. As of today he’s completed all of the mechanical work and much of the final painting and assembly. Would a larger engine propel her more quickly? Yes, but it would not be original. Save for her seat cushions, all of the upholstery is original, and those cushions were fabricated by A&A Marine using material from a NOS bolt of period cowhide fabric, sourced from the firm that supplied Century during the mid-1950s.
While we have, and her new owner(s) will receive her original burgee and stern flags, neither of them could survive even one roar across the water. We found an identical stern flag from the same period, and had Dave at A&A Marine fabricate two burgees, the black-on-white one that you see in this clip, and the more traditional white-on-red background burgee resting on the helm cushions. Her Tee Nee trailer is about half-way through a complete restoration that began with it being completely disassembled, sandblasted and primed with metal etching primer, and is now being in brilliant Ford chrome yellow two-part epoxy.
We are racing to have her ready for her new owners before the ice leaves Lake Champlain. Meeting that goal is made easier by the fact that we still have over 2 feet of ice on the Lake.
Wow! Is this an exciting day or what? We ran all sorts of tests and this 1955 Chrysler flathead six passed them all.
The Carter MO 1531 fuel pump diaphragm is working, but we sighted some seepage, so we will rebuild it. (It stopped leaking after we ran the engine for 10 minutes, but it so much easier to rebuild it with the engine sitting on its stand than later, when it is down in the bilge.)
The JABSCO 3590 water pump is, well, pumping, but a service kit is on its way to the shop. This engine has not run for a decade, so that impeller’s fins have almost surely stiff and permanently bent over.
She holds 50 pounds of oil pressure. The thermostat functions properly.
We installed a Pertronix ignition kit and six new plugs. Even though the oil in the sump came out clear and clean, we drained it, replaced the oil filter and filled it with 30 weight.
Now is the moment of truth! Will she fire? If/when she fires, will she run? Yes and yes. As you will see in the clip she starts well, idles absolutely smoothly and accelerates without any stumbling.
Once the rebuilds are complete and we have thoroughly cleaned the engine, into the bilge it will go.
Project completion is peeking over the horizon, as are the 20-24 inches and raging nor-easter forecast to arrive tomorrow morning.
All is good!
Carvel planked construction leaves spaces in the seams between the planks that are traditionally caulked with cotton caulking. Here I am about one-third finished caulking Roxanne’s topsides, and share how I go about this process with you
The tools are very low-tech: two caulking irons, a plastic-headed hammer, a smallish plastic pail and a hank of rope. The cotton caulking arrives packed in one-pound packages of loosely coiled “rope.”
Before the caulking begins, I roll the cotton into balls somewhere between a large orange and a small grapefruit in size. After dropping a couple of balls into the bucket, hanging it around my neck, I grab the hammer and sharper, smaller of the two irons and proceed with step one of stuffing the seams with cotton caulking.
The goal in this first step is to create what looks all the works like braided rope. The cotton passes through the palm of my hand and beneath the iron, as I successively capture approximately one-inch-long lengths against the plank below the seam, slide it up into place and drive it home with a couple of taps of the hammer. It is amazing the rhythm that begins to take hold: grab, slide, tap, tap; and over and over until the entire length of the seam is filled. Then, using the blunter, wider iron set at an angle, I attack the “rope” and drive it home until the cotton disappears into the seam.
Once all seams are filled, the cotton and edges of each seam must receive a copious coat of oil-base paint, preferable one that is consistent with whatever the final topside paint will be, We will use Interlux Pre-Kote on Roxanne since our topcoat will be Interlux Premium Yacht enamel 220 — semi-gloss white.
Before we can begin our finish painting, however, we will fill and fair all of the seams using Interlux white Seam Compound above, and Davis Slick Seam below the waterline.
We broke for lunch, after which it was time for RJ and me to mount the windshield back on this 1955 20′ Lyman runabout’s foredeck. First, however, we faced a critical test. Did our dado-routing procedure work?
With the two front panels in place, the gasket material cut to length, and holding our individual and collective breath more than a little, we began working around the frame, pushing the spade into its slot.
Everything went super smoothly, as this clip evidences. We can now safely say that, even absent the Sandusky plant’s tooling, the window-sealing dado can be routed into the frame.
We now have it in place and fastened down. As I type, RJ is behind me inserting a bead of mahogany-colored 3M 5200 into the seam formed where the outer edged of the frame meets the deck. After allowing it to cure, we will apply our own stain-varnish.
Installing the tank and its related plumbing, followed by the seats is next. It will not be too long before we have the engine in the bilge and be waiting for spring when she can emerge from the shop on her way to her sea trials on Lake Champlain
Our attention turns to a task on the 1955 20′ Lyman runabout that, in truth, has been hanging “heavy, heavy over our heads” for some time. The windshield glass on old style Lymans of which this one is an example was originally secured with extruded aluminum stops that are no longer available.
Since these stops were secured with small oval-headed brads, Lyman never cut dado channels in the rabbets. Indeed, this boat’s glass was secured with glazing points and some sort of window caulk that had been stained a “Lymanesque” brown when I purchased her.
Conversations with Tom Koroknay and members of the New England Lyman Group (NELG) all pointed to only one solution: rout the dado into the rabbet and secure the glass with standard, single-spade, white Lyman molding.
“All” we needed to do was rout the dado. The solution, we hoped, would be provided by a 3-fluke router bit slot cutter by CMT. We placed the bearing on the outer end of the shank, with the cutter inside it. Shim washers positioned the cutter precisely so that the glass fits behind the slot and the spade can be pushed into it.
Everything looked good on paper and also on the test piece we made, but that windshield frame, especially the top sections over the front sheets of glass, just looked so fragile. We hedged our bets by building a rough jig to which we could mount the frame using its mounting holes.
In the end, someone had to grab the router and go. John stepped up and masterfully guided the router around all four openings. We have now installed the two front sheets of glass and will install the whole thing on the boat before adding glass to the wings.
Phew! Fabricating an entire windshield would NOT have been fun.
This 1967 Century Palomino’s decks were completely released so we could gain access to the areas beneath. With all of the framework complete, and everything sealed and coated in multiple coats of Sandusky Paints Mahogany Bilge paint, the deck planking has been re-fastened with silicon bronze Frearson head wood screws
Next we inserted mahogany and Avodire bungs, making sure that each bung’s grain was aligned with that of the plank. Gorilla Glue ensures a waterproof bond is established
But then we have a sea of bungs standing proud of the deck. Each must be cut flush to the planking. This clip is a response to the many questions we have received about how we do it at SMB. Well, we tried all manner of high-end chisels, honed to a razor’s edge. No matter how carefully we sliced through each bung, some would break off below the plank’s surface, which meant digging them out and inserting new bungs
And then there would be the inevitable, “Oh s….!” Someone had slipped and gouged the plank. No matter how good you get at it, filling a gouge means a bruise remains, one that seems to jump out at anyone who looks carefully at the surface
And it was slow and tense.
Now we are standardized on the VERITAS flush-cut hand saw. It is incredibly sharp, and with zero offset to the teeth, these saws cut the bung off precisely at the surface without marring it. Time means cost to our clients, so the fact that we can excise 400 or so bungs per hour with these saws also makes us more competitive
We experimented with less expensive brands, like Stanley, but in every case rejected them because at least one tooth was offset just enough that we got scratches in our test planks.
Once again David Irving and his Bone Yard Boats has proven to be an invaluable channel for helping owners of great old wooden boats find and move them to new owners who are committed to doing the heavy lifting required for comprehensive preservation of these elegant ladies of yesteryear.
Now, based on the Century Boats Facebook page and speaking with Dave at A&A Marine, it seems I erred in characterizing this boat as a Palomino. In fact, it appears that she is a Pinto with horsehide upholstery, which makes total sense given how Pinto horses are marked. And her hull number, P 5652, suggests that she was actually manufactured in 1956, not 1957.
Here she is in her as-found debut at Snake Mountain Boatworks. With her hull number stamped on her transom, and as complete and unhurt as a 55 year-old boat can possibly be.
Lyman built 147 20′ runabouts in 1955, and this boat, complete with her original Chrysler Crown 115 engine, is among the survivors.
According to Tom Korknay’s Legend of the Lakes, she is “(t)he last vestige of the heavily built, prewar boats, they featured narrow strakes, a deep freeboard, and 13/16 inch by 7/8 inch white oak ribs placed 5 inches on center. They were constructed of plywood hulls and decks with a sold mahogany transom like the 18-foot version.” (pp 95, 96)
She has been featured in earlier clips as the boat from whom we removed over 95 pounds of paint from the topsides.
Today, with preservation of her hull, inside and out, and from keel to gunwales complete, we moved her into our showroom for reassembly of her “furniture” and hardware, all of which has been preserved and plated by New England Chrome in East Hartford, CT.