John and RJ trekked between home and the shop periodically into the evening last night, keeping the U22 wet with the two-part Daly’s Wood Bleach we are using, particularly in areas that resisted the bleach.
The result this morning is an albino mahogany U22.
The bleach raises the grain, which is a singular plus for applying the Interlux Interstain in a couple of days.
Once the hull has reached 12-15 percent as measured by our moisture meter, we will lightly hand sand the feathers raised by the bleach, clean the surface with tack clothes and stain using the Danenberg two brown to one red mahogany stain.
CPES will follow. Sikaflex will fill the deck seams, and then, finally, we can begin varnishing the hull.
The bleaching milestone is about to disappear into our wake!
Starting very, very early this morning, John and I began bathing the 1946 U22’s entire exterior and interior surfaces with Daly’s Two-Part Wood Bleach. RJ joined us soon thereafter. (Daly’s is good, but nothing can match Clean Strip Two-Part Wood Bleach for bleaching mahogany! Unfortunately, Clean Strip is no longer available. Word is that it had to do with running afoul of hazmat shipping regulations.)
The key is keeping the wood wet for an extended period of time, and not applying one coat and calling it good. The wood must be kept wet, at least 8-12 hours in our experience, and this boat feels like it doubled in size as we raced around with our pails of bleach and 3-inch foam brushes. (We use foamies rather than chip brushes. Doing so helps guard against applying excessive liquid, especially to vertical surfaces, and thereby allowing rivulets of bleach run down and leave blonde streaks behind.
For the same reason, after applying a first coat to the decks, covering boards and cockpit components, we attach the topsides and transom from the waterline up. That way there is no chance that rivulets of bleach runs down and onto dry wood, which almost certainly will leave a blonde streak behind.
Because the first coat absorbs very quickly, we also apply bleach in tandem, working around the hull until all surfaces have been thoroughly wetted. Then the three of us work different areas, applying bleach until the surface glistens and stays that way.
That the U22 offers seemingly endless surface is evidenced by the fact that, as this clip closes we have applied 1.5 two-gallon kits.
We now leave her alone for several hours, before we will apply more bleach if the process seems to be losing momentum.
It has now been about one year since the 1946 Chris-Craft Brightside U22 arrived at the shop. Our initial Scope of Work involved installing a True 5200 bottom and cleaning up some cosmetic issues. Our goal was to have her back home in the Muskoka Lake Region of Ontario, Canada and ready for the 2017 boating season.
It was not to be. Once flipped, we had a dickens of a time getting the hull to sit squarely on a pair of boat dollies. Sadly, she was twisted. The project grew.
Then, having released two layers of bottom planking and the keel, that she had serious structural issues, starting with the chines and chine frames, and continuing through almost all of her bottom and transom framing. The project grew again, and, at this point we and her super-supportive owner family knew we were in for a major preservation project.
Now, one year later, her hull is true, she sports a True 5200 bottom and new chines. Most recently, John has focused on stripping the decks, covering boards, and everything finished bright in the cockpit. He released all of the white Sikaflex-like material in the deck seams and sharpened the seams’ edges using a variety of reefing hooks.
Every split, dent and ding in the topsides, transom, decks and covering boards has undergone John’s Dutchman-repair procedure. We saved every piece of original wood in the process. The entire surface has been sanded with 40, 60 and 80 grits using a Hutchins longboard sander. Since it is Friday, when the shop typically closes at noon, we very likely will hold off launching our bleaching process until Monday.
We’ll give the hull the better part of a week, maybe longer, to dry to our target 12-15 percent reading on our moisture meter.
Then we will stain, launching another milestone into our wake in the process. Two to three days later we will seal all surfaces with multiple coats of CPES, give it forty-eight hours to cure, and then the fun truly begins. Once the Sikaflex seams are filled and the material cures, which takes several days, we can commence with varnishing!
There is nothing like that first coat of varnish for transforming a dull, stained hull into the beginning of the mirror-like gloss we will deliver some twenty to twenty-five coats later.
A Christmas completion is not out of the question. Yes!
We are so close to bleaching the 1946 Chris-Craft brightside U22’s hull, decks, transom, etc.
However, as is all too often the case she wants a bit more of John’s attention. He inspected the fore and aft decks, the tow rails and the covering boards, only to identify scores of small dings, divots and scratches. Thank goodness for Jamestown Distributors’ Thixo Wood 2.0, to which John added a bit of stain and used to fill and will soon fair all these little repairs.
Of course, nobody would see many of these from 10 feet away, but having discovered them, I agreed with John that only by addressing every one of them, however small, could we deliver work that meets our standards for craftsmanship.
Then we discovered that the plank supporting the center plank of the aft deck had been chewed away beneath the gas bung and stern pole ports. Amidst lots of muttering as he was showered by router shavings as he lay on his back carving out a channel for the supporting patches he fashioned and glued into place.
The two small Dutchman repairs to the plank completed the process, and John next reached for his trusty Hustler longboard pneumatic sander.
Another milestone, well, almost fading in our wake. John has a bit of Sikaflex to release from foredeck seams before he can insert a few Dutchman repairs on the decks and covering boards and then sand all of these surfaces one last time.
Then it’s bleaching time with staining and sealing with CPES to follow.
It won’t be long before we are filling seams with Sikaflex and varnishing.
I just checked. Our first video, the 1946 Chris-Craft brightside U22, arriving from Canada, is dated May 23, 2016. We flipped her about a month later, which tells me we’ve had her upside down for over a year!
That fact makes today’s milestone particularly sweet for us, and even more for her owner! As you can see in the clip, we use a winch and length of soft line that wraps around the hull and is secured to a bilge stringer, to control the rate at which she turns. She represents a huge mass, one that will have lots of momentum should it begin rolling uncontrollably.
To our surprise, however, she behaved herself while RJ and I rolled her almost effortlessly.
The real challenge is keeping her upright and stable once she has flipped. Her widest and heaviest components are now above the straps, and they really, really want to roll through 90 degrees.
Didn’t happen though, and she’s now happily resting on a pair of boat dollies as we begin stripping “everything else” at and above the gunwales.
An odd silence engulfed the shop once we had her resting on her dollies and back in her work station. For the first time in over a year, we, and especially John, were viewing down into her bilge from above, rather than up into it while lying on our backs beneath her. John finally exclaimed, “I can see the results of all my framing work right side up for the first time!”
While we’ve had some comments that all that bracing was at best overkill and probably not necessary, remember that the hull arrived with a huge hog and what I call corkscrewed. We took no chances once we had the hull true again.
That bracing ensured that she would not get twisted again. So now comes the Circa 1859 Heavy Bodied Paint and Varnish Remove, Sandvik scrapers, stainless steel scrubbing sponges, and reefing hooks with which we will remove all remaining varnish on the decks, covering boards, dash, etc., and what we suppose is Sikaflex from the deck seams. Varnish cannot be that far away …. Can it?
Thank you for the many requests for a video-taped Dutchman “clinic” that follows John through the process of fabricating and executing Dutchman topside repairs.
As several earlier ’46 Brightside U22 videos have illuminated, John begins by inspecting every square inch of the topsides, marking any spot or area requiring cosmetic attention/repairs with blue painter’s tape.
The Dutchman begins with cutting the channel or slot in a plank using a plunge router, or what is the female component of the Dutchman. A key to achieving an invisible Dutchman is that the slot run with the grain to the maximum extent possible.
After cleaning and carefully defining the slot’s edges and shape using hand chisels and selecting a piece of old mahogany having color and grain properties similar to the plank being repaired, John fabricates the plug, sanding on it until it fits perfectly.
It is subsequently glued in place using Jamestown Distributors’ TotalBoat Thixo Wood 2.0 to which a bit of the stain we will use on the hull has been added.
As we detailed in the last video, stirring stick “stitches” that will hole the plug in place, are secured by wood screws passing into countersinks from which those securing the plank have been removed.
Twenty-four or so hours later, the Thixo Wood 2.0 has cured, the “stitches” are removed and John fairs the plug to the plank with a wood chisel. He leaves the blue painter’s tape in place as a depth guide for his chisel.
Finally the tape is removed, screws are driven home into the countersinks, bungs are inserted and glued in place using Thixo Wood 2.0, and the area is ready for sanding.
We hope to have the topsides and transom sanded, and the hull flipped upright sometime next week.
Following this morning’s video update on the Dutchman repairs John is executing on the port topsides of the 1946 Chris-Craft Brightside U22, he reached for a heavy, 1-inch chisel and began shaving each repair and its associated TotalBoat Thixo Wood 2.0 two-part squeeze-out until it was fair with the topside planking.
He then ensured there will be zero voids in the seam around each Dutchman.
John release the bungs using a Rota Broach, which increased the diameter of several countersinks, so, rather than using Gorilla Glue, which is cures blonde, he used the same tinted Thixo Wood 2.0 as the adhesive.
He will shave the bungs fair using a Japanese cabinet makers saw, at which time the port topsides will be ready for final longboard sanding.
Once he has completed Dutchman repairs on starboard and sanded it fair, we will flip her over and strip the decks, covering boards et al, sand these surfaces fair and be ready for bleach.
So … you have the slots dadoed and the Dutchmen shaped and trimmed to a perfect fit, all 14 of them on the port topsides in our 1946 Chris-Craft Brightside U22.
Using Jamestown Distributors’ Total Boat Thixo Wood 2.0 two-part epoxy, it is now time for gluing them in place. (We rely on Thixo Wood for all such applications. It contains wood fibers, mixes easily, and issues from the 10 oz. caulking tube in a hue that mimics unstained mahogany incredibly well. (We do add a bit of Interlux Interstain Filler Stain while mixing, which ensures that it disappears when we stain the hull.)
That Thixo Wood 2.0 delivers incredibly strong bonds seals the deal for us.
But how are all those Dutchmen secured in place while the epoxy cures? Standing before you is the broad, smooth expanse of the U22’s port topsides. The bottom paint has been applied and cured. These Dutchmen must be clamped tightly into their slots for a permanent repair.
I will ask again, “But how? Ever resourceful, John released selective bungs and fasteners around each Dutchman and then reached for paint stirring sticks and longer #8 wood screws.
As you see in the clip, after he carefully masks the topsides around each slot, John applies the Thixo Wood 2.0 to the Dutchman and drives it home with a rubber mallet. He then secures each Dutchman with a series of “stitches,” having first placed a sheet of wax paper between the Dutchman-epoxy surface and the wood paint sticks.
The repairs are allowed to cure for at least eight hours, at which time all the stitches are removed.
New silicon bronze screws are driven home and bungs are glued into the countersinks that were released for stitching purposes.
With the wax paper released, John will next carefully chisel each Dutchman, which are fabricated to be proud of the topside surface, until it is fair with that surface.
Now final sanding can begin, followed by flipping her upright.
Once we have stripped the decks and covering boards, bleaching, staining, sealing and, yes, varnishing (!) will follow.
For now John still faces executing five or so Dutchman repairs on the starboard topsides. In the end, though time-intensive, insisting on using a Dutchman strategy, allows us to save every plank on her topsides, transom, decks and covering boards. Every plank that someone replaces is a bit of originality and history lost forever. We save old wood boats rather than transforming them into new “old” boats.
