Wooden boat maintenance

[carlt]

On 2/16/2017 at 21:38, stagedamager said:

 

Give ade a shout at Alvecote as he is a fountain of knowledge and I believe the best wooden boat man on the cut.

 

Cannot argue with that with the possible exception of Ian Riley but they are working together now.

Edited February 27, 2017 by carlt
Because I can't get my head round the new site layout.

[Ian Mac]

Beware modern Oakum - we now get our oakum plain and threat it ourselves. The reason for this is that they swapped from using coal tar to using Stockholm tar about 10 years ago. This is all jolly fine if your at sea, and don't want your deck stained, however for inland waterways it rubbish as depending on the canal your on and the type of water the oakum rots and goes to mush!
This presents one with a problem now as selling coal tar in now illegal :-( So not sure where you will get good stuff from, there is nothing better than this for treating the wood, when mixed with pitch - also getting hard to obtain. Other stuff can be used but its no where near as good, We keep on experimenting but have not found a good substitute yet.

We now use air gun caulking its much faster, but the tools are not cheap. We have just redone all our bottoms, so we will see how good it is.

The one essential purchase is a hot glue gun, one uses this to fill all nail holes, when one removes bits of tin, etc.

Trying using plaster in the tar for the seams this time

Other people we have taught over the years beside Malcolm Webster and thus Ade are Chris Lear of the Wooden Boat society, well worth having a chat with them. Also talk to Chas Harding.
Welcome to the world of being a wooden boat owner.  By the way we come from the school of annual docking, to ensure all the seams are good, particularly the ones out of the water rain rots things for fun.

--
Cheers  Ian Mac
PS anyone got a spare bit of wood for a counter block. Ours is basically life expired.

 

[Ian Mac]

Liver Grease is normally the answer to oakum, as I understand it he is the main importer for northern Europe, and all others get it either directly or indirectly from them. Its taken many years of drinking tea with him to discover some of the tricks.
He also sells white lead power, which enables one to make, rather good red lead putty for sealing ones nail heads and bolts etc, haven't found anything which matches this yet. Stuff we did 40 odd years ago is still really good, shame about the rest of the planks!

We also have a rule now no metal goes on the boat unless its either stainless or heavily galvanised - no exceptions.

--
Cheers Ian Mac

[DHutch]

On 2/16/2017 at 21:47, David Mack said:

..... Billybobbooth, Ian Mac and Carlt come to mind.

I am quite sure Ian Mac and the rest of the owner of Spey would be very happy talk about their work on the boat and the methods they use for maintaining her.

My understand is they buy in raw oakum and treat it themselves as they find the commercially available materials are intended to cater for the sea going boats and do not provide the required constituents to prevent it rotting in fresh water.

*edit, post crossed as I had yet to read page two!

 

Daniel