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Wrought iron hull vs steel pros and cons?


Darrenroberts

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47 minutes ago, Darrenroberts said:

Oh nice is the timber sawn and kiln dried? Or left in stick? 

I've only ever bought sawn kiln dried myself (spent all day yesterday machining some utile) and that's all they list. However  they're a huge outfit so could possibly supply it green if you wanted :)

Edited by WotEver
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7 hours ago, WotEver said:

Our local specialist timber merchant holds stock of European Elm and it's not even prohibitively expensive. 

 
Thicknesses Available:
1", 1.5", 2", 2.5", 3" & 4"
Sizes available:
4" & wider, 6' & longer

4" and wider doesn't sound very hopeful. For boat bottoms you need boards 3" thick 7 ft long and at least 9-12" wide so that you can get a couple of bolts into each end of each plank (and not have too many joints to caulk).

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16 minutes ago, David Mack said:

4" and wider doesn't sound very hopeful.

4" & wider means just that - 4" is the narrowest stock size they sell.

For instance I've just recently bought some utile. They list that as being available '100mm and wider' with length '1.8m and longer'. I needed some at 250mm wide which they supplied cut from a 4.8m length. 

You'd need to call them and see what larger elm stock they have. 

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On 22/05/2017 at 11:23, mross said:

But was the surveyor a specialist?  Wrought iron can't be welded (with limited exceptions).  Repairs would need to be riveted.  There are not many places left doing riveting.  In a collision, if some rivets failed, it could sink quickly.  That does not mean that a riveted boat is weak.  SS Great Britain was a good example.

I know several boat builders who seem to manage it quite well.

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Just now, Darrenroberts said:

oh perfecto, missed it thanks for the info.

They're not the cheapest - around 15% more than some suppliers - but their quality is good and the colour and grain matching is excellent. 

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There is a boat called Autarky, there was an article about it in one of the canal mags some time back, part old, part new, started off at about 8 foot wide and a strip taken out of the middle.

 

You can read about it here https://issuu.com/sancor/docs/autarky_jan_2016_new_boat_historic_

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11 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

I know several boat builders who seem to manage it quite well.

Who builds boats out of wrought iron????  Anyway, I still say trying to weld on old wrought iron is problematic.  

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12 hours ago, mross said:

Who builds boats out of wrought iron????  Anyway, I still say trying to weld on old wrought iron is problematic.  

I wasn't suggesting that anyone builds boats out of wrought iron, but that there are quite a few accomplished boatbuilders who also repair old working boats, some of which have iron plate hulls.

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On 22/05/2017 at 11:23, mross said:

But was the surveyor a specialist?  Wrought iron can't be welded (with limited exceptions).  Repairs would need to be riveted.  There are not many places left doing riveting.  In a collision, if some rivets failed, it could sink quickly.  That does not mean that a riveted boat is weak.  SS Great Britain was a good example.

My welded together in 1935 wrought iron boat would beg to differ! :) since then, it has had two rebottomings and refootings in steel and neither has fallen off yet.

On 22/05/2017 at 11:23, mross said:

But was the surveyor a specialist?  Wrought iron can't be welded (with limited exceptions).  Repairs would need to be riveted.  There are not many places left doing riveting.  In a collision, if some rivets failed, it could sink quickly.  That does not mean that a riveted boat is weak.  SS Great Britain was a good example.

My welded together in 1935 wrought iron boat would beg to differ! :) since then, it has had two rebottomings and refootings in steel and neither has fallen off yet.

On 22/05/2017 at 11:23, mross said:

But was the surveyor a specialist?  Wrought iron can't be welded (with limited exceptions).  Repairs would need to be riveted.  There are not many places left doing riveting.  In a collision, if some rivets failed, it could sink quickly.  That does not mean that a riveted boat is weak.  SS Great Britain was a good example.

My welded together in 1935 wrought iron boat would beg to differ! :) since then, it has had two rebottomings and refootings in steel and neither has fallen off yet.

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22 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

There is a boat called Autarky, there was an article about it in one of the canal mags some time back, part old, part new, started off at about 8 foot wide and a strip taken out of the middle.

 

You can read about it here https://issuu.com/sancor/docs/autarky_jan_2016_new_boat_historic_

I wrote it last year

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When we first bought Meteor in the nineties it was my understanding that the hull like many of the early small boats had been made with coppered iron. The boat was refooted shortly afterwards using IIRC 10mm steel. This in 2017 is showing significant pitting whilst the hull looks much as it always did. The steel is probably acting as an anode. Regards, HughC.

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7 hours ago, hughc said:

When we first bought Meteor in the nineties it was my understanding that the hull like many of the early small boats had been made with coppered iron. The boat was refooted shortly afterwards using IIRC 10mm steel. This in 2017 is showing significant pitting whilst the hull looks much as it always did. The steel is probably acting as an anode. Regards, HughC.

How have you fixed that problem Hugh? 

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One of the most important things, when buying an old boat, is the width.

Many ex working boats were built to a smidgeon over 7' beam, and now that locks are starting to bulge inwards, there are places you might struggle. For example, we were stuck for 45 minutes in Napton lock 9 recently, and needed a snatch from another boat and the attention of the CRT section supervisor flushing with the paddles to get out. My boat is 7' 3/8" and has been throigh plenty of times in the past. 

Anything above, say, 7' 1" will really struggle in quite a few places.

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7 hours ago, FadeToScarlet said:

One of the most important things, when buying an old boat, is the width.

Many ex working boats were built to a smidgeon over 7' beam, and now that locks are starting to bulge inwards, there are places you might struggle. For example, we were stuck for 45 minutes in Napton lock 9 recently, and needed a snatch from another boat and the attention of the CRT section supervisor flushing with the paddles to get out. My boat is 7' 3/8" and has been throigh plenty of times in the past. 

Anything above, say, 7' 1" will really struggle in quite a few places.

Thanks for the heads up she's a reported 7ft at her widest point.....iam defiantly going to check before exchanging money. 

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6 hours ago, Darrenroberts said:

Thanks for the heads up she's a reported 7ft at her widest point.....iam defiantly going to check before exchanging money. 

The 'thing' to consider is not 'the widest point' but if there is any 'banana effect' over the length, making the 'effective' width considerably more.

There have been a number of cases of Liverpool boats (well under 7 foot beam) that cannot access the Llangollen due to being unable to fit into the locks - on measuring they have found to be 'Friday afternoon' boats and about as straight as a 'nine-bob note'.

A more 'elderly' boat may have gone thru several refits, prangs, or even had bits removed or added and will suffer from middle age spread &/or distortion.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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17 hours ago, Darrenroberts said:

How have you fixed that problem Hugh? 

We haven't as yet. As soon as the dock is free we'll have a good look. The 'best' answer would I suppose be to remove the footings and weld or rivet a new  section by each knee which was where the corrosion had taken place because of coal dust packed between the knee and the side of the boat. Finding coppered iron to make the repairs might be difficult. As there is still  a considerable thickness of metal remaining we will probably weld up the largest pits which will of course be only postponing the problem. Interestingly we had fiitted anodes to protect the replacement steel helm and these have completely disappeared. Regards HughC.

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3 hours ago, hughc said:

We haven't as yet. As soon as the dock is free we'll have a good look. The 'best' answer would I suppose be to remove the footings and weld or rivet a new  section by each knee which was where the corrosion had taken place because of coal dust packed between the knee and the side of the boat. Finding coppered iron to make the repairs might be difficult. As there is still  a considerable thickness of metal remaining we will probably weld up the largest pits which will of course be only postponing the problem. Interestingly we had fiitted anodes to protect the replacement steel helm and these have completely disappeared. Regards HughC.

Wow so the anodes had completely dissolved over how many years? Did you notice they where getting hit hard when you (persumably) brought her out for blacking the previous time? The boat am looking at needs a new interior so I was going to start from nearly scratch lol first on my list (or very close to the top) would be I have the floor up and see what's going on under there but I realy hope the knees would be OK? Lol how do you check that before buying? 

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In my younger years I've owned several Dutch built working barges made of iron in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and I've been around many others too.

In the 50's and 60's many of these old iron barges were lenghtened with a welded section in the middle, which was welded on both sides of the cuts to the old iron sections.

They had to use special rods, but I've never seen or heard of any of these barges sinking- or breaking because of problems with the welds.

The only week point of an iron barge is that the iron becomes more brittle in the winter, and instead of denting when they hit something too hard, the iron will crack.

Normally these old barges are less likely to rust, one I owned that was built in 1897 still had her original bottom plating, she too had been lenghtened in the 60's with a steel 10meter section, she's still well afloat now near Venice.

Peter.

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4 hours ago, bargemast said:

In my younger years I've owned several Dutch built working barges made of iron in the late 1800's and early 1900's, and I've been around many others too.

In the 50's and 60's many of these old iron barges were lenghtened with a welded section in the middle, which was welded on both sides of the cuts to the old iron sections.

They had to use special rods, but I've never seen or heard of any of these barges sinking- or breaking because of problems with the welds.

The only week point of an iron barge is that the iron becomes more brittle in the winter, and instead of denting when they hit something too hard, the iron will crack.

Normally these old barges are less likely to rust, one I owned that was built in 1897 still had her original bottom plating, she too had been lenghtened in the 60's with a steel 10meter section, she's still well afloat now near Venice.

Peter.

Yes, that is my understanding. I have a Victorian cast iron hanging lamp at home which had to have a broken bracket welded. My friend did it at work, and twenty years ago, and the rods cost a pound an inch (or so he told me!!)

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37 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

Yes, that is my understanding. I have a Victorian cast iron hanging lamp at home which had to have a broken bracket welded. My friend did it at work, and twenty years ago, and the rods cost a pound an inch (or so he told me!!)

Your friend must have been not only a good welder David, but also a very good fairy tale teller, these rods were quite special, but not that special, at the time if I remember rightly, they cost a bit more than twice the price of the more sort of standard rods that were used at the yards.

 

For the price he told you the rods will have to be a mixture of superglue and golddust  :)

 

Peter.

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