23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver". Part IX.
Then you want a bung reamer, a tapered, gouge-shaped bitt, that will fit in a brace. Bore out all the black around the knot hole until it shows clear wood. Whittle pine or cedar plugs and drive them into these holes good and tight, and then saw them off flush. The plugs that fill the nail holes should be dipped into a shallow tin can cover like a lard pail cover of thick white lead paint and tapped in with a small hammer. Don't mash them in or they will swell out again like a sponge. The caulking of the planking comes next, and that, to my mind, is really more difficult than to plank the boat; that is, more difficult to tell the novice just how to do it, because you can't specify how much cotton, as the amateur seams are apt to be uneven in widths, and require a little in one place and a lot in another. You want just to fill the seam up tight and yet not jamb the planks apart. I could tell better by sitting around and hearing the sound of the, caulking mallet how well or how badly it was being done. The seams of the plank when put on should be slightly wedge-shaped, with the opening on the outside. Never fasten a plank on when the seam is wider inside than it is out. The water pressure is all from the outside, pushing on the cotton, and you want it to tighten as it is , pushed in, and not to loosen.
The cotton should be driven in about a quarter of an inch beyond the surface of the plank and after painting with thin white lead paint over the cotton and allowing this paint to set over night, fill these seams with putty.
Then smooth off the plank with a plane, sandpaper it well across the grain and after painting over each knot with shellac to keep the sap in the knot from discolouring the paint, give the hull a prime coat of paint, either red lead or white lead mixed thin, and then two coats of whatever colour you like.
If you want to do a nice job after you have once smoothed her all off, previous to painting, take a bucket of hot water and a big sponge and go all over her planking, soaking it well, and you will swell the grain and plugs, and if you then smooth her off again she will not become so rough due to the swelling when she is afloat for a few days. The framework for the cabin top, such as the openings for companionway slide and the skylight and the two hatches on the after deck, should then be fitted, and the beams for the cockpit floor fastened in place, but before these latter are secured, get out your motor foundation, notch it over the heavy oak floors, and bolt it solidly in place. If you have your motor it is a good plan to line it up now, before you box the boat in with too many bulkheads and other things. Get a plumber to make you a lead sleeve to go through the deadwood and flange it over at each end and tack it fast into a good white lead bed on the faces of the deadwood. Get out the mooring post forward and the two towing posts aft, of sound, dry, seasoned oak. Locust is better, if you can get it. Fasten the two after ones in and brace them under the beams, but leave the mooring post, after fitting it, until you have laid the 3/4-inch deck and stretched the canvas tightly over it.
First lay the deck, punch the nail heads in, plane down the seams, putty all the holes, and give it a good, thick coat of paint, and then stretch the canvas as tightly as you can. Pull it and tack it all around on the outer edge of the deck with copper tacks, and cover this edge, after it is painted, with a varnished half round oak molding.
After the mooring bitt is put through the hole in the deck turn the canvas up and tack it close around the bitt and the same with the skylight hatch frame; screw it down in white lead onto the canvas, and then turn the canvas up around the inside of the hatch and tack it fast to prevent leaking.
It is necessary to hold the boat in some other manner when you come to finish the topsides, as the overhead shores are in the way, so nail a couple of short blocks on each side onto her plank, so the nails go into a frame and brace up from the floor to these with shores. The oak covering boards around the edge of the after-deck are sawed out of 1-inch oak, and the deck laid of white pine planks 1 inch thick and 3 inches wide. Caulk and putty this deck and then plane, sandpaper and give it a coat of shellac.
A 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver".
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