Little Pal

The page 1914 - 2013 I just added is from the paper work I have for Teal, It is word for word from the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall and has some interesting history on Teal as well as a list of all her registered owners so with any luck if any of there names are ever googled by themselves or their descendents it might just pop up.

Stern tube fitted

Well I'd give that 5 spanners in the Haynes manual of boat building. Three good days work
and the tube is finally in place. Its probably much easier to go through the sternpost if you
can but anyway I got there eventually. It would probably be a lot easier if there was a plank
out nearby so you could see where you are without climbing in and out of the boat every two
seconds.
In the end I got the two forward bolts just through the plank, one long one from the base of the
block in at an angle and up through a sawn frame and finally a coach bolt at the back through
into the deadwood although I still need to recess the head of that.
The shaft has ended up exactly where I wanted it so now its on to the engine beds, I also need to fit
a block to bolt the stern gland to.

Routing out the block

I glued it up with the Prefere 4050 which is what I've used on the masts, It is a replacement for Aerodux which cure down as cool as 10 degrees C which is very useful this time of year, its basically a Resorcinol resin, available from http://www.aircraftplywoodandtimber.co.uk/aircraft_adhesives.html
Great for stuff like aero props etc so thats good enough for me. 

Stern tube blocks and deck fittings

I got the piece of iroko to make the block to carry the stern tube this morning so I spent
most of the day getting that to seat nicely against the hull. I worked on the lower piece first
and got it to just touch the twine and fixed it temporarily in place. I then marked the line
of the shaft on it and fitted the top half.
I'm going to route out the two halves now for the tube before I glue them together. This should
be very accurate and it will save me the hassle of trying to drill it when its in place which I don't
fancy having to do.
I finally got round to refitting the deck fittings as well and Phil brought me in a prop which is a
better fit so I went ahead and bought it. Its a two blade and in much better condition than the
other one.

I will shave as much off it as possible once the tube has been fitted in it.

I need to make another little teak block for the end of the highfield lever to rest on or it might end up damaging the canvas

Teals mast

I finally knuckled down and got on with Teal's mast.
Its almost completely sanded and ready for varnish. Teal is becoming somewhat of a test bed
for different varnishes so in a few years I'll be an expert on what to use.
I gave the cabin sides a coat of Sikken's marine stain then 5 coats of International original.
The hatch has been finished in International Schooner Gold but its twice the price of original and
its not nice to apply so I'm done with that. For the toerails and rubbing strips I used the International
woodskin on, It seems a good idea for that stuff because its easy to recoat. Its suppose to be
good on masts as well but seeming as its a new product I'm not going to risk my mast to it.
The other mast I made I varnished with original but I like the sound of the Epifanes so if I can
find it somewhere I think I'll use that. It seems to be tried and tested and loved by the people that
have used it.

Its the nicest piece of timber I think I've ever used, completely knot free.

Drilling a hole.

Yea that was about it today, I spent a lot of time measuring and thinking and in the end I
drilled a hole. Its the pilot hole for the sterntube, I wanted to drill a pilot hole so I could run
a dowel through and get measurements for the prop and the block that needs to be shaped
to carry the sterntube.
The dowel wasn't straight enough so I ran twine through it instead and got all my measurements.
The prop I have is a bit big so I will find out about having it altered and I need to get some teak
and glue it up for the block. The shaft and sterntube I got will do nicely.

The coupling will sit just forward of the sawn frame, the front of the engine will be where the plywood is. 

Engine reassembly

Ok so I got a quote on some gaskets and shims for the engine and was about to order them
but when everything was included they suddenly seemed quite expensive.
I wanted 2 x 50 thou head gaskets and 3 x 5 thou shims. What I ended up with instead was
2 x 60 thou gaskets. I went ahead and followed the seemingly counter intuitive recommendations
in the manual.
Basically to find out your bump clearance they say to place some lead wire on the piston, put
in your new head gasket and torque the engine head, turn the engine over, then remove the heads
again and measure the wire which is suppose to be between 26 and 30 thou.
Seems very odd to compress the gasket then remove it again.
Anyway I measured the wire (piece of solder) and one cylinder was fine but the other had 38 thou
clearance. The solution is to have the cylinder barrel skimmed further but thankfully I managed to get
hold of a 50 thou gasket locally for the offending cylinder and that solved the problem.
I carried on and reassembled the rest of the engine, gave it an oil change and its now ready to test run
so hopefully that should be that.

The pieces of solder after being compressed

I don't have a micrometer so I had to use a vernier calipers which I then checked with a feeler gauge

Gaskets on with a little sealant around the water journals

Heads torqued and valve clearances set, It seems mad that the head bolts only get torqued to 22 lb ft.
In comparison the ones on the Boy Scott's engine are around 170 ft lbs, although there is somewhat of a size difference