New keel timber

We went and collected the new keel timber today, you can really see
the difference in this piece and the last, its a lovely straight grained
knot free 17.5 ft lenght of oak, well worth the extra cost by the looks
of it and the trailer did the trick wonderfully.
Now there is plenty of work to be done.

Metal working for timber

So we need to go to Tipperary to pick up our keel timber on Saturday
and my other trailer just isn't up to being dragged that distance and up
motorways so having failed to find one to borrow we decided to kill
two birds with one stone and finally build a trailer for the firefly that
would be capable of carrying the keel timber.
So two good days work later and we have a very over built dinghy
trailer and two problems solved.

Spokeshaving

Took down 4 frames and 3 doublers to do the final shaping on them today,
I got the frames pretty good and 2 of the doublers finished but couldn't go
any further, sore hands, sore shoulders and no lunch forced me home.
The process at the moment is
: cut out the old frames
: clear the paint and stopping from over the fastenings
: drive out the remainder of each fastening
: find and cut out frame replacement
: take them to the boat and shape them with the spokeshaves
: bring them home, finish the inner edge, finish sides with smoothing plane and
  paint
: ream out fastening holes and plug
: clean off plugs and glue, sand and paint the bare wood inside and out
: bolt in new doublers and futtocks, drill and fit with a few fastenings for the time
  being.

We will get there eventually. In fact the few frames I have done are the
most difficult and shapely of the lot.

Frame rotted through around the bolt, Pitch pine planking unharmed

Framing

I went to the boat for an hour this morning and cut out four more
frames and brought them home to find nice replacements and cut
them out roughly.
Its quite enjoyable work looking for suitable grained pieces and
cutting them out, in fact I enjoy the whole process of framing.
Just as well as this is far from the last of it to be done.
Next I will take them back to the boat and do the final shaping.

The old top section of the frame on the right has rot around the iron fastening that attaches the doubler so I'm making this futtock longer to compensate for it, It'll save me having to remove the upper half from under the beam shelf.

Doubling pieces

The first new pieces

Finally work on Teal is moving in the right direction and the first
of the new pieces got bolted and screwed in place today.
Four new lower futtocks three new doublers and one of the iron
floors are back in, the aft deadwood is also in place.
I only put in the deadwood so I could locate the floor at the right
height and frames at the right width but decided it could stay there.
I only fastened the worst stepped planking as I want to pull the
planks back in line but I don't want t fasten it fully until I know
which ones have to be changed. Next job will be removing the next
pair of frames.

Preparing for frames

Sections plugged, sanded and ready for primer

Section primed and ready for framing, The unpainted planks on the left are some that definitely need replacing

Plugged and primed to stop it drying too much

Sailplan

Teals layout pretty much to scale. She also has a top sail but I don't have a good image

 of it set

Wrought Iron

Its amazing stuff, Nearly a century in a bilge and nothing but some surface
rust.
This is one of the two we are keeping, the other five have just a bit too much
thinning on the lowest point to risk keeping them.

Given it a good coat of two pack primer and a coat zinc oxide (shed paint). I'll probably
bed them to the frames with hot tar which is what my book said to do.

Slow week

This has been just one of those weeks where not much got done,
mainly due to having no money and this and that.
I have managed to find a buyer for the keel timber we couldn't
use so I headed to the saw mill this morning to get it cut into
various size planks and pick up some more bendy stock for making
frames.
I have four futtocks ready to fit now and a load of plugs cut for filling
the fastening holes which I will hopefully get done tomorrow.
With those frames fitted I will then have to wait to get the new floors
so I can fit one and remove the next.
We have also paid the deposit on the new keel timber so will probably
be picking that up in the next couple of weeks.
Stay tuned ! :)