Repairs to Merlin Rocket 3365

[podmeister]

Thanks rupert - that may just save me a few quid. I did get that info from the back of the tin. I believe the blakes varnish I have is their classic varnish. I avoided the hard wearing one as I assumed it would just provide a hindrance this winter.

Now I just need to find some epoxy filler - chandlery in Hull is closed on Tuesdays. Of all the days, its the one when I want to go spend some money with them.

I can see how this restoration lark can become a little addictive. I've only sanded a bit of hull and already I'm starting to get my plans in for the boat

[Ed]

Agree with David on repairs, but for myself I would try and saturate the wood first with something to harden it up.

So, pick off the old paint.

sand the edges.

librally apply some woodhardener or G4 or Blakes woodseal if you can find any....or a thin epoxy like eposeal....or maybe best just use some epoxy with a hotairgun to help the stuff flow into wood a bit. When hard, you can put on an epoxy/glass bubble filler, then sand and paint.

Is this too good a fix? maybe....and yes, some varnish would do, but I would worry about just putting filler on as unless the wood is ready for it, it will just fall out again. But to be honest, doing it with epoxy it would still only be an hour or two of work, so would take less time than the varnish drying.

Really a very beautiful boat. I love the colour. Look forwards to seeing you on the water.

cheers

eib

[podmeister]

Well I squeezed an afternoon out the office to go and tinker.

I've given everything another sanding today to make sure there was no loose bits of old paint. I also got the handy scraper hook and hot air gun out and had a good go round each bit as well.

I gave a very good friend of mine a quick call as he's built a couple of boats now as I've struggled to get the epoxy today. He suggested to dilute the varnish by 10% thinners to get a fluid mix that the wood would absorb a bit to provide a good key for anything else to go onto. I'm assuming it's aimed at doing the same as the wood hardener.

I'm going to go get some epoxy filler tomorrow to smooth the areas out a little. I'm not fussy about giving them a re-paint at the moment, but I will top the filler with varnish again.

Where does everyone get the screws and replacement keel bands from? I've taken this off some of the boat (around from damaged areas) so I can get to varnish and epoxy into any holes and exposed areas. However the screws that did come out were complete rotten by salt and one has snapped when coming out. Typical I suppose when they are so corroded.

Thanks for the great advice Ed and the kind words regarding the boat.

Once I've got her on the water and a little practice, I may have a look at some of the more Northern opens. I have a 16 month old daughter and it makes getting out too far a little difficult. However I do have a future crew in the making

[podmeister]

So Hello again, apologies for resurrecting the dead (though a good day to do so) and finally for the double post.

Del Boy has returned home for the winter and is ready for her winter renovations. And I was looking for some advice as I have grand plans - but sensibility may need to come into practice before I charge headlong into the sunset.

Firstly the boat got a single sail this year and I managed to put a hole in the deck (double ). Which has put consideration into play.

Previously I was thinking I would strip and re-varnish the deck and strip and re-2 pack the hull in a none vulgar red and white (that pink / purple it currently is, is just hideous in my eyes). Jobs a good un, that in itself would have been the perfect introduction winter project for in maintaining a wooden boat.

So the hole in the deck needs repairing (I'll take photos at the weekend) and I need some help with the type of veneer on the ply, my assumption is stripy sapele. However I would like to re-deck the whole boat and convert it to deck stepped mast rather than its current hog stepped configuration - my thoughts are around it being more likely for me to find 2nd hand spares what with most current boats being hull stepped and secondly when my daughter is finally old enough to sail with me, a more flexible rig will be more forgiving.

So the next questions is how far should I go with the renovation this winter? I can't currently afford to convert the boat across to deck stepped as I would need to source, new mast, boom, spin poles, sails etc. I could just patch the hole, rub down the existing varnish, re-varnish and then fair the hull and re-paint it. Although I could patch the hole and completely strip the whole boat down to bare wood, varnish and 2 pack the hull.

The later is my preferred choice, however, it's quite a bit of work if in a couple of years I am looking at doing it all over again. How often I should be doing a complete all paint stripped restoration with a wooden boat. Every 5 years? Every 10?

If it's something that's done regularly, then I'll proceed with that option - but if it is seem as a longer fix, that just receives tidying up then maybe I should just wait.

So many questions and I have many more to come. I think the above is possibly a splurge of words and if it doesn't make sense feel free to poke me with broken tiller extension and laugh away...

I look forward the sage and level headed wisdom of the CVRDA forum ensemble.

[podmeister]

So I promised pictures of the damage and here they are:





So after reading the following thread I did start to question how far I should go. The current deck has probably seen the last of it's better days as people have already sanded through the first layer of veneer in some places so it's never going to be a beauty for it's unblemished deck. However, is it worth going down the durable 2 pack route to hopefully see the boat through the next couple of years.

Alternatively, is the sensible thing to bite the bullet and just re-deck the old girl whilst I have her back in my man cave? Obviously I have to make the decision in the end, but some wise words from the more experienced might help me make a more informed decision.

I've also gone about the process of taking loads of photographs to catalogue the restoration, as well as creating visual reminders to how she is put back together. As you can see from this picture new blocks will be the order of the day once she is done:



Look forward to your thoughts.

[Ed]

Well personally....

I would wait until you have the money and desire to do it properly.....and then do it.

For the moment, it will be just fine with a patch.

If you do it carefully, you really won't notice it that much. It's an old boat and a few battle scars are only to be expected.

How? hardest bit is simply to find wood that will match in without too much effort.

cheers

eib

[podmeister]

Thanks Ed

That's generally what my original thoughts were, but then started gettin carried away with the idea... I was considering evaluating the time I would be putting into stripping the deck of varnish and patching vs a new deck for the interim, but I think for the short term stripping the varnish off, patching the deck and a new lick of varnish will be the best route.

Any thought as to the type of wood, my assumption is stripey sapelle, but I'm not overly experienced with identifying wood.

On a separate note to the damage to the deck, I noticed the deck has a hole where a mast ram was located, this has been removed and covered with a nasty carbon patch. Just screwed in, but nasty none the less. Does anyone know why the mast ram might have been removed? And also if I am staying with a hog stepped mast for the interim, would it be sensibly to try and source one and re-instate it. I could go down chocks to induce mast bend, but surely it effects the mast differently as the load point is lower down than where the ram would meet the mast.

Thanks for looking

Piers

[Spiderman]

Hi Piers,

Having had another look at the picture you posted back in May of "Del Boy" rigged, my guess is that the lowers were added at the same time as the strut was removed as they both control low down mast bend induced by the kicker load through the gooseneck. The strut would have been set up to resist bend rather than to create prebend and the lowers will do this just as effectively without damaging the jib clew patch every time you tack. Just remember that if you adjust the main shrouds the lowers will probably require adjusting too. The only benefit of the strut might be that you can adjust it on the water whereas the lowers may be fixed to chainplates. Boats with raking rigs can adjust shrouds and lowers while sailing, but the set up can be fairly complicated and not really worth adding to an older boat if it hasn't already been done. If you do eventually decide to do a full refurb and redeck the boat that might be a good time to consider a deck stepped mast and a raking rig, but now we are talking about spending a fair bit of money and the improvement in performance may be relatively small.
Anyway in answer to your question, no you don't need to refit the strut unless you wish to dispense with the lowers, but I would suggest leaving it as is and replace the carbon patch with some of the ply that you use to mend the sidedeck.

Regards

Ian M
Merlin 3097

[chrismartin3583]

If it was my boat unless the lowers worked perfectly i'd get rid them and use chocks instead. You won't source a new lever strut unless you find a chandler whose had one for decades on the shelf. Chocks are a neat, simple solution and never, ever come uncleated.

Wood.

Drop me a PM if I can help, we may have some suitable "second hand" ply off a slightly older merlin that fell to bits. Where are you based?

[podmeister]

Hi

Thanks for all the great replies really appreciated.

The shrouds are linked into some harken muscle boxes (i'm going to strip these down and clean them up - Delboy was a sea boat prior to me purchasing it and as a result a lot of the hardware is knackered as I don't think it was ever fully washed down properly - salt is everywhere! The lowers are also hooked up to a rope puchase system to allow me to haul these on whilst under way if needed.

I'm currently trying to work out how the dismantle the wire for these through the deck sheaves - I'm starting to think the rigging was finished on the boat.

So some further questions are cropping up as I strip the old girl down...

Firstly, apart from laziness why would the jib require two cleats? See image



Finally, thoughts on how to create some repairs around sheaves 1 and 4, 5 and 6 (See below image). The wood here has either rotted (Though doesn't feel soft) or has been ragged around quite heavily by screws and previous repairs, but the screw holes have broken through to the rectangle slots made for the sheaves - meaning when I put them back in, I'll have nothing to secure to. thoughts where to replace the full capping to the centreboard case, but this seems an extensive job at this stage of the game when eventually I will need to replace it when I deck step. My other thought was to fashion some kind of metal plate that goes behind and the sheaves can be bolted to... however, this is a bit of work with fettling. My final thought was to cut these sections out, rout a dado in and drop some replacement wood in - again seems a lot of work. Are there any other routes?... gunk the area up with epoxy and screwing into that?




As for Location Chris, I'm based in York - If that works, it would be greatly appreciated as my alternative was to give Robbins a call and arrange for a 1/4 sheet to be sent once they had someone heading this way.


And my final question - in the first image, you will notice on the "inner gunwale"?? it is wonderfully crafted as a multi coloured piece of laminated bits of wood - however it clearly was not appreciative of a previous owners backside landing on it and as such it has split and the the split has progressed out of the previous glue joint. I've tried epoxying this back together, but the gap is tiny and I'm unable to really get into it. Any thoughts to a method to repair? It's not a major issue for the boat - but I can see it nipping a bit of skin on the back of my legs at the most inopportune moment.

Once again, many thanks

Piers

[Ed]

What Rupe says on Varnish

eib

[JimC]

I'm starting to think the rigging was finished on the boat.

Not very unusual I reckon.

gunk the area up with epoxy and screwing into that?

I would say so. Make up a mix which is *very* heavy on microfibres (flexible, likley to accept screws better), cut back to goodish wood, and if the resultant gap is big enough then put a piece of wood in there. Your best mate when doing that sort of thing, as with all things epoxy, is brown parcel tape, because you can clamp a little piece of ply covered with parcel tape underneath to stop the bog dripping through and maybe have a parcel taped lump about the size of the required fitting hole to constrain the gunge that way as well... Drill guide holes for the screws on the generous side to avoid cracking and if possible get the fittings in there when the epoxy is still a teeny fit flexible before its gone off completely.

[podmeister]

Not very unusual I reckon.

Maybe not, but bloody frustrating as it means I will need to cut wire and get some new rigging.

I would say so. Make up a mix which is *very* heavy on microfibres (flexible, likley to accept screws better), cut back to goodish wood, and if the resultant gap is big enough then put a piece of wood in there. Your best mate when doing that sort of thing, as with all things epoxy, is brown parcel tape, because you can clamp a little piece of ply covered with parcel tape underneath to stop the bog dripping through and maybe have a parcel taped lump about the size of the required fitting hole to constrain the gunge that way as well... Drill guide holes for the screws on the generous side to avoid cracking and if possible get the fittings in there when the epoxy is still a teeny fit flexible before its gone off completely.

Perfect... this fits my current expertise level. If a job is worth doing well, it's also worth bodging

It does, seem to be the best solution at this stage as I don't want to create additional work for something that will ultimately be replaced.

[bornagainmothie]

I'm currently trying to work out how the dismantle the wire for these through the deck sheaves - I'm starting to think the rigging was finished on the boat.

If you unscrew the sheave assembly from the deck and lift out, you should find there is a centre spindle for the wheel that can be pushed out through the side of the sheave box. Its kept in place and hidden by the thickness of the deck its mounted in. Spindle out, slide the wheel (and bearing if its a posh one) to one side or clear of the box, and the wire loops should pass easily through.

[chrismartin3583]

drop mean email and I'll send you a piece - paramedic3602ATyahoo.co.uk