Replacing the stern post

After digging out the rotted stern post on the Black Sheep and giving the exposed wood several days to dry out, I used an epoxy-based wood rot product to seal the plywood and the new post. I gave that a day and a half to cure then attached the post.

I used a lot of epoxy and screwed the sides to the post. It is solid. I used more epoxy to cover the screw heads and fill in some cracks.

Where there was a gap in the fiberglass I could see that the new piece wasn't as tight a fit as I had hoped. There was some gap between the post and the plywood at some parts. I squirted more epoxy into the gap to try to seal it off.

All of this went very quickly. The hard part turned out to be the mounts for the rudder.

I had bought a new set of screws for this. I figured that a 4" timber is actually closer to 3 1/2" so a 4" carriage bolt should be the right size. It turned out that the post is closer to a true 4" than I expected. Also, I pulled all of my screws out of the same bin but I did not measure them. It turned out that some other sizes had gotten mixed in. There were two 5" ones and a couple of shorter ones.

Because of the angle, I had a hard time getting a consistent angle for the holes. I had to widen some of them.

I had gotten galvanized screws but when I got replacements I went with stainless.

The tubes for holding the rudder looked symmetric but it turned out that one end is imperceptibly wider than the other. Naturally I had mounted both of them upside down and had to reverse them. Once I did that, the rudder hung properly.

I used another tube of epoxy to seal the screws and the fiberglass around the mounting plates.

I still had some of the Olympic Stain that I used on the interior. Most paint is unusable after two years but this just needed a good stirring. I replaced a broken floorboard and gave the floor a new coat of stain.

I also used some spar varnish on the tiller and the oarlocks.

I would like to give the exterior a fresh coat of paint but otherwise the boat repairs are complete.

Ready to finish

I used some epoxy-based wood sealer on the exposed plywood on the Black Sheep. For good measure, I used the rest of it on the new stern post.

The stuff I used is actually meant to stabilize rotten wood but it should be fine for my purposes. It comes in two parts with a warning that it will heat after they are combined. When used in temperatures above 70 degrees they recommend that it be chilled first. Otherwise it might melt the container within 20 minutes.

I didn't notice any real heating but I had it applied well before 20 minutes. It is very thin so that it will soak into the wood. It is almost the consistency of water. I used a paint brush with it to be sure that everything was evenly coated and that it got into all of the plywood.

The directions say to give it 24 hours to cure. The coat on the post was still sticky after 12 hours. The plywood seemed dry. To be sure, I will give it more 36 hours and wait until Saturday for the next step. This will be using thicker epoxy and screws to fix the post in place.

While I have the boat at home I will try to give it a new coat of paint. The flooring especially needs it. The interior of the boat itself is in good shape but the flooring had lost a lot of paint. The exterior has several scrapes and the waterline is permanently discolored.

Two years ago I was able to paint the boat quickly so none of this should be difficult.

Repairing the Black Sheep

A couple of weeks ago I was shifting the Black Sheep on its trailer and the top of the stern post snapped off in my hands. Since this is a 4x4, that was a bad sign. It was rotted. I found more rot surrounding the part that holds the rudder on.

I have been busy but I finally got some time to spend on fixing her. Since I have had to fix rot in the stern post twice before I decided that the whole thing needed to be replaced. I had been worrying about how to get the old one out. Power tools will not fit.

 It turned out that this was not a problem. The entire post was rotten, even the parts that had been solid when I fixed rot before. The only solid parts were small parts around screws and the pieces I replaced earlier. Even these were not hard to get out since the wood around them was rotten out. I was able to do it all with hand tools in two days.

I have a long 4x4 in my garage so I decided to use this for the new sternpost. I saved the top that roken off in my hands. I used this to get the correct angle on my power saw then I trimmed the edge. Here it is, ready to be fitted. The sides were perfect. I only needed to put an angle on the end.

I think that one reason the original post rotted was that it did not fit tightly against the bottom of the boat. This allowed water to soak up through the end and into the rest of the post. Having it covered in fiberglass didn't help. That just sealed in the water.

I already put in a drain so that it will not collect water over the Winter.

I spent a lot of time fitting the end of the post so it wouldn't be as exposed as the original. You can see here that it is a pretty good fit.

I am going to let the exposed wood dry for a few days then seal it. I will also seal the end of the new post. Once that it done, I will epoxy it into place and try to use epoxy to fix the holes in the fiberglass. Originally the sides were screwed onto the post and a fiberglass strip put over the ends. I will see if I can get the same effect with a little epoxy over the screw heads.