09-14 to 09-20, 2015 – Making New Lower Frame Pieces – Part 01
After I had stripped the paint from some of the frames that the new floor timbers were going to be fastened to, my suspicions and fears were realized. Just as the original floor timbers had been permanently contaminated by diesel fuel, so were the bottom sections of the frames; from the chine logs to the keelson.
In this image, you can see some dark stains towards the “foot” of the two frames where they butt into the keelson. The stains have “wicked” diesel fuel upwards from the bilge.
If this contamination is present in the forward frames, (a raised area of the bilge), then ALL of the frames aft (and lower) of here are ALSO contaminated as well! To get rid of the “fuel smell” that these timbers contain, and also to be able to have any kind of paint or epoxy to stick to them, (To seal them up and protect them.), they ALL need to be replaced! I wasn’t looking for this to happen, but it is the right thing to do.
I took some of the remaining Douglas Fir “floor timber stock” and I chopped it up into lengths that matched rough linear measurements for some of the frames that I needed to replace first.
Once cut to length, I sanded the surface of each board to prepare it for laminating with System Three epoxy.
Then, using my tablesaw, I ripped each board in half; giving me two boards of the proper width that I needed to laminate a frame with. To make a new frame, I needed six “layers” (boards) to make up the lamination.
When I had all of the pieces prepped for laminating, I arranged the lengths of wood so that the grain of each piece would oppose the grain of the wood glued next to it. When that was sorted out, I numbered each “layer”/ board to mark its location within the lamination stack.
Next, I mixed up a pot of epoxy and wet out each “mating face” of the Douglas Fir 3/4″ thick pieces of wood.
I was able to clamp up a Port and Starboard set of frames in one setup. I placed a length of waxed paper between the two laminations to be able to easily separate the two frames after the epoxy had cured.
This system seemed to be working well, so I committed to purchasing more quartersawn Douglas Fir 1″ x 4″ decking material, and I trailered it home from my local lumber yard.
I stacked the new lumber inside my garage on sawhorses.
Then, I cut most of it up into “frame lamination kits” and marked each “kit” accordingly.
I prepped each frame “kit” as I had done with my previous attempt:Chopping, Sanding, Sawing, and Glueing.
In the image below, there are 5 sets of “frame lowers”, (A set equals: One Port and One Starboard frame.), ready to be fit into the hull.
Black Lab Adventures 