Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Caprail Repair

New Bern, NC

One of this winter's projects was to repair our caprail.   It was damaged by a nighttime collision with an unlit bouy in the vicinity of Sandy Hook, NJ on the way down here.   The teak caprail on a Westsail 32 is one of her most attractive features.  On some boats it is also their worst headache because the cap rail can conceal the source of water leaks.   Tarwathie has never had a caprail leak, knock on wood.

The following were the steps to this project.

  1. Photo document the damage before starting.  Sorry, I blew that.  Can't find those pictures at all.   In any case, a section of about 10 inches of the rail was crushed.  Below the rail, a section of the fiberglass hull about 3 inches long by 1/2 inch vertical was also crushed.  The crushing followed the curved lines of the buoy I hit.
  2. Remove the ruined section of rail to replace.   Unfortunately, I used a saw to make cuts at each end.  I popped out the teak plugs and removed the screws.  Unfortunately, the wooden rail was still stuck to the bedding too tight to lift.   I used a chisel,  that worked but it fractured the wood into splinters.   Too late, I thought of using my electric multitool with a vibrating flush cut blade.   That worked very well and it let me remove the remaining wood without damage.  But it was too late as much of the wood was already splintered.  If I had been able to remove the whole thing almost intact, I could have used the old wood as a shape template.
  3. Scrape off the old polysulfide bedding, and repair the fiberglass.  I used epoxy resin for the repair.  I was able to use duck tape on the hull to make a nice mold into which I could pour epoxy resin.  That took care of the vertical damage.  Then I poured epoxy all over the entire exposed rail.  I let it soak in to the crushed parts.  That made me reasonably certain that the rail is strong and water tight even without the teak cap.
  4. Next, I needed a suitable piece of teak to make the replacement.  Genuine teak is very expensive and very hard to find nowadays.  Fortunately, I lucked out in this department.  3-4 years ago, I spotted a piece of teak in a trash pile at some marina or at a boat yard.  It appeared to be a rudder cheek plate.  I've been storing it on board Tarwathie for years, thinking that it may find use.   What a miracle!  It was almost exactly the size and shape for what I needed.  Even more, I didn't remember that I had the cheek plate until the old section of rail was cut out.
  5. The next task was to make a template out of cardboard for the replacement piece.  The ideas sounded simple, but execution was difficult.  The sides are curved.  The ends are straight, but both at crazily skewed angles.  No 90 degree angles were involved anywhere.  Therefore, the template had to match in three dimensions, not just two.
  6. Next, I took the board and the template over to my friend George from the vessel Traumeri.  George has a full woodworking shop.  He also has much experience in woodworking.  I have none at all beyond one year wood shop in Junior High.    George let me use his tools for a while, but in the end he had to step in and do the last steps himself to prevent me from ruining everything.   The number and types of tools used in such a project are amazing.
  • Drill press
  • Twist bits
  • Plug cutters
  • Screwdriver
  • Chisel
  • Flush Cut Saw
  • Epoxy resin
  • Jig saw 
  • Band Saw
  • Belt sander
  • Table Saw
  • Several clamps and stops
  • Hole bore
  • Orbital sander
  • Spoke shave
  1. In the end it worked well.  Back on the boat it took just a bit of sanding before the board slipped into place.  It left a gap of 1/16 to 1/8 inch at each end -- just right for bedding.   The edges stuck out about 3/16 inches on each side, and the thickness of the board was about 1/8 inch thicker than it needed to be.
  2. I was able to lay down a new, and generous, bed of caulking material and to screw down the board to hold it in place.   After that dried for a few days, I put in teak plugs that we had cut from the same board with plug cutter tools.
  3. The final step was to sand the sides and the top to comply with the curves and thickness.   The end result is seen in the picture.  In my book, pretty good.  (Of course the original carpenter was able to lay down and butt the planks with almost no visible seam at all.
I owe a huge thank you to George.  Without his tools and expertise, I would have never succeeded.


From upper left:

  1. The damaged section with the cap removed.   Damage to the outside of the hull is not visible.
  2. The scrap wood rudder cheek plate laid on top of the removed section.  Note how close it is to an exact fit!!!
  3. My cardboard template.
  4. The plank during formation on George's work bench.
  5. The fit with the new board back on the boat.  
  6. The finished job.  The seams of white caulk are visible on each end.
George, as the Swedes say "a thousand thanks."


2 comments:

  1. Nice job! And I assume you meant "full woodworking shop"... although maybe not. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Seeing your sanded decks and cabin top reminded me of your previous post about painting and paint selection. Have you made any progress deciding which paints to use?

    ReplyDelete

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