Restoring Favor: day: 3

On Saturday I started on the actual rebuilding of Favor.

I am using recycled tight-grained Douglas fir for the gunwales and breasthook. The gunwales are being built up out of three 3/8" x 2" strips that I am laminating with polyurethane. First I sawed the lumber to the correct thickness with my brother Jon's help using the bandsaw. It was a bit harder than we anticipated because the wood turned out to be full of pitch inside, which is great for boats but not so good for bandsaws. We had to clean out the entire inside of the saw when we had finished.

Next I made the new breasthook for the bow out of the same wood. It took quite a while to get it fitted to the bow as the surface of the fiberglass is no longer smooth. I used the bandsaw to rough it out, then my 2"x72" grinder and chisels to fit it.

 Once the breasthook was glued and screwed in place it was time to fit the gunwales.The sides of the boat were not symmetrical so I used the new gunwales to fair them back to where they should be. Unfortunately this required the strips to be as thick as possible which made for a bit of a fight to get them fit and bent without breaking them or the hull. Once they were clamped in place I went back and un-clamped a section at a time, applied the polyurethane glue, and re-clamped them.

Here she is at the end of the day.