Today's tricky question - redecking

[IanL]

How hard is it? Technical guides don't give me much insight...
And roughly what's the cost of the ply?

I have built a few stitch and glue canoes from plans, and a few bits and bobs for boats, but nothing this major.

We have a glass-hulled Street Legal that is beginning to lok the worse for wear after a dozen years in the family, and the time has come for decisions.. although it does carry our combined weight quite well - more than can be said for the newer 12, which suffers. 
Anyone have any experience to share> the rest of the woodwork is in not bad condition - at least structurally sound, plus or minus a bit of epoxy...

Many thanks
Ian 

[John Meadowcroft]

Ian
Dare Barry would be able to give you some sound insight and advice - number is in the year book.  Dare can build a ply boat for less than £500 materials so it cant be much more than £100 i reckon.
Re street legal and weight  - i think that you will find that there is no design out there that carries weight better than a Paradigm...

[IanL]

Thanks.

I might well give Dare a ring - but communicating one's competence with tools over the phone will make the question tricky for him to answer...

Well, that Paradigm looks nice on the designs page, and with a bit of depth to the hull for older knees.

Now I have to find a tactful way to find out our all up weight...

[JimC (Guest)]

As no actual 12 sailors have given you an answer my three are:

1) Easy if you are happy to plane the gunwhales flush with the deck beams so you can just put the ply on oversize, plane it flush with the gunwhale outer edge and leave the end grain exposed. Perhaps the easiest significant carpentry job on a boat.

2) Not too bad if you are going to rip the gunwhales off and replace. Replacing the gunwhales is the trickier bit.

3) Exceedingly difficult if you were thinking of taking the old ply off and leaving the gunwhales untouched, then cutting the ply to exact size and butt edging it to the existing gunwhale to cover the end grain,all cut off the boat to fit to a fraction of a millimeter when in place.

Two gives IMHO the nicest result, with new shiny unbruised gunwhales as well. Redecking my C****bs, which are, shall we say, not cosmetically oriented, I've tended to use the first choice, but you do lose that nice contrast between ark ply an light coloured gunwhale. The final one is too hard for this approximate carpenter to consider!
 

[angus]

I have never redecked but I have just spent the last year putting new gunnels on moonlight shadow and unless you really have to I would not recommend removing the gunnels. if I was going to do it I would use the old deck as a template for a new one but as I ssid I have never done it. You could try the cvrda web site.

[GarryR]

There is quite a bit of information on the cvrda website.  I have done 3 re-decks on Merlins and Fireflies and the easiest is to remove the gunwhale , redeck oversize and then put the cleaned up gunwhales back.  It is possible to do it with gunwhale and inwhales present but very careful and patient cutting is the order of the day.  The curves are the bugger and it is essential to have a fixed reference point.  I reckon it takes me about a week to fit both sides with a total of four pieces of ply for the fore and side decks.  I aim to have less than 0.5mm gap anywhere along the length of the inwhale and gunwhale otherwise it looks like a bodge.  The ply to ply joint is also tricky to get right.  The original deck should be used as a rough template - about 1cm ovesize - less to shave off!!!  If you go to the Merlin site and look up the photos section and look at restoration and repairs and then 252 you will see a redeck I did or Vivette on the cvrda site of the Firefly.  If fitting new gunwhales be aware of the huge tensions in the curve of wood - I used a couple of ratchet straps to help pull it in along the length screwing every 15cm or so the more on the strap etc never let the strap slip - the screws will rip out!!  I use slow epoxy for tthese jobs as it is time consuming and it can go off before you get everything lined and screwed.  Hope this helps.  You can phone me on 01651 872590 (evenings).
 
 

[Tim Gatti]

A trick I've used when leaving gunwhales and inn'ls in place is to cut out new ply deck pieces (using originals as templates if possible) and rough-fit to within 2mm each side, scarfing the port and starboard foredeck and side deck pieces together before glueing them to the boat.
Use a router to route a 3mm slot all round between the ply edge and the existing gunwhale/inn'l.
Then glue in a pre-cut 3mm x 4mm wood strip of contrasting colour to fill the gap. Sand off any surplus height of the infill strip on completion.  Providing you have used your router carefully, the results will be seamless.
It's a bit fiddly and requires plenty of clamps and weights, but saves all the hassle of removing and replacing the gunwhales and the router tidies up any minor inconsistencies between the edges of the new deck and existing timbers.  See attached pics. Call me if you want more detail (07790 615800)

[GarryR]

That's a really neat idea BUT I tried a router once and made a hell of a mess on my trial piece to the point that it scared me off.  How tricky is it to get a really smooth cut around the curve of the gunwhales without the router wandering with a mind of its own?  I guess it's all down to practice but it's an expensive mistake to make with the cost of marine ply.

[Tim Gatti]

You are right. Practice makes perfect, and not for anyone with a nervous disposition.  But that's generally the case with any power tools.
It needs a good router with an appropriate cutter and a steady hand.  The gunwhale side is ok as its an external curve and providing you take your time and keep things lined up, the cutter should follow the line without any problem. For the inn'l, however, you are dealing with an internal curve (if you see what I mean) and a standard flat router guide with pull the cutter away from the line as it's leading edge meets the curved section. 
Some routers have a roller attachment for getting round this problem.  I made up a guide that was cut away at the leading and trailing edges to allow the cutter to remain at a constant distance from the outer edge of the inn'l.  I simply split an IKEA hardwood wedge in half and bolted them on to the router guide face instead of the original flat guide, in front of and behind the cutter centre line.

[Crusader 3244]

Nice pics, neat way to overcome the problem and those inlays look pretty cool. Serioys go-faster stripes!