Outer stem repair on 37 Egg Harbor, a short section

Picture of the other side.
After it fully dried out, I may have one slightly loose board, meaning will have to rescrew it I think.
The edge of one is away from the frame in its middle area, it is lower down second plank away from the garboard. Picture does not show it.
This side had all new framing around 2020

 

Today I drilled all 6 bolt holes. I found even with an auger bit, existing holes may not come out perfectly round and straight thru. What I have been doing is chuck a solid half inch steel rod in the drill, create a sharp flat end, and ram that through the hole. That cleans up old holes well. A solid rod is very stiff while a drill has a little flex and in hard wood and preexisting holes, it conforms slightly to an existing hole.

 

Glued in the skeg section.
Put in some bolts upside down to help align the section.

 

I need to trim back the front 1/4" I think to match the rest of the skeg.
6 bolts also hold this section together, it is 76" long.

Underneath the skeg, it will have a 2" thick worm shoe.

 

The old bronze bolts cleaned and painted with primer.
Will put a thin coat of marine grease on them. They held up but I think this will help better than bare bolts.
The 6th SS rod I coated with JB weld gluing on the nut is for the front of the new wood which had no bolt before.
JB weld, paint and grease ought to keep it good.

 

I am repairing the whole skeg, decided I should.
I cut out 4 " height and 70" in length
Since there is less weight back here, I am using the 2.5 CCA treated dock wood. It will be in 2 sections one on top the other.
Under the keel-skeg will go more of this all the way to the bow, and I will stagger the length so as to have full support under the skeg cut repairs.
To get an almost perfect fit, was a little difficult till I figured out a trick to use. I was marking high spots on the skeg with a marker, then using a grinder and had it looking decent maybe 90% there. The trick is hold the beam up to the skeg with a jack and pass a Sawzall blade along the high spots, the Sawzall blade cuts the skeg perfectly flat to the new wood.

The new wood line now looks real good up close on both sides of the skeg.

This section has 5 bolts, and they are so long, I had to dig holes in the ground to get them out.
After this is glued in, one more piece finishes skeg, then for a worm shoe, will use the same wood all the way from here to the bow.

My long drill bit was not long enough to drill all the holes into the new wood. What I did was use dowel centers on the back 3 bolts. The 2 front bolts, the drill bit was able to mark the new wood. For the very bottom piece, I will have to use dowel centers for all 5 holes.
I am adding one bolt at the front of the repair. There was a longish gap with no bolt, and I want the front of the repair to be better secured to the existing skeg

I jacked keel up to remove the rear keel block, and put a stand under the transom for supporting the rear end of the hull. The true inner keel runs all the way on the inside of hull to the transom.

Also, a 70 gallon SS fresh water tank sits over the aft most bolt, I could barely reach to get the nut off, and after 66 years it unscrewed easily. I could not drive out the bolt from inside hull. What I did was cut skeg wood around the bolt, put a vice grip on bronze bolt end, and used a 3 pound sledge to drive the bolt out of the keel-skeg.

 

Today. I glued this in place. Has a nice fit.
One more to go under this, then put in the bolts.
I used 5 various 1/2" steel rods to align the drilled holes while the glue partially set. Then I removed to make sure they would not get glued in with the wood. And put 3 back in.
Basically smear glue on both sides, then jack it up tight in place.

Under the entire skeg will go more of this same wood. 2" thick worm shoe.

 

That wood is beautiful looking wood. Not a single knot.

I had bought two pieces of 2x8x16 footers. It is 2.5 CCA treated SYP
It has been sitting out in the weather for months and not warping at all.
It is the same solid green color all throughout the wood.

 

Glued in the last big skeg section
Again used dowel centers to find the holes to be drilled

 

Spent time fully clearing the holes so the long bolts can easily pass through the skeg.
I used an old rusty steel rod that was tapered and spun it up into the skeg from the bottom. Which ground away the difference in angles. Takes only a few degrees difference in hole angle to cause a long bolt to bind in a long hole.
It seems the nice long auger drill has a hard time straightening an existing hole as it slightly deforms from being perfectly straight when spun up into a hole is all I can think.
What I was doing was turn it by a socket up into the wood hole then spun with a power drill.
I need the bolts to pass up by hand as it is impossible to hit them up as everyone is so long I have to dig deep holes in the ground to start the bolts in the holes.
So the issue is even if the marked dowel centered wood is aligned to the skeg, when drilling the new wood, the original OEM hole my have slight angle, or me drilling creates a hole with a slight angle different from the existing hole. But it is done now.

 

What i did this AM
Moved a keel block over
Crafted a tapered shim using my grinder
Glued on keel bottom to make a smooth transition between repairs
I sighted down keel and it looks straight.
The thin shim is glued in right above the supporting jacked 2x4

 

Profitable work day, the 100+ heat wave was off for today

I coated a thick layer of PL glue on the keel bottom and lower side.
Then I screwed on a 30" length of wormshoe.
Next couple pieces will be 7 footers.
First paint wormshoe piece with some red bottom paint
I will jack the keel to the immediate left of that block.
Then put the loose keel block under the rear keel.
That frees up a good 7 foot of space for the next wormshoe section.

The angle I cut is at 30 degrees.
Also OEM had the rear of the keel follow the upper curved area. Which I decided not to bother mimicking. It could always be cut to match as it was.

 

Today, put on another piece of wormshoe.
The red one is 7 feet long.
The little one to the left unpainted is 30"
This straddles the keel repair.
It jacked up decently and has a very straight line of sight looking down the keel from the bow, so pretty happy with it so far the fix.

Support block to right of jack was under keel next to wormshoe end, and the jack was out.
Keel held decently straight with no support for that wormshoe fit, about 9.5 feet

That 50 ton jack easily lifts the boat.