The Lakeside Wooden Boat Society

After three and one half months of full time stripping and sanding I spent almost 14 hours working on the boat during the blizzard last Saturday. Almost became lost walking from the house to the shop several times. Just tonight we finished bleaching all the woodwork that will be varnished except the floor. So tomorrow we sand again and clean up to stain Wednesday. Things will start looking very different soon.

The hull is ready for sealer and primer which will also go on this week. The bottom is ready for primer except there is one plank out. Under the head floor and ice box lurked the worst of the rot. I ended up replacing ten frames and five floor frames, then part of the head floor and stub frames under the head floor. Most of this was unexpected but did not shock me. I knew their was some soft wood in the floor forward under the lockers as well as four frames and two floor frames at this same spot. The frames are fixed but the floor here is still up.

All the paint in the cabin has been stripped and sanded, the plywood bulkheads are ready for sealer then everything gets primed. The gas tanks are done and are being shipped up from Florida. The shaft has been straightened and the prop reworked. The cabinsides had little pockets of rot hiding under varnish or the trim that covers the canvas . I ended up putting a ten foot section of the starboard coach roof and the aft upright in new. There are several small graving pieces here and there. The deck gunnels were originally varnished but have long since been painted. I wanted to put them back to original varnish but this took lots of sanding and other forms of finessing but they are going to look great.

The salon still had its original varnish. This means (which I did not know) that the first coat or two is not sealer but shellac. Shellac does not strip with a heat gun, we had to use stripper and its slow going. Then when you start to sand your paper plugs up twice as fast. All this doubled our time in the salon. All the decks that are getting canvas are ready, and the canvas is on order. We still have lots of parts to strip like windows and doors. Some have been done and others needed repairs which have been done. The chrome is at the shop. The chrome shop that I have been using acted like they wanted in on this job at a big discount for the pr value but then at the last minute they did not want to play along. Their bid was $10,000.Dave Mack took them to a place in Dayton (he showed me some of their work, very nice). They wanted $4000 then discount to lwbs to $3500. This is our first serious override in the budget as I hoped to get it done for $2000.

I will admit that the boat to look at does not appear to have over 160 pieces, but it does. If anybody wants to help on this override please let me know. All and all the project is progressing well. Some pictures enclosed. Look forward to hearing from all of you soon.

-Dwight Davis