Countersunk and pilot drilled #10 silicone bronze screws through the batten.
The keel btten is 4 inches wide and 15/16th of an inch thick. We scarfed them together using a 2:1 scarf. The 4 inch wide batten matches the witness marks we found when assessing Barbashela's hull planks.
We filled the screw holes with Pettit EZFair. We chose EZFair because it should be easier to remove than full strength epoxy should we need to repair a section of the boat at a later date. Another option woild have been to plug the holes with cypress plugs.
Need more paint. We considered one and two part marine epoxies, but they would not have been available in the colors that we needed. A good alternative is an oil based pain or alkyd enamel, it conditions the wood, penetrates better and provides protection in an outdoor environment. We found that Valspar had alkyd enamel and we could get it tinted in many colors at our local Lowes. The colors chosen match the original colors that we found hidden under years of dirt and multiple layers of grey and green paint. We surmised that the boat had been painted to match the Beauvoir house during later years, as it had a similar grey base with green trim scheme. Another interesting aside is that the original colors we found on Barbashela match many of the colors used on Captain Leathers' steamboat Natchez, white, butter yellow, oxide brown and ruby red....Spoiler Alert! Barbashela will have her name in red on the bow, as it appears in her 1921 photo :)
The colors we found in Valspar Ultra alkyd enamel satin were Whipped Apricot and Swiss Coffee.
The other paint we used was Valspar Armor Anti-Rust enamel, Lowes was not able to mix the Mark Twain House Brown in the Ultra base. Armor is also oil based.
Click here for Barbashela's full story.
No comments:
Post a Comment