Another Off Topic and Spar stock

As temperatures are rising around here it was time again to do some gluing after I bought some lower temperature harder for the epoxy.

Priority project is the restoring of the teak deck on the motor hatch of my ONJ Pilot. After 12 years of abuse water has entered the plywood on which the teak was set.  Also this hatch was not strong enough and was flexing a bit when standing on it. As my motoring season starts around Eastern something had to be done.

First I  "dismantled" the construction.  Demolition is another word for the same action.

The plywood base was only 10 mm so no wonder it flexed.  I was unable to get the 4 mm thick teak strips of the ply without some damage so I decided to buy new teak decking material. 


My lumber yard for special woods does not sell 4 mm teak strips but 9.8 mm thick with a grove at both sides to form a T.  This way you can lay the teak butted and optically still have a grove between the strips.  When I had to pay for the teak I realized teak is not a cheap wood......

I have now reglued the sides and glued in a 15 mm plywood sheet. To get that in and to accomodate the thicker teak I routed a deeper ridge in the sides.

The coming days I will glue in the teak strips and fill the seams with blackened epoxy.  Although my epoxy supplier is not over enthousiastic about the idea I prefer that option over the use of bedding compound.  In my opinion the move in this size of teak is minimal.  We will see in the future.

Today I went again to my wood supplier to buy spar stock.  In the end I decided not to buy Oregon Pine but to get Yellow Pine ("Amerikaans Grenen").
I bought board of 20 x 190 mm and resp. 3400 and 2700 mm length.  This compensates a bit the price of the teak.....

The long stock will be ripped the coming days to get three layers of 60 mm wide planks that will be glued together to get the 600 x 600 basis from which to make the spar.

The shorter plank will be enough to make the boom and yard.  Work for the coming days.  As of coming Friday our two grandchildren will stay for a week so progress will be limited.