Sculling Oars: Part 6

The oars are finally constructed and fastened together, it's time to apply their protective coatings. I chose to use tung oil instead of varnish or paint. 

As you can see, the tung oil brings out the grain and protects the wood, making it repel water and it oils the wood to keep it from drying out too quickly and checking. The other advantage is that you can see the wood to visually inspect it for signs of decay and rot.

Varnish also protects the wood and offers many of the same qualities as tung oil, but when it comes time to reapply, the old coating can begin to flake off and needs to be removed via sanding or heating. This can be a time consuming process. Tung oil does not need to be sanded off, in fact, with time it will disappear much like teak oil does. The wood will slowly return to its natural uncoated appearance, signalling that it is time to recoat the wood. 

Paint offers the wood protection from the elements, but it does not offer ease of inspection. It covers everything, so overlooked rot will only show up when it is far more advanced. While Tung oil brings out the richness in the grain, it does darken over time; so don't expect a pale wood to stay pale and don't speed the process up by using stain either. The look of old wood will come as the wood becomes old. 

Be sure to give the endgrain extra coats of tung oil because. This oar has 4 coats on the top of the blade and 8 coats on the endgrain. 

Sculling Oars: Part 5

After the shaping process of the oars was competed, the laminates were fastened using silicone bronze screws. The screws were countersunk to hide them from the surface and allow the screw to have more bite into the bottom piece. 

The holes were drilled using a hand drill. First hole for the threaded portion of the screw, the second hole for the shank of the screw, and the third hole to countersink the head.

A trick when driving screws with a blade screw driver is to attach a small box wrench to the shank of the screw driver. This will increase the leverage you can use to drive stubborn screws into the wood. This was really helpful when driving a 1 3/4" screw all the way home.

When using blade fasteners, it is nice to make sure that all the slots line up in the same direction. It doesn't matter which way you choose, just that it is all consistent. It just shows that the craftman who made the piece took the time to do everything, even line up the screw heads.

Now the construction of the oars is finally completed and they are ready for their protective coatings.

New Gangplank: Part 5

The gangplank is now complete! 

The stanchions are secured in their bases and provide a very secure hand hold since they are through bolted and the lifelines are tight to give a nice feeling of security. The plank itself is much stronger and does not sag under your feet, keeping the lifelines tight!

My grandfathers brother was able to comfortably walk up the gangplank while using his cane to come aboard and visit! 

The old gangplank served it's purpose but this new one serves the purpose in luxury! 

If you would like me to make a gangplank for you as well, please contact me to set up an estimate.

New Gangplank: Part 4

Now that the gangplank has dried, it's time to install all the fittings.

The stanchion bases were bedded with 3M 4200 to allow difficult removal should the need arise. The opposite side was properly supported by the backing plate along with 1in washers and locking nuts. The through bolts were tightened down and the excess was exuded. 

The excess was then cleaned up with acetone, and left to cure for a few days. 

New Gangplank: Part 3

The rat bars were finished last time, so we move on to the stanchion bases. They are held in place be four 1/4" through bolts to make them fully secure. 

To properly back them, I used a 1/4" piece of starboard cut a bit larger than the bases to help spread out the loads.  

The bolts are held in place by locking nuts with 1" washers. All fasteners involved are stainless steel to avoid dissimilar metal corrosion with the stainless steel stanchion base. 

The nuts on the underside could scratch the deck when we carry the gangplank on deck, so additional sticks of mahogany were installed with bronze screws. The sticks are stand more proud than the nuts, protecting the deck from scratches.  

Once again, after all pieces were fitted, they were also all removed. I didn't want the hardware to get in the way of the tung oil I needed to apply to the rat bars.  

Lastly, padeyes were installed at the ends to serve as anchor points for the lifelines. They are attached with #8 stainless steel screws. Since I didn't want nuts on the underside so close to the edges, I installed them with wood screws, 1 3/4" long. It uses all but the last 1/4" of the plank, so it should hold very securely. 

With the padeyes in place, the whole plank was oiled liberally and allowed to dry