Winnie is out of the water and on inspecting the rubbing strips the bottom one is showing signs of rot. I have read the post about replacing them but I am a bit neavous about holes that close to the water line. Has anyone had any experiance with removing them and filling the holes. Thanx for any help
Shaun
Rubbing Strips
Rubbing Strips
Hi Shaun
I received 2 letters about rubbing strips. See below and hope they help.
You asked how I replaced the rubbing strakes? Well here goes!
The strakes are formed in two halves as its difficult to bend a single piece of wood to that degree. I bought mahogany strips one foot longer than needed from the local builders merchant and steamed them over a fish kettle till they had softened sufficiently to bend. This was rather clumsy & not very easy so I put them individually behind the vent pipe on the outside of the house and tied them across to a fence post being the only way I could get sufficient purchase to bend them. Every few days I tightened the rope and poured boiling water on them to keep up the bending & softening process. You only need to get a good bend at one end, the end that will meet at the bow.
After a couple of weeks of this I undid them and took them to the boat.
The old strakes are brass nut & bolted through the hull with the internal nut being captivated behind a blob of fibre glass. I also found that the extrusion of the bolt through the nut had been cropped off hence the bolt was squashed & the damaged threads prevented the bolt from screwing backwards out of the captivated nut from the strake side.
To get to the forward bolts I unscrewed the inner forward bulkhead panel & using a sharp saw I cut out half of the internal panel down the fibre glass overlap on each side and across the middle with an electric jig saw, this in effect lets you into the anchor chain locker if you have one.
One side at a time I then removed the external wood plugs from the outer edge of the strake to reveal the screw head and having chiselled off each fibre glass blob to reveal the nut unscrewed the nut from the bolt with a socket whilst my wife armed with a large screw driver stopped it all turning from the outside. Once you have done all this on one side only you can introduce the new wood.
Chose a pair of strips from your four and introduce the most bent ends to the bow and mate up to the existing strake. One or two people will have to hold all this in position temporarily while some one drills a pilot hole through from the inside and through the wood strakes. Drill back from the outside a hole large enough to accommodate the new bolt and then countersink the hole to enable you to bury the head, I used stainless steel nuts & bolts and washers and sealed each hole with silicone from the inside before applying the washer & nut. Its a bit tricky getting the first bolt in but once this is achieved the rest are pretty straight forward.
Tighten the first nut & bolt and then at the other end of the strake make a loop with some cord and pass it back through the last hole and round a large nail or old bolt to stop it pulling back through. Tie the other end of the cord round the strake and pull it as tight as it will go without snapping the wood! Just use your judgement here the strips will not wind back to a complete fit first time, mine took several days, just kept tightening the loop periodically a little at a time till the end eventually meets the hull.
Only fit as many bolts as the strake's position against the hull with the cord loop will allow, you may get two or three in at the first attempt but remember the strips all bend at different rates, the outer will be longer than the inner, hence you have to do one at a time as the wood bends gently to its final position. You cannot rush this, the wood will bend but only in its own time.
Once you have all but the last two or three bolts in you can trim the inner and outer strips to fit the overlap arrangement as they join the rubbing strips along the hull. I then used mahogany coloured wood filler to cover up the screw heads, sanding it down when hard, dressed up the edges of the strips with a small block plane, gave it a light sanding by hand and painted it all with some mahogany coloured varnish.
Repeat the process on the other side and finally trim up the bow joint to shape.
My wife& I managed it all on our own, its not a hard job just rather time taking.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
George & Celia
Zapateros
Hallingbury Mill.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Jim,
Replacing the strips are not too bad once the old ones are removed, if they are original they will be held on with countersunk bolts which are counterbored into the wood and plugs inserted after to cover the heads. On mine most of them were seized so it was a case of chiselling the old wood away in places and prising the strips off which can be hard work as they were sealed on as well. The bolts appeared to have anchor nuts attached to the inner hull but these mostly spun round when trying to undo them. Once the wood was off I used an angle grinder to to take the heads off. Sounds horrendous but don't be put off.
I renewed all of mine with the boat on the slipway so it makes life easier for the lower ones, however I found these ones easier as the upper one had to be steamed to get the bow curve right. In the end I constructed the front in two laminated pieces to avoid splitting. The upper one is also recessed but I found it easier to make a single flat sided piece and insert a smaller strip underneath during re-assembly. The two lower ones sit in a wide groove so the replacement strip needs to fit inside the groove but a good woodyard will be able to shape them to your own size and spec. I used Iroko hardwood, which is the equivelant of mahogany but a lot cheaper, but there are other woods available it depends on cost and availability.
When attaching the new strips I used countersunk stainless steel self tapping screws and hid them using hardwood plugs, don't forget to put plenty of sealant under the strips before attaching them.
It's also a big help to have another pair of hands, I was fortunate to have my son on hand for the initial positioning and attaching. I have attached a couple of photo's showing the grooves on the lower strips and the plugs being fitted before trimming down and finally the finished job for info, if you need any more feel free to ask.
Anyway good luck, it's worth it in the end.
Best Regards
thingy
I received 2 letters about rubbing strips. See below and hope they help.
You asked how I replaced the rubbing strakes? Well here goes!
The strakes are formed in two halves as its difficult to bend a single piece of wood to that degree. I bought mahogany strips one foot longer than needed from the local builders merchant and steamed them over a fish kettle till they had softened sufficiently to bend. This was rather clumsy & not very easy so I put them individually behind the vent pipe on the outside of the house and tied them across to a fence post being the only way I could get sufficient purchase to bend them. Every few days I tightened the rope and poured boiling water on them to keep up the bending & softening process. You only need to get a good bend at one end, the end that will meet at the bow.
After a couple of weeks of this I undid them and took them to the boat.
The old strakes are brass nut & bolted through the hull with the internal nut being captivated behind a blob of fibre glass. I also found that the extrusion of the bolt through the nut had been cropped off hence the bolt was squashed & the damaged threads prevented the bolt from screwing backwards out of the captivated nut from the strake side.
To get to the forward bolts I unscrewed the inner forward bulkhead panel & using a sharp saw I cut out half of the internal panel down the fibre glass overlap on each side and across the middle with an electric jig saw, this in effect lets you into the anchor chain locker if you have one.
One side at a time I then removed the external wood plugs from the outer edge of the strake to reveal the screw head and having chiselled off each fibre glass blob to reveal the nut unscrewed the nut from the bolt with a socket whilst my wife armed with a large screw driver stopped it all turning from the outside. Once you have done all this on one side only you can introduce the new wood.
Chose a pair of strips from your four and introduce the most bent ends to the bow and mate up to the existing strake. One or two people will have to hold all this in position temporarily while some one drills a pilot hole through from the inside and through the wood strakes. Drill back from the outside a hole large enough to accommodate the new bolt and then countersink the hole to enable you to bury the head, I used stainless steel nuts & bolts and washers and sealed each hole with silicone from the inside before applying the washer & nut. Its a bit tricky getting the first bolt in but once this is achieved the rest are pretty straight forward.
Tighten the first nut & bolt and then at the other end of the strake make a loop with some cord and pass it back through the last hole and round a large nail or old bolt to stop it pulling back through. Tie the other end of the cord round the strake and pull it as tight as it will go without snapping the wood! Just use your judgement here the strips will not wind back to a complete fit first time, mine took several days, just kept tightening the loop periodically a little at a time till the end eventually meets the hull.
Only fit as many bolts as the strake's position against the hull with the cord loop will allow, you may get two or three in at the first attempt but remember the strips all bend at different rates, the outer will be longer than the inner, hence you have to do one at a time as the wood bends gently to its final position. You cannot rush this, the wood will bend but only in its own time.
Once you have all but the last two or three bolts in you can trim the inner and outer strips to fit the overlap arrangement as they join the rubbing strips along the hull. I then used mahogany coloured wood filler to cover up the screw heads, sanding it down when hard, dressed up the edges of the strips with a small block plane, gave it a light sanding by hand and painted it all with some mahogany coloured varnish.
Repeat the process on the other side and finally trim up the bow joint to shape.
My wife& I managed it all on our own, its not a hard job just rather time taking.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
George & Celia
Zapateros
Hallingbury Mill.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Jim,
Replacing the strips are not too bad once the old ones are removed, if they are original they will be held on with countersunk bolts which are counterbored into the wood and plugs inserted after to cover the heads. On mine most of them were seized so it was a case of chiselling the old wood away in places and prising the strips off which can be hard work as they were sealed on as well. The bolts appeared to have anchor nuts attached to the inner hull but these mostly spun round when trying to undo them. Once the wood was off I used an angle grinder to to take the heads off. Sounds horrendous but don't be put off.
I renewed all of mine with the boat on the slipway so it makes life easier for the lower ones, however I found these ones easier as the upper one had to be steamed to get the bow curve right. In the end I constructed the front in two laminated pieces to avoid splitting. The upper one is also recessed but I found it easier to make a single flat sided piece and insert a smaller strip underneath during re-assembly. The two lower ones sit in a wide groove so the replacement strip needs to fit inside the groove but a good woodyard will be able to shape them to your own size and spec. I used Iroko hardwood, which is the equivelant of mahogany but a lot cheaper, but there are other woods available it depends on cost and availability.
When attaching the new strips I used countersunk stainless steel self tapping screws and hid them using hardwood plugs, don't forget to put plenty of sealant under the strips before attaching them.
It's also a big help to have another pair of hands, I was fortunate to have my son on hand for the initial positioning and attaching. I have attached a couple of photo's showing the grooves on the lower strips and the plugs being fitted before trimming down and finally the finished job for info, if you need any more feel free to ask.
Anyway good luck, it's worth it in the end.
Best Regards
thingy
Rubbing Strips
I also have some pics I was sent. If you want these send me your email address.
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Winnie
Rubbing Strips
Thanx for your help my email address is shauntipton@aol.com
Have you heard of anyone removing the strips altgether
Have you heard of anyone removing the strips altgether
Rubbing Strips
Hi there Winnie,there is a Nauticus 27 at our boat club that has had the bottom strips removed and the owner said that he used car repair fibre glass (P40 i think) and made sure it was pushed right through the holes,a bit like the way old lathe and plaster celings were made, so that there was more on the inside than the outside which makes it nice and secure.
When it dried he sanded it smooth and painted over.
The boat was done 6-7 years ago and still floats so it seems to work.
Hope this helps.
Cheers Derek & Lyn
When it dried he sanded it smooth and painted over.
The boat was done 6-7 years ago and still floats so it seems to work.
Hope this helps.
Cheers Derek & Lyn
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riverdance
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:17 am
- Location: Ripon
Rubbing Strips
The wife said to me last week, "do you think we should take the rubbing strakes off to give them a lick of paint". She wondered why I walked off laughing!!
Rubbing Strips
Sorry, once again I am posting rather late on a subject which is undoubtedly done and dusted for the originator.
There is a better and more consistent method of steaming timber for rubbing strakes that may be of interest for future do-it-yourselfers. Thicker timbers can be successfully steamed to quite sharp curves with simple arrangements. We used to steam and bend timbers up to 6" thick at Thorneycrofts using what would now look like a real Heath Robinson affair. We made up boxes from offcuts and scraps of plywood to a size to suit the timber being steamed and used a crude wood burning stove to boil a large kettle connected by a rubber hose to the box.
For just a few off, like strakes, either make a ply box an inch or two bigger all round or use a piece of (in this case) 4" diameter plastic down pipe. A camping stove with a large saucepan of water capped by a piece of ply with a hole in it to let the steam out and plenty of rags to stuff in leaky holes.
You do need to make a former or pattern the same shape as the curve of the boat around which to bend your timber first. The simplest method being to draw the curve onto a number of 1 1/2" thick planks (old scaffold planks would be ideal) joined together end to end and reinforced underneath so it won't try to straighten out when you fit the steamed timber to it. Fix blocks of wood at intervals along the inside of the curved line ready to take clamps to hold the strake in place and get the whole thing well fixed down so it cannot move.
Make your box from (say) 1/2" ply (or pipe, or softwood, it doesn't matter) and make it about 2" bigger in width and height, and a couple of foot longer than the part of the strake that is to be bent. Seal one end only. Drill some holes big enough to poke coat-hanger wire through to rest the timber on (the steam needs to get all round) every few feet. Slightly nearer the sealed end of the box make a hole about 3" diameter in one side. Set up the box with the cooker and saucepan under the hole. You need a lid for your saucepan with another 3" hole in for steam to come out - a bit of ply slightly bigger than the pan will do (big enough so as not to melt the pipe if using plastic). Please don't try balancing the box directly on the saucepan, stand it on benches or saw-horses.
The plywood saucepan lid and the hole in the box need to line up obviously - seal around with wetted rags to prevent steam escaping too much. Having placed your timber in the box on the wire, stuff the open end LOOSELY (it's very easy to make a steam cannon, you know) with rags to keep the steam in. Fill the saucepan, fit the lid, seal the join from pan to box/pipe with more rags and light the stove. Keep checking that you haven't run out of water for the necessary amount of time. For a 1 1/2" thick piece of mahogany or indeed any hardwood 1 1/2 to 2 hours should be enough.
When ready get help to remove the VERY VERY HOT timber from the box and immediately place it against the straight section of your former/pattern and clamp it in place using pieces of scrap wood to avoid damaging it with clamp marks. Work your way quickly along onto the curved part and all the way to the end leaving some overhang to be trimmed off when fitting. You need to strike a balance between working too quickly and splitting the timber and, working too slow so it cools off.
If it won't bend easily, that is it simply won't go round, stick it back in the box and steam for an extra half hour, or even an hour - it will bend eventually.
Leave the timber on the former/pattern until it is thoroughly cooled off - better yet, leave it overnight to make sure. Do try to fit it within a few hours of removing it from the former, as it will start to straighten itself out a bit.
I'm not going to say anything about how you fit it as I haven't done it on this particular boat.
David (Soapy) 'Our Eden'
There is a better and more consistent method of steaming timber for rubbing strakes that may be of interest for future do-it-yourselfers. Thicker timbers can be successfully steamed to quite sharp curves with simple arrangements. We used to steam and bend timbers up to 6" thick at Thorneycrofts using what would now look like a real Heath Robinson affair. We made up boxes from offcuts and scraps of plywood to a size to suit the timber being steamed and used a crude wood burning stove to boil a large kettle connected by a rubber hose to the box.
For just a few off, like strakes, either make a ply box an inch or two bigger all round or use a piece of (in this case) 4" diameter plastic down pipe. A camping stove with a large saucepan of water capped by a piece of ply with a hole in it to let the steam out and plenty of rags to stuff in leaky holes.
You do need to make a former or pattern the same shape as the curve of the boat around which to bend your timber first. The simplest method being to draw the curve onto a number of 1 1/2" thick planks (old scaffold planks would be ideal) joined together end to end and reinforced underneath so it won't try to straighten out when you fit the steamed timber to it. Fix blocks of wood at intervals along the inside of the curved line ready to take clamps to hold the strake in place and get the whole thing well fixed down so it cannot move.
Make your box from (say) 1/2" ply (or pipe, or softwood, it doesn't matter) and make it about 2" bigger in width and height, and a couple of foot longer than the part of the strake that is to be bent. Seal one end only. Drill some holes big enough to poke coat-hanger wire through to rest the timber on (the steam needs to get all round) every few feet. Slightly nearer the sealed end of the box make a hole about 3" diameter in one side. Set up the box with the cooker and saucepan under the hole. You need a lid for your saucepan with another 3" hole in for steam to come out - a bit of ply slightly bigger than the pan will do (big enough so as not to melt the pipe if using plastic). Please don't try balancing the box directly on the saucepan, stand it on benches or saw-horses.
The plywood saucepan lid and the hole in the box need to line up obviously - seal around with wetted rags to prevent steam escaping too much. Having placed your timber in the box on the wire, stuff the open end LOOSELY (it's very easy to make a steam cannon, you know) with rags to keep the steam in. Fill the saucepan, fit the lid, seal the join from pan to box/pipe with more rags and light the stove. Keep checking that you haven't run out of water for the necessary amount of time. For a 1 1/2" thick piece of mahogany or indeed any hardwood 1 1/2 to 2 hours should be enough.
When ready get help to remove the VERY VERY HOT timber from the box and immediately place it against the straight section of your former/pattern and clamp it in place using pieces of scrap wood to avoid damaging it with clamp marks. Work your way quickly along onto the curved part and all the way to the end leaving some overhang to be trimmed off when fitting. You need to strike a balance between working too quickly and splitting the timber and, working too slow so it cools off.
If it won't bend easily, that is it simply won't go round, stick it back in the box and steam for an extra half hour, or even an hour - it will bend eventually.
Leave the timber on the former/pattern until it is thoroughly cooled off - better yet, leave it overnight to make sure. Do try to fit it within a few hours of removing it from the former, as it will start to straighten itself out a bit.
I'm not going to say anything about how you fit it as I haven't done it on this particular boat.
David (Soapy) 'Our Eden'
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Winnie
Rubbing Strips
I ended up removing them myself I then used some fibreglass filler to push through the holes and when you remove the strips they are resesed back into the Hull so I got some Epoxy filler (make sure its the water tight type) and filled it back level with the gel coat. Finally I raised the antifoul paint line to cover the filler. Job Done.
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waterdude
Rubbing Strips
Hi,
I would strongly advise not to remove the Nauticus lower rubbing strake. On the canals it is common to find a cill of steel or stone just under the water line close to locks . Also in many locks when full the boat sits so high that the only protection for the GRP is the lower strake.
I would strongly advise not to remove the Nauticus lower rubbing strake. On the canals it is common to find a cill of steel or stone just under the water line close to locks . Also in many locks when full the boat sits so high that the only protection for the GRP is the lower strake.
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riverdance
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:17 am
- Location: Ripon
Rubbing Strips
Sound advice