On Fri, 4 Jul 2014 17:26:53 -0700, "tdacon"
wrote:

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
.. .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=tb-VXCGVq2Y

Very good video on screw and plank removal during restoration/repair
of an older wooden boat.

This is very good. The business about getting the screws out without
buggering the wood around the plug is right on, and his little tool for
cleaning out the putty and the screw slot looks like it works well for a
situation like that, where the hole has been plugged with something other
than a wooden plug.

I've done a fair amount of refastening on larger boats and there are a few
other tricks worth mentioning. Generally when a larger boat comes up for
refastening the screws are probably 25-30 years old, and if they're bronze
some dezincification has set in and the bronze is a lot softer than it was
when the screws were new. The screws will have been set under wooden plugs
(bungs to our UK friends), and if you want to re-use the plug hole without
re-drilling it, you can try to pull the plugs by chucking another wood screw
(maybe cut the tapered part of the screw off with a hack saw first) in a
drill motor and drilling right down the middle of the plug. This will at
least split it and break it up a bit if it doesn't actually pull the plug
out (sometimes you get lucky). Then nothing will serve but a short 1/4"
beater wood chisel and a brass hammer. Finally you use the wood chisel, on
end, as a scraper and clean out the glue and any remaining wood from the
edges of the plug hole. Now that the head of the screw, whose slot is filled
up with glue, natch, is visible, I use something called a graving tool to
clean out the slot. A graving tool is something that a jeweler uses for
engraving by hand. I'll grind one to a good fit in the particular size of
screw the boat's been fastened with, and mount it in a handle similar to
what you'd see on a palm carving tool, and sharpen the point to a good edge.
The hardened steel point of the graving tool will clean out the slot and you
can even repair it if it got buggered up when the screw was originally
driven in, by just carving the slot deeper and straightening the sides. If
the bronze is soft on account of dezincification and old age, this is
sometimes the only thing that gives you a chance of backing it out.

Now that I've got a good screwdriver slot, I chuck up a screwdriver bit in a
brace and lean into it and slowwwwly start to back the screw out. About half
the time in my experience the screw will break right at the joint between
the plank and the frame, so now you've got the head and the shank rotating
loose in the hole and you've still got to get it out to at least plug the
hole before you drill another one nearby.

Damn, I'm getting tired already, just telling this tale, so I'll leave the
tricks you're going to need next for another time.

Tom

Back in the day when Maine lobster boats were all cedar on oak they
were fastened with galvanized boat nails clenched over on the inside
of the timbers. Re fastening was a matter of drilling new holes in the
planks and pounding in new nails.

I was told by an old Maine State boat builder that the rule of thumb
was that a galvanized nail fastened boat would need re-fastening in
about 10 years.