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Irene Rebuild Page Five 1st June 2005 I see to my shame that my last
contribution was six months ago on the 7th December 2004
and so to all those avid Irene web watchers, my humble apologies. In December 2004 we were still
working our way aft with the framing.
The frames at the stern became more and more complex and it was
if anything of even more importance to have the measurements exactly
right. Any errors could
reflect a major problem in the curves of Irene’s stern.
Framing as such finished at the stern-post but the stern itself
extends several feet beyond that.
This led to a great deal of head scratching to ensure that the
lines were right. Over
the years Irene’s stern has sagged and back in the seventies we made
an effort to try and rectify it but it wasn’t too successful and we
subsequently attempted to put in steel beams as support, again all a
bit makeshift.
It was clear that we must rebuild
the stern higher than she had been and more in line with the original
picture of her at her launch. It
was equally important to make sure that the framework was not going to
sag with time and so, much strength was invested in two fore and aft
horns, one each side of the stern post.
In addition we plan to include some metal frame working to hang
everything off the stern post and equally to ensure that the stern
post is held in the same position viz a viz the keel. At the other end of the ship the
stem post equally needed help, particularly with the replacement of
the rabbet. This is a
large chunk of timber securely attached to the aft side of the stem on
which the outer planking is fastened.
Separation between planking and rabbet, and rabbet and stem is
clearly bad news. By May the stem and sternpost framing and stern construction
were now all in place and congratulations were in order all round. The next job was to ensure the
security of the bottoms of the frames by building the inner ceiling up
over the scarphs. That
meant too that dubious external planking was taken off and the plan is
to build up both inner ceiling and outer planking strake by strake,
port and starboard together. The
planking is now well under way. Three
inch larch for outer and two inch for inner.
Because of the flexibility of the larch we can put in planking
without the help of the steam box.
Further aft I fear with the twist in the planks it will be
somewhat more of a challenge. The fitting, the accuracy, the attention to detail is just as
relevant to the planking as it was to the framing. Since the copper came off, Irene on
the outside has looked a sorry sight with wings of tar, seaweed, mud
and gubbins despoiling her beautiful lines.
So with summer, work has started on the outside of the existing
hull with pressure washer, blow lamp and scraper.
It is good policy to get an immediate coat of light coloured
paint to protect the dark wood from the sunshine.
It happens that we have some excellent aluminium primer and we
see therefore the first glimmerings of Irene (once known as the Grey
Lady of the Severn because of her grey topsides) returning to a grey
hull.
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