Good news, bad news day

[graemefindlay]

Part of my mission today was getting another keel bolt moving.


Mission successful!

Unfortunately the wooden floor DID NOT like the process.


It pretty much disintegrated

It’s completely black through the whole thing, is that iron sickness?

Anyway, recommendations for where to source good timber for a new floor in/near Hampshire would be appreciated…

And some sympathy…

 

[johnlilley]

Timber where ferrous passes through & in contact with seawater almost always get black staining eventually, especially if the floor was made from oak as oak affects ferrous fastenings causing extensive staining. That is not a guarantee that it is decayed or excessively weakened.. ( except in this case perhaps!) The floor doesn't look quite right to me in that it doesn't appear to be original. Is it rotted or just split? Cant see any plank fastenings into the floor either.
Anyway, a new floor could be made from iroko or laminated from iroko with longer wings. It would require plank fastenings additionally. The area does look a bit crowded with frame repairs using different techniques though.
Try any joinery company for Iroko, most use some iroko but you could use sapele or utile as both would be OK if iroko cannot be found. Oak is very good but not really if using steel keelbolt.

 

[graemefindlay]

Timber where ferrous passes through & in contact with seawater almost always get black staining eventually, especially if the floor was made from oak as oak affects ferrous fastenings causing extensive staining. That is not a guarantee that it is decayed or excessively weakened.. ( except in this case perhaps!) The floor doesn't look quite right to me in that it doesn't appear to be original. Is it rotted or just split? Cant see any plank fastenings into the floor either.
Anyway, a new floor could be made from iroko or laminated from iroko with longer wings. It would require plank fastenings additionally. The area does look a bit crowded with frame repairs using different techniques though.
Try any joinery company for Iroko, most use some iroko but you could use sapele or utile as both would be OK if iroko cannot be found. Oak is very good but not really if using steel keelbolt.

Thanks for this, it’s very helpful!

The floor was more floor-shaped before it fell apart but the wings were the first to give up when I was persuading the keelbolt to move.



In my defence the floor itself was never struck, just broke up in sympathy.

I don’t think the 1” hose routing helped matters.

 

[wrr]

Oh dear! I have had something similar happen some years and boats ago. How big was the floor? There seems to me a plank screwhole in the unpainted area, so are we seeing just a remnant of the floor? If it was fairly small, an offcut may be available from a local boatyard. However, if the floor was fairly large, you may need to contact one of the timber yards around Midhurst. Oak should be available from Cocking Sawmills (www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk) and Wests (W.L. West & Sons - Timber Merchant & Sawmill) usually have a good range of hardwoods including tropical timbers such as iroko. Oak is trickier to glue if you plan to laminate, I ony trust resorcinol/phenol/formaldehyde, small quantities may be available from www.gluesdirect.co.uk. You will also need bronze scews for securing the planking, Anglia Stainless (www.angliastainless.co.uk) have a good range of sizes and deliver promptly. And then there is plugging holes over the screw heads...
An MDF template of the floor may allow adherence to the maxim of measuring twice and cutting once. Good luck!

 

[Hacker]

Are you removing and replacing the bolts? If you are reusing or replacing with ferrous then you will get iron sickness at some point (but many years). As said above oak reacts more due to the tannins. So either find some other hardwood (iroko would do) you don’t need a solid piece you could laminate if required. If you were to replace the bolts with bronze ones then oak could be used.

 

[graemefindlay]

Oh dear! I have had something similar happen some years and boats ago. How big was the floor? There seems to me a plank screwhole in the unpainted area, so are we seeing just a remnant of the floor? If it was fairly small, an offcut may be available from a local boatyard. However, if the floor was fairly large, you may need to contact one of the timber yards around Midhurst. Oak should be available from Cocking Sawmills (www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk) and Wests (W.L. West & Sons - Timber Merchant & Sawmill) usually have a good range of hardwoods including tropical timbers such as iroko. Oak is trickier to glue if you plan to laminate, I ony trust resorcinol/phenol/formaldehyde, small quantities may be available from www.gluesdirect.co.uk. You will also need bronze scews for securing the planking, Anglia Stainless (www.angliastainless.co.uk) have a good range of sizes and deliver promptly. And then there is plugging holes over the screw heads...
An MDF template of the floor may allow adherence to the maxim of measuring twice and cutting once. Good luck!

Brilliant advice and links, thanks! I have some MDF left over from a. Home project so it will be put to good use

 

[graemefindlay]

Are you removing and replacing the bolts? If you are reusing or replacing with ferrous then you will get iron sickness at some point (but many years). As said above oak reacts more due to the tannins. So either find some other hardwood (iroko would do) you don’t need a solid piece you could laminate if required. If you were to replace the bolts with bronze ones then oak could be used.

The ballast keel is cast iron so unfortunately I think bronze is out of the question for the moment

 

[steadyeddy]

Wood
Morgans wood yard in Strood are selling up all wood half price including oak