[Public-List] Touch Wood Garboard Removal

[crufone at comcast.net]

Hi Gord, 



If there is room around the iron nail head, you might try using a plug cutter bit in a hand held drill motor.  This would be set to just shigh of the plank thickness. 



Once the nail shaft is exposed I have had much better luck prying them out with "vise grips" clamped onto the shank.  The beauty of vise grips is that they can more easily be re-clamped lower on the nail shaft as you work the nail free.  The rounded 'nose' of the vise grips works well to rotate to the adjacent wood and leverage out the nail. 



Another idea if the nail head is missing and the shank is straight.  Locate a hardened steel roll pin with an inside diameter just larger than the outside diameter of the nail shank.  Use a grinding wheel to cut cutting teeth around the circumference of one end of the roll pin. (You can also file teeth in place with a new sharp triangular file).  Angle the teeth toward the direction you wish to rotate the roll pin.  Chuck the roll pin in a drill motor and carefully cut away the wood plank from around the nail.  After removing the plank then attempt to remove the remainer of the nail which is in the rib. 





Alberg Stuff: 

One issue in applying a teak veneer to a fibreglass deck suface arrises in the selection of fasteners.  If one uses traditional mechanical fasteners they often do not have enough material to hold into and eventually allow the teak veneer to "pump" which causes the threads of the fasteners to "saw" larger holes in the deck to create leaks into the coring or worse.  Since the teak veneer is not structural and just a pretty face, I would consider using adhesives to secure it to the fibreglass substrate.  No fasteners, no holes, no leaks, at least from that source!! 



I always like to hear about "Touch Wood". 



Michael 








PS worked on TOUCH WOOD on the weekend - first order of business is to 
remove her garboard planks so as to be able to come at the notches in the 
keel for the new ribs.  What a pleasure to find all the long-familiar 
details of each plank...  What a horror to find that while the upper edge is 
riveted and easy to release, the lower edge was nailed on with square iron 
'dumps'.  Some of them had vanished into red dust, but most are still solid 
and resisting.  Lay awake last night considering how to disturb them without 
destroying the planks, which I intend to use as a pattern for the new ones. 
Decided to carefully cut 'ramps' around each dump head with a small sharp 
chisel then tap a very sharp crow in and pull... Might work...