Tahoe 23

[mrintense]

Another beautiful woodie getting ready for its day in the sun. Nice work Tony.

[Tony Hain]

Thanks Steve, Jamie and Carl. It's getting closer. I hope to have the boat basicly finished by the end of the year except the upholstery and trailer.

[Tony Hain]

Finished installing the coverboards and wider centre board. As far as the colour scheme for the deck I was going to use unstained sapele for the in-fill planking and ebony stain the coverboards and centre board, but have decided to go with a blonde infill and unstained sapele for the coverboard etc. Same as the hull. I guess my main consideration was our climate. As it is often between 90 and 110F during summer I felt the darker colours would absorb too much heat. Yet to shape the coverboards but will do that after I do the rest of the planking when fairing the deck.

[mrintense]

I feel for you Tony on the heat considerations. We have similar climate here in Austin with the sun being brutal in July and August. As much I like the look of wooden decks, I am going with painted decks for my cruiser.

What I am amazed by is the variety of designs all these wooden boats are given. I just love the look of all of them. I look forward to seeing what you have in mind for the infill area. Take your time on this.

[Tony Hain]

Carl,
Its not the heat that does you in, its the humidity. 110 and 95% humidty and you're just a wet rag, but winters are glorious. The in-fill is going to be Hoop pine which when coated will have a honey blonde colour. Having it milled now so a week or two should see the deck glued down and thinking about caulking.

[Tony Hain]

Have finished glueing down the deck boards. It was a bit of a slow process as I worked from the centre glueing one board on each side at a time. I use boards 56mm (2 1/4") wide with a 5mm (3/16") gap. With 13 boards either side it took a couple of weeks. The boards are Hoop Pine and when coated will become a honey blond colour which I think will look quite smart. Next comes our all time favourite! Sanding, sanding and more sanding to fair the deck. Then some coats of epoxy to seal everything followed by caulking. I will probably use white sikaflex 291. After it has hardened off I will cut free the engine hatch.

[Tony Hain]

A couple more photos

[steveh41]

Looking good Tony!

[Bill Edmundson]

Tony

You know I like it!

Bill

[JimmY]

Looking smart!

[hoodman]

Nice work! Helluva lot of effort to do that deck.

[TomB]

Excellent.

[mrintense]

Agreed, excellent Tony. Really sharp work. I know that you have been working on this for a long time and I am glad that you are ale to get to this point now. Looking forward to seeing the finished deck after all the cleanup.

[Tony Hain]

Thanks guys for the positive comments. Yes Carl it has been a bit of an endurance run but I have enjoyed doing it and since I have retired it has kept me busy and out from under foot of the misses. She was worried that when I retired I would be bored and probably bugging her. She knows I don't handle having nothing to do well. A guy who came to have a look at the project on the weekend wants to buy it after it is finished which I took as a compliment. Nearly finished the first sand of the deck which has cleaned up the glue marks etc so will post a picture when that is done.

[Tony Hain]

Finally finished fairing and encapsulating the deck with epoxy. Reminded me of the movie "Karate Kid". Instead of wax on, polish off it was epoxy on, sand off, but I am satisfied with the end result. Next comes caulking the deck planking. I have made up a test piece to make sure I get the caulking right. Better than having to remove it from the deck and potentally damaging the decking and having to remove and replace boards. When the deck is caulked I will leave it for some weeks before I cut the engine hatch free. While that is hardening I will put some more coats of epoxy on the seats and dash.
A couple of photos of the encapsulated deck.