Benren's Barbour
Wooden Boat and Outboard

The 1957 Barbour 19' Silver Clipper, 2006

Well folks, it's been a while but here are the beginnings of my latest project.
I found this boat about three years ago whilst driving around a small local lake in upstate NY. From the road, I thought it was a Thompson but after tromping through someone's yard to get a better look it turned out to be a 1957 Barbour 19'. It had NJ numbers on it, last registered 1985.
She was about half full of water (that's good, she doesn't leak!) and sundry other detritus.

As I was looking her over, the neighbor comes running out yelling 'hey, you want to buy that?'
'Well, I might, if the price is right', I said.
A few days later, I reached the owner.
A deal was cut, and she was mine for $300.00.
When I went to pick her up, the neighbor then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to sell him the Motor. It was a 1973 Johnson 115, totally out of character for the boat. The end result was that he took the motor and I got the boat and trailer for $150.00

I didn't get to do anything with her until this year, for various reasons, but now I am into a full-scale restoration so that I can use her up at my Camp.

Here are some links to pics:
1957 19' Silver Clipper #1
1957 19' Silver Clipper #2
1957 19' Silver Clipper #3
1957 19' Silver Clipper #4
1957 19' Silver Clipper #5
1957 19' Silver Clipper #6

Transom work, Will she float?
More Transom work, Motor Well, not too bad, really!

I'll add a bunch more pics and tales about this boat during the next few months, but I'm looking to have her in the water by April 1st.

After removing the old transom, the motor well sideskirts and then shortening the frames and battens by 2", I WEST epoxied all of the exposed surfaces possible, without gluing the strakes. Those I will do later, after cutting in the new transom -- I wanted to save as much of the original wood as possible. As I have said from doing the 16, it was necessary to shorten the boat by 1".
The alternative was to replace all the decks, frames and bottom.

Transom out!
Epoxy laid in the deadspace
The vacuum bilge pump salvaged from the '59 16

2/3/06 Today I also played with WEST White Pigment, with a mind to fill the deck grooves and thusly never have to deal with re-doing them every few years. I know....3M 5200......I know.

Sunday 2/4/06 I sanded the test section of White WEST Epoxy groove and lightly stained up to it.

Yes folks, I know it isn't perfect
it's a test section!
And don't forget that the last 1" of those decks will be removed.
White Epoxy Test pic 1
White Epoxy Test pic 2

I like it. I think it'll work famously for my purposes, and add some strength to the old deck ply.
Over and above the relative ease of maintenance, we must remember that the decks on these Barbours are laid up from several small pieces of 3/8 plywood and ergo they have seams which are notorious for opening up and allowing water to seep in underneath the varnish.
I'm thinking that by using epoxy, these seams will have additional protection from the elements and may prove to be more resistant to the harsh marine environment. Time will tell!

I want to stain the outer 'plank' of the deck with a dark brown color, and all the inner 'planks' with the Chris-Craft blonde. It may not be completely original, but I do know that there were several custom color schemes offered by the Barbour factory, and these were common colors for the late 1950's.

Perfect? Perhaps not. But easy on the eyes nonetheless.

This is getting close to being a Blog!
I took a ride to White's Marine in New Hamburg today. Just below Poughkeepsie. I had been there some 15+ years ago and in the back of my mind I thought that they may have some old hardware laying around.

After searching through boxes under counters and looking up into racks of tubed aluminum, I came away with a pair of new old stock Perko Streamline cleats to make up what I needed for a full set of 5 (one to follow from ebay, to make 6), and some nos 1/4" aluminum window retaining trim.

I now have almost everything I need to replace all of the hardware with nos parts.

NOS cleats, aren't they pretty?
The 'shortie' anchor light is for my '59 19' Hardtop project, but nonetheless it is a wonderful item to locate. They just don't make them like that anymore!

OK...time for a brief segway. It's too bloody cold out there to work on her for a few days so let's talk Camp!
My 'second home' is a 26' Camper-trailer up on the Great Sacandaga Reservoir at a very private and secluded site near Mayfield.

Camp1. This was just after I set it up.
Camp2. This was just after I set it up, a different angle.
Camp3. One more.
Camp4. After the new permenant roof was pretty much done.
Camp5. The Lake at dawn. Bear in mind that the Lake is some 34 miles long and this is just one tiny little private cove!
Camp6. The Lake in Fall. It's a man-made reservoir designed and built to catch the run-off from the Hudson and Mohawk rivers to prevent flooding downstream. Consequently the water level raises and lowers according to what needs to be done.

I've been going up there for some 15 years or more. There are only 7 trailers, of which only 4 are regularly used.
Then there are 3 rental 'cabins' which also don't get regular use.

It's pretty much a bunch of us who all know each other very well and get along like a house on fire renting a little piece of paradise.

I am looking forward to April when Camp re-opens. Most of my weekends are spent there, and the Walleye fishing can be quite something (if you know where to go!).

This year my best friend Dot is coming to see why I love it up there, and my new friend Tom (with????) is probably coming in June.
Between that and having the '57 19' up and running, this might prove to be one heck of a good summer.
Segway over, for now. Hope you like the pics!

2/9/06 Back to working on the new transom. Only about 35 degrees today but sunny and no wind.
There's always something daunting about laying out and cutting the inner plywood skin for a new Transom. It's really not that hard to do, but it's still a bit scary!

That's a 3' x 6' piece cut out of a 4x8 1" Marine Grade Mahogany plywood sheet. 15-ply, no voids. About $120 a sheet!
Inner skin layout

If I can get the old transom out in one piece, I trace around it and then cut about 1/4 - 1/2" outside of the line.
Rough cut

Then, using a power planer I carefully trim the edges and keep checking for a good fit. Anything close to 1/8" gap is OK but I aim for 1/16". The rest will be filled with eopxy when it's ready to be permenantly installed.

Note the carefully placed screwdrivers to hold the aluminum rubrails out of the way, and the other one through a screwhole to stop the sheet from falling out while I mark up the new cuts which need to be made.
Test fit

 

There was a small hook in the bottom of this boat, caused by sitting on a trailer for too long with the motor still on the transom, so I left
a small gap varying from 1/2" at the centerline to 0" at the chines.

When making the final assembly I start by screwing the decks to the inner skin, then place a car jack under the keel and lift the hook out. Then, after all the eopxy has been injected into the edge seams, I screw the bottm to the plywood, working from the keel out to the chines. This procedure removes almost all of the hook, and then the strakes can be screwed to the inner skin.
It's a little bit tricky to get all the dimensions correct, but it's well worth the extra effort to remove as much of the hook as possible at this point. Remember, once the epoxy cures there's no going back!

2/11/06. Today was nice again. A tad chilly at a high of 35, but no wind and mostly sunny. The calm before the storm tomorrow - a possible up to 8" of snow.

I cut and replaced the Transom Knee today. 1/2" cut off of the back end, and 3/4" cut from the foot made it perfect but I did have to drill a new hole so that the keel bolt aligned correctly. Epoxy filled the old hole, just in case she ever does get soaked.

Actually, the vintage Mahogany knee only showed very slight checking (which I filled with more WEST epoxy) and no dry rot at all. Kind of surprising, considering that it had laid in a deadspace for all these years!

It's a testimony to the old-time boatwrights though. A close look at the grain pattern of that knee showed how well they had chosen that particular piece of lumber. The grain was curved to the knee's shape, thus reducing any possibility of it failing under stress.
I installed the knee onto the old keelbolt, and drilled a new hole through my 1" inner skin. Then I countersank a hole large enough to accept a 1 1/4" flatwasher, and deep enough to allow the head of the new bronze bolt to be just below surface of the ply. I feel sorry for the poor sob who tries to disasseble this transom!

Here's what it looks like, installed. The epoxied keel was sanded thoroughly, and a liberal slathering of fresh epoxy was applied prior to installing the knee. Now I know that it's not recommended, but I've never had a problem doing this:

Add just a little of the stain color you intend to use on the finishing process to a batch of WEST white shredded cotton filler and then add that to the epoxy. It fills any small gaps and doesn't show when the final finish is applied.

Another segway......Just in case any of you wonder how I'm doing all this epoxy work in such low temperatures, I keep the WEST indoors until I'm close to ready to use it. Then, after it's mixed and applied, I tent the area as needed and heat it for several hours with one of those little Pelonis ceramic heaters. They're nice for this type of thing because you can be fairly specific about what you want to heat, for how long, and at what temperature.

Sneak Peek of the first outer skin board

2/15/06 I stole a couple of hours this afternoon to work on the second transom plank installation. This one is the easiest to do because there are basically only the two end curves to deal with.

I also played around with the C-C Corina stain for a while. I don't think that it will work for what I want to achieve, but the jury is still out. No pics of that, just yet. I want to see how it looks varnished before I set anything in stone.

2/16/06. I'm Horn-y and I'm Horn-y again.

I picked that up last week, but it may need rechroming. Still in all, it's a nice old Spartan Horn!

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