Once the planking was complete all those nail / screw holes had to be plugged! There were a few days’ work to first drill out the holes, make the plugs then plug all the holes. We mixed into the epoxy some of saw dust made from old planks. As there was deterioration around many of the nail holes and we didn’t want to make the plugs too big we knew the epoxy mix was going to be visible around the edges. Hence trying to match it as much as possible. This was also the mix that was used on the edges of the planks. Before plugging the holes in the cedar planking the 1060 epoxy sealer was paint into each hole.

Not looking very pretty with all the ‘pimples’ and the old cedar!

The final step in the planking was to plane of the surface of the planking and see how good the old timber was below the greyed surface. The hull was first planed, then log boarded and finally had sanded.

Before the final sanding did a small experiment using oxalic acid on some of the planking below the water line to see if we could remove some of the staining from the cooper nails. The pictures below show the result before and after the oxalic acid treatment. It worked very well! 

The next weekend we wheeled the boat outside and gave it a thorough wash down with oxalic acid followed by a rinse off.