With a majority of the brightwork nearing completion and approaching the varnish room, I turned to the rails for the day. In a previous work session I had cut the toe and rub rails to length and overall dimension, and now the next step in the process would be scarfing the lengths together. The scarf joint is a common joint used in wooden boat construction, and very strong, especially as the length to thickness ratio is increased. For the toe and rub rails, I will be using a 12:1 length-to-thickness ratio. That is to say, for every inch of thickness the length of scarf will be 12 inches. My first order of business was to gather my scarfing sled from storage and make the necessary alterations, but prior to that I needed to address the old jib track fasteners holes on Biscuit's side deck.

I thought for some reason that I may reuse the old fasteners holes, but slowly talked myself out of this idea while working on other parts of the restoration. In all likelihood, I will be installing updated equipment here and the old and new hole pattern would never match up. So filling the holes was my first priority of the day. I started by tapering the holes from the deck using a tapering drill bit. I vacuumed the fiberglass detritus, and then thoroughly wiped the surfaces down with a solvent both topsides and down below. I then taped off the deck penetrations from the underside to prevent the thickened epoxy from escaping. In the shop, I mixed together a small amount of epoxy to wet out the tapered surfaces, and then returned to the shop to thicken the epoxy with a combination of the 406 colloidal silica and 404 high-density filler. With the stir stick, I pressed the thickened epoxy into each fastener hole and then followed that up with repeated swipes with a small squeegee, working the thickened epoxy into the cavities and smoothing the surface. Later, I will water-wash, sand, and fill with a final application using the 410 micro-light filler.

Back in the shop, I returned to working on the scarfing sled. I had designed the sled for my previous table saw (a Grizzly cabinet saw), so I needed to slightly tweak the sled rails, and in addition the angle of scarf. After making the modifications, I tested the sled on a scrap piece of wood that was split and that was taken from one of the lengths of toe rail. Happy with the outcome, I began to process the toe rails. The length of each rail was such that I needed only to scarf one end of each board to create a length of toe rail (and rub rail) for each side of Biscuit sheer. I clamped the lengths of rail strips to the sleds scarf "backbone" and carefully pushed the sled over the raised saw blade. Once I had achieved the full length of cut I backed the sled out, turned off the saw, and removed the length of rail from the sled. I repeated this for all the toe rail strips. The rub rails were next. Since these rails were 3/4" in thickness their length of scarf would be just 9", but they retained the same 12:1 scarf ratio. I used the same process for the rub rails and completed all scarf cuts. I set up a gluing table using a piece of plywood supported by sawhorses, as well as out-feed supports on either end to support the long lengths being glued together. Starting with the rub rails, I wiped the freshly cut scarf joints with a solvent to clean them, and then mixed a small amount of epoxy to then wet out the surfaces of scarf joints. I then came back with an application of thickened epoxy (406 colloidal silica, 403 microfibers, and mahogany dust I collected from sanding for color), and spread a thin film across the surfaces. I pressed the first two lengths of rail together and clamped with three spring clamps. I repeated for the second two lengths of rub rail. I wanted to get to the tow rails but ran out of springs clamps, so decided to hold off until the next work session.

Done for the day on the rails, I turned to stripping the mast in preparation for painting. It was already after 5 in the afternoon, but I did want to get in some progress on the mast, so decided ti strip the standing rigging from the mast. I started with the forestay (roller furler), then the upper shrouds and then lowers, and finally the back stay. I tidied everything up, including the spreaders, and called it a day. The wire standing rigging will be replaced by a local rigger - Sail Ready Rigging out of St Augustine, FL.

Total Hrs: 5.75