Life's a Gamble, so lets take a Chance Restoration Project

After we removed the old rotten ends of the two pieces that were affected it was time to cut the ends and glue new pieces on the ends. Thankfully the amount of rotten wood was small and just two small pieces of Mahogany were needed to be found from the pile of old mahogany which was of the similar age to the original mahogany used in the construction of the galley front. Clamping in two directions will help keep the new pieces in the correct position while the glue cures and we are able to remove the clamps and plane and sand the new pieces to match the original parts. These two holes are going to be interesting to cover. A diamond shaped grating piece over the two holes and then a good planing and sanding an a small amount of mahogany staining and this will be as good as new.   

Having remove the varnish off the face side of the galley  front where the sink was originally fitted. It is time to sort out fitting the four parts together so that they can be fitted back in the galley area in one part and not four parts. There is going to be a bit of re-working of some parts such as the top corner where it is a bit rotten. The top rail will be removed and a new rail fitted and the mahogany on the face will have a piece fitted to replace the rotten top corner, apart from this small piece the rest of the galley front is in good condition and will only need a good painting on the back face and the front will need several coats of varnish.  Another bit of re-working will be these two holes which will have to have grading pieces fitted to get rid of these holes and a pump fitted in keeping with the time of the boat was build in 1948.  

Because chancerestoration_1948 is on the National Historic Ships UK register we are taking great in keeping as much of the original fabric of Chance that it is possible to keep and only replacing the minimum amount that is needed to be replaced.      Like with all good jigsaw puzzles you have to have a plan.  This jigsaw puzzle is a little different in that not all the parts are still here to finish the jigsaw puzzle. So we will have to make new parts as we go along putting back the parts we do have and making ne parts to match the old parts as much as is possible to do. This cupboard front is a good case in that it is almost all there apart from the top rail. Which some how along the way as been lost or misplaced fro the moment. This galley front however, is all there and needs a bit of TLC along the top and the bottom to make new joints to fix it together as one complete front and so it can go back in the galley area of Chance once this part is fixed together ...

  Let the jigsaw puzzle building begin with this pile of wood that came out of Chance over three years ago. Some will go back into her while other parts will be made a new depending on their condition. As National Historic Ships UK listed vessel we will do our best to preserve as much of the original as possible and only renew what is necessary while maintaining the original interior as possible. We are doing the same to the hull and superstructure of chance_restoration1948 . Follow us as we tackle this massive task ahead of us over the coming months and possibly years as we piece together the fabric of this historic vessel. Like Comment Send Share

At last we have back the mighty Ranger back from the Garage after major engine surgery. It needed a new oil pump and a new turbo to give it a new lease of life. We now have to put it to work ASAP in order to get rid of the backlog of towing jobs that had to be sidelined because of the major engine problems.  We can also get back to work on our own projects and  get the wood we need to get on with the planking and other work on Chance. We will now be able to transport the wood to the  boat and start to repair this part of the Boat From one major hurdle to this major job.  Thankfully at last we have got the cover to stay put on the boat and give her a chance to dry out and be able to work on her.  

At times it feels like you just can not get ahead with your projects and as much as you try to battle through you still can not gain any headway. So it has been just lately. First the mighty truck (Ford Ranger 3.2 ltr) decided to have a major expensive mechanical problem (£1000.00 +) Namely the oil pump in the sump of the engine seized for no known reason until the garage dismantled the bottom of the engine and find the oil pump was or the original part but a non- standard part and that it had seized and in doing so destroyed the Turbo at the same time.   So, while the mighty truck is off the road getting the correct parts fitted and the mighty truck gets its heart back again and we can get work underway again using the little truck(Ford Kuga) in the meantime. So we can get on with some of the smaller jobs which we can put in the small box trailer and bring back to the workshop to be worked on in the workshop or in the yard. While we are at Chance we will try to remove the last of ...

 It is at this time of the year, we think about moving into the workshop to do jobs that were put to one side while working on Chance. Although not a lot was done on Chance one way or another there were some jobs done on her this year. We did get the rudder out of the boat although in three parts otherwise, it would have meant digging a six foot hole under the back of Chance to get the rudder out of Chance in one piece. We are now in the early stages of making a new design to make it possible to make it possible to remove the rudder blade as a separate part from the rest or the steering gear So making it possible the rudder without messing about with the major part of the steering in the future. This will also help with replacing the hog / keel at the back of the boat where a lot of damage and rot as happened in one way or another. One job we are going to be doing shortly in the workshop is to make some new deck beams for the aft deck of Chance once we can get the old deck beams o...