Repairing a wooden boat

donegalboats

Hi,

I need help or advice on how to repair a board on a wooden boat. I have to replace the middle board on a carvel built boat. The problem I am having is how to extract the nails that are nailed into the ribs as they are submersed about 3mm below the surface. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

fergal.b

Hi donegalboats, I f you are not going to save the plank you could just chisel a trench each side of the nail to give you enough room to get a vice grips or small nail bar on to it. If you want to save the plank you can use a plug or dowel cutter to cut around the nail right down to the frame to release it then with some scrap bits of plank you can cut new plugs when you want to fill the hole and the wood will match.

Plug cutter

smallfry

Your other option if you are not saving the old board is to drill a hole an inch or so either side of the frame in the board being replaced, this is so you can get a narrow saw blade in, then cut the board paralell to the frame between the good boards.
Once you have knocked out the bits between the frames its easy to split the piece thats left on the frame. Split it on the grain in line with the nail.
The nails will take a bit of persuading but they should pull out.

smallfry