Starboard deck is on!

Finally managed to get a full day in on the heron and got one deck glued. Almost ran out of clamps - had to use all 40 of them! No that I kinda know what I'm doing the other side should be pretty easy, just have to wait for some warmish weather.

Count 'em - lucky the boats not any longer!

Deck is stained!

I've been putting it off for a while but I finally bought some Feast Weston stain for the new ply. It went on a treat - not difficult at all. Did have to buy the one litre bottle though and I reckon I used about 100ml. I've also put on a couple of coats of epoxy on the seats and inside the boat, gave it a light sand and just have to put one more coat on.

Ooh that looks good

Steady as she goes

Over the last few weeks I've been doing bits and pieces - mostly filleting and filling up some holes. Just have to buy some stain for the deck before I can get some epoxy onto it. This boat restoring business is taking longer than I thought!

About time I posted another post, post.

Not much has been happening since the last post, however, I did manage to get some ply for the decks which I've started to shape and it's easier than I thought it would be. Should be able to get both sides finished buy next weekend. Also picked up all the epoxy we'll need to finish the boat.

The deck for each side is now made up from one piece of ply - before it was 3, not too sure why, maybe dad didn't have enough ply to do it in one piece. Should add a bit of stiffness though!

See the difference in the colour?? I'll have to stain the new ply as it's really light.

Getting serious now

Today I really got stuck into the Heron - took the plywood decking off most of the boat. One half of the front was sanded and I don't want to take those bit of ply off as they're in good shape and I like the look of the nails in the ply. When I replace the ply I want to use the bronze nails again so it matches the front. I'm pretty sure nails aren't needed with new epoxy's and it will create more work, but that's the look I want.

Very happy with my sanding

Taking off this ply made it easy to sand inside and remove any silicone (fingers crossed)!

Port side removed

Starboard side - see the nail marks I was talking about

Making progress

Had a big session today, Neil came over and gave me a hand with the sanding. We've almost finished doing the inside of the boat. We got a bit bored after a while and decided to remove some ply that had  a small amount of rot and a crack in it. It was easy to get off but it'll test my woodworking skills to replace, hopefully not too hard. Next week I've got a boatbuilder coming over to have a look and give me some idea on how to move forward.

Dogey ply taken off - shouldn't be too hard to replace

Spent a few hours sanding over the weekend - didn't really get too far. There's a fair bit of silicone to remove so I'm making sure I do it properly (or as good as I can). Getting some help next weekend - should get a lot done.

Lots of tricky spots to sand

At least I can work in the sun

I friggn hate silicone

My first Post - the find!

Ok, here goes.

My name is Greg, I'm 43 years old and in December 2010 I bought a Heron. Not just any Heron but a boat my dad had built in the late 1960's. Dad used to take us out in it at Carrum and I can remember being too young to be taken out too far so my trips tended to be farting around in the shallow water with dad out of the boat holding the front.

Dad died in 1979 and the boat was used after that but not very often, and myself and my 2 brothers didn't have anywhere to store it. It was being kept in an old neighbour's shed and for some reason my mum thought no-one was really interested in it so she sold it without telling us. It was a few months later that we discovered it was gone and mum couldn't remember who bought it. That was about 12 years ago.

So the search began. I tried every yacht club in Victoria with no luck, I even spoke to a private detective because I did have the old number-plates from the trailer but that didn't help. So I've had a search going on ebay for the last 5 years, thinking that it'll be sold one day - and then I saw an ebay email with a match for a Heron (I'd get these occasionally, but not really expecting the right boat), and there it was. There was enough detail in the listing to know it was probably the right boat. I went and had a look. The seller didn't want to sell it to me as the auction already had some bids. 7 days later it was mine. I put in a ridiculous bid that was way over the value just to make sure I didn't lose it.

When I got it home the first thing I did was take off the nameplate on the transom and underneath was the build number for dad's Heron. Now I was 100% sure it was the right boat.

So this blog will detail the restoration of 'SYDS TUB'. I'll try and update regularly and by doing this blog hopefully it will keep me motivated throughout the process.