Replacing the port side rubrails

First step to replacing the rubrails was to whack off the old iron supports that held the wood timbers against the hull.  The rubrails are the “bumpers” along the side of the hull that take most of the abuse of bumps and scrapes.  Only the rubrail on the port side needed replacing.  Someone had replaced the wood ones on the starboard side with half round iron pipe some time ago.

Here is my friend, Peter Schooff, having a go with the oxy-acetylene torch.

I then insert welded in new steel anywhere along the rubrail area that needed it.

After all the holes and thin spots were fixed, I had the shipyard guys sandblast and Dimetcote prime the area all down the port side.

I was was fortunate to get a great donation from Pam Hepburn and Gerry Weinstein from the Tug Pegasus Preservation Project, in that they ordered a bunch of extra pipe and they donated enough for me to do the whole port side.  This was enought pipe to do both courses with just a few feet left over!  Time to get welding!

So I took the pipe and cut it in half (length-wise!) with the torch and cleaned up the edges.  Next it went over into the blasting area in the yard and the insides of each pipe was blasted and primed.  Next is to start getting it up on the boat.

The split 8″ steel pipe is drawn tight to the hull using every method possible.  I used wedges, chain hoists, heating torches, and 3/4″ threaded rods.  The threaded rods worked really well as I could tighten them down slowly and bend the pipe to the curve of the hull.  I was already set for 3/4″ hardware as that is the same size as the TC bolts I was using in the hull. I was able to use the weld marks for the iron supports for the wood rubrail as a guide for the top edge of the upper course.

Here you can see the threaded rods extending out through the rubrail.  Once the upper and lower edges of the rubrail are welded to the hull, the threaded rod has done its job.  I then removed the nut and cut off the excess threaded rod and weld in the end of the rod to the exterior of the rubail and grind it smooth.

And after much pushing and pulling, welding and scaffold movement, here are the finished rubrails a few weeks later!

I will do a separate post about how difficult it was to get the half round pipe to bend around the very tightly curved stern!