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You'll have more of those knees to remove, and big copper rivets. The De Walt big drill bit looked like a genuine 'Cobalt' bit. The smaller ones looked like Lidl or Aldi specials. As you noticed copper can get very hard with age. Cobalt bits will drill stainless steel comfortably, so worth paying the extra price. Also a drilling / cutting lubricant to keep the bit cool. Not WD40 as its very thin, I think its diesel / fish oil based and burns off quickly. Its difficult to keep a drill speed down, but the larger the bit size the slower it should turn. Keep at it, you're slowly getting there and probably getting frost bite too.

You got a lengthy message from blackhand or what, ignore it. He does not understand the effort of a layman following his heart. Perhaps he would like to donate a shed and space and pay for a crew to help you out. Then you could sit in a chair with a brew and watch you heart be shattered because somenody else did what you wanted to do..

Goodbye n

With so many TH-cam channels on offer, it’s important to be authentic and to do it your way. So long as the restoration story continues to take centre stage, the other stuff is fine with me. Keep up the good work!

Keep up with the nonsense, I enjoy it and it makes each episode slightly unpredictable. There's plenty of other channels out there for those who prefer a more 'formal' approach. A bit of advice - when using larger drill bits you should use a lower drill speed. The bigger the bit, the faster the cutting surface speed will be on the outer diameter of the bit. If you run them too fast you will overheat the bit and dull the cutters, this heat can also lead to hardening of the piece you are trying to drill, making it even worse. You can also buy special drill bits for softer 'grabby' metals like brass and bronze that have a less aggressive cutting angle so they won't grab and snap so easily. A little cutting lube will also help things go more smoothly. Great progress so far and hats off to you for enduring the joys of the English winter weather through thick or thin to bring us this content!

Although the presentation is different on this channel and may be not everyone's cup of tea. However ,it's more interesting as never know what style we are going to see each week and subject of replanking would soon get boring.

I don’t get this, sorry I’m out of here.

I hope this restoration effort would succeed, because no one wants a repeat of what happened to the Aurora - that was a major waste of time, money and resources, and now that poor ship is being cut up for the proverbial razor blades.

It never a easy job to do what the guy trying to do here, So let's try to support him in all he does. But remember when you point a finger, you have three pointing at you. Keep up the work and a 👍 keeping our history alive 😁

The world map is hilarious, love it! You certainly are a man of many talents.

When drilling into steel/metal keep a squirt of oil at he site i to orevent Drill bit overheatin and not working well. it really should not need a lot of pressure on the drill, let it do its job. Cheers, Rich

Instead of criticism help the man fix his boat. More hands makes light work. Ron from South Africa

irk irk Dunk

Keep up all the foolishness if they don't like it they can just skip past it great job keep being you and it's a very Noble task you've under taken.. Perth western Australia

17 minutes of B/S

Just work on the boat and stop with all the foolishness.

I wonder if there is a way a guy could make some supports to hold the tarp out and have a better shelter cover that was lashed down and not flopping in the wind and annoying a guy till he is cussing up a storm?

I think that your overthinking planking scarf repairs. I havent done any yet, although there are many to do in the future, but just think of it this way: The old timers joined planks by butting the ends up and nailing a block over the joint on the inside. About as simple and impercise as you can get, and it worked. Plenty of thickened epoxy, a reasonably well fitted scarf and some bronze screws is good enough. We're boatbuilders, not machinists.

What epoxy are you using ? I’m also renovating a wooden boat and I’ve used West System epoxy with the fast hardener . This is a lot more suited to curing in colder temperatures . It will still take a few days to cure but I’ve used it at 0 degrees and had good results, it just needs a longer clamp time if you’re using it in the winter . I’ve ensured the epoxy is warm whilst mixing it to get the heat into it before it has cured as once it starts to set the heat makes no difference and will rely purely on the quality of the mix and the ambient temperature for a good cure .

What a shame! It’s sad to see all those skills slowly draining away. I admire the work you are doing on Dowager. Having spent last winter on my own wooden boat project, you have my sympathies dealing with epoxy and the winter weather! Keep up the amazing work!

Do you clean all your timber before glueing with asatone.?

Just a thought, have you considered using lumber the same thickness of the one you’re replacing ……

When I heard you say the IBTC was closing I took that to mean something totally different! Over here across the pond those letters mean something totally different! Lol. Itty bitty T**ty committee. Yeah I had the reaction that you were doing one of your jokes again. Yeah as a lover of the American version I was heartbroken. Something always works out.

Is there in England no daylight?

Very sorry to hear about the college... regarding everything else, you are not alone in feeling like you're playing Jenga on the deck of a sinking wooden Titanic (wishing the band would play something other than "Nearer, My God to Thee"). all of these old boat projects have their particular problems, with life , money and weather incessantly creating more complications. But from where I sit, as long as you have that place to work on the boat, you are good to go. Moving Dowager would be a huge interruption/chllenge, but not neccesarily show-stopper.

Sad news indeed for the Collage, Staff and Students. All is not as gloomy as first seems. I have friends who make a living as Blacksmiths, Tinsmiths, Copper smiths, Also building Steam Engines and Boilers. Many having apprentices The old Trades never die out completely some are on an upsurge. The major difference today is how one learns the trade/skills. As for Dowager's immediate future, it may be a good idea to have a word with the Liquidator concerned, they may be able , to offr you a time table or best hope they find a new owner that will let you continue as you are. For sure, until anything is finalised, they will happily let you continue with the current agreement, they want your money! let's hope for the best.

It sounds to me like you need a planer/thicknesser

I am lost for words.

Yes, you are quite the comic! Order your materials before they close and store in the boat. Oak and Luan are available in the UK if needed. Lots of boatyards have storage/working places..be selective, though I do not see why you have to move..Wonder why they are closing? Look at the epoxy you are using, plus all those electic tools and you will discover your answer. Rarely will you find old ways of traditional boat building anymore.

What do you think about the IBTC having to close its doors for the final time? Is it a sad indictment of our society or a necessary loss in the name of progress? Were you ever a student there in happier times? Do you have any fond memories of the place? Let me know below.

FWIW, I'd rather try to remove a corroded flathead (slotted) than a corroded Phillips (or anything else, really). It doesn't always work, but if you scrape at that slot gently and patiently with a little scratch awl, like an obsessive archeologist unearthing a trilobite, then, with the absolute perfect-sized screwdriver, carefully back it out while gently tapping the driver with a handle to sort of "shock" it, you are about 17.0056% less likely to strip the screw head than with an old Philips, which will just become a crater instantly, no matter what you do. So far, with my 47-yr-old wood boat with many old bronze screws of both flavors, I'm having more success with the slotted ones.

If I remember right, the first gov't-issued life jackets (military) used cork for bouancy. This often had predictably disastrous results, although they probably worked great in a bathtub at the factory when they were brand new. Whatever you do, do NOT put new cork back on there!!!

Buddy...FILL empty water bottles (ir Beace, Soap, ANY) tie to bottom eyelets and set on ground. Will help keep the Tarp out of your way and save more dry areas.

add candle wax to your scarf wedge slopes. it will make life easy

Where is your Amazon wish list? I'm in the US, retired and on a pension, but would like to help. Others might want to help as well.

One plank replaced, move on to the next one, soon be back afloat......!

Have you got an angle grinder? I think you could have cut / ground the head off those large rivets, then punched them back out in the same way that you did after drilling. I suspect that this would have been faster.

The epoxy 🤔 reminded me of a naughty rhyme about the good ship Venus. You need that left hand seeing to, looks so pale it could be Raynaurds Disease. 😄 A tip for shaping a pencil for marking I got from a Canadian boat builder. You get a HB5 pencil and sharpen in the normal way. You then introduce it to your block plane and plane it down till you have a flat side. You can get in flat against an edge and around coach bolt heads reducing measurement error. I had about two dozen of those carpenter pencils. All gone in the bin now. There's another Canadian has great tutorial s on sharpening chisels and plane irons. Rob Cosman, has a channel on the tube. He's fairly anal about it he admits. I sharpened all the new chisels I bought this year and F me they are sharp. I keep some paper stitches close by. Once you set them up sharp its easy to keep them sharp. And with the hard wood your using sharp is good. Keep going , Ive been told summer is on the way.

Your play-by-play router skit was very well done. I think you missed your calling. The 'Bama Boy' accent is hilarious.

Your epoxy resin is crystallising due to the cold. It can easily be reconstituted by warming up the can. Put the can next to a heater, place it in a pot of boiled water, or at a pinch, carefully warm up the can with your heat gun. It will return to a clear liquid state. Then, try to store it in a warm place. Keep up the good work!

It’s not a “scuttle” scuttles are used for keeping coal in. It’s called a scupper😉

you could use some help,, friends?

Ive got to hand it to you, well done for working in extreme weather conditions. if you need a hand dont call me. well done, carry on. by the way, i like your cheat of putting "outside" on the plank, i find i need to do the same on my underwear

Loving the content. The skill in changing your hand size is to be commend

I like the liberal use of the Anglo Saxon swear words - Dowager must have heard plenty of them over the many decades of her existence - seems fitting to me that she hears them now as she is resurrected from her grave.

With the goggles on and the head covering, you look like the guy on mad Max with the h Helicopter😅😅

Moments of joy, hours of toil. Never seen boat work in extreme conditions. Great stuff. Maybe a worklight may help? Thank you.

You get the Brass Balls Award for working in those conditions.

Good effort! Consider wrapping a few turns of oakum or cotton caulking under the heads of those carriage bolts to seal them. Also, as already mentioned, a forstner bit is more efficient than the router for drilling the right size countersinks for the bolts.

Dedication keep it going 👏