When building the wooden Drascombes, we used square nuts and hex-head bolts and washers, or screws and washers to clamp the plank lands together when gluing them in place. You can share your tips and tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Monthly readers by sending us an email. More information on their continuing adventures can be found on their blog Small Boat Restoration. Kent and Audrey Lewis used quite a few fender washers during the restoration of their 1880s Mississippi River Skiff BARBASHELA and their 1950s Alcort Sailfish ZSA ZSA. Use zinc-plated or stainless-steel washers-plain steel will stain the wood black.Ī fender washer and a screw don’t cost much, under 50 cents for the pair, and a handful of them can get you through jobs where clamps can’t be used or you don’t have enough of them. If the plywood is reluctant to make a bend you can help it along by covering it with towels, pouring boiling water over them, then covering it all with plastic sheeting to hold the heat. A rough-cut panel can be left on a mold for a few days to help preset a bend, making final installation easier. Without the washer, the screw head might crush the multiple thin layers of plywood, either leaving a lot of damage to finish, or even compromising the integrity of the panel. The washers prevent damaging the layers of ply while the panel is being shaped to the molds and fastened. We also use fender washers when working with plywood panels. Screws and washers kept molten lead from seeping between layers of plywood for a centerboard that will later be epoxied together and sheathed with fiberglass. In some cases, we’d fill the hole with thickened epoxy or a wooden plug. Once the cypress plank was properly positioned and the permanent fastenings were installed, we removed the deck screw and used that hole for another permanent fastening. A deck screw’s star-drive head has an exceptionally secure hold on the driver bit, and the longer, coarser threads of the deck screw bit right into the frames and pulled the plank tight. When we switched to a fender washer and a deck screw we fared much better. We then tried using several bronze wood screws to distribute the load but ended up shearing some of them, and nothing is more fun than dealing with half a screw in a frame while the plank is not pulled tight. We once needed to pull a cypress plank tight to a frame during a repair and first tried using a single silicon-bronze wood screw, but the screw buried itself under the surface, did not have enough bite to pull the plank, and stripped out of the frame. Screws and fender washers are especially useful holding the hood ends of plywood planks to the stem while epoxy cures.įender washers are especially useful when working with softer hardwoods. To avoid these problems, we use fender washers with drywall or deck screws as temporary fastenings while we drill for and install the permanent fastenings. A screwdriver can also cam out of the slot in a softer bronze screw head, requiring replacement of the damaged screw. The finer threads of silicon-bronze or marine stainless-steel screws may not bite as well into softer wood, and while those screws can be used to hold parts together, they’re not well suited to closing gaps. And the conical underside of a flat-head screw can act as wedge and split a plank end. The heads of wood screws can bury themselves, damaging the workpiece and then becoming difficult to remove without lifting and splintering the top fibers of wood. We’ve tried to close gaps between pieces using the wood screws that will be the permanent fastenings, but found that method fraught with problems. Peter Sibleyīar clamps might reach across the side decks to secure the sheer guard for gluing, but screws and fender washers are a more economical approach, less expensive even than stainless or bronze screws that would be left in place after the glue cures. We often encounter tasks that are beyond the reach of clamps, and a fender washer and a screw can pull parts together, like bending a plank into position on a frame, stem, or transom. I can’t remember where we came across the idea to use them in working on wooden boats, but I am glad that we did. With oversize diameters and small holes, fender washers were developed for working on automobile fenders where the sheet metal would be distorted when pressed by smaller washers. One of the least conspicuous is a pile of small zinc-plated fender washers. In our shop we have a lot of tools that have come to good use when working on wooden boats. Screws can hold work pieces together in areas where clamps can’t reach, and fender washers spread the pressure over a wide area, minimizing the damage to the wood and helping prevent splits in lumber.
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