The aluminum bang strip along the bottom of the keel on the "52" Yankee is wider than the narrow bottom of the keel. Should I plane the keel down to where the widths are matching or file the width of the strip. Planing the keel down a tiny bit to match the width is much less work. I do not believe that a slight reduction in height is going to be of any significance. Also none of the screw holes line up, so filling and redrilling is in order. This leads me to suspect the the keel strip was off a different canoe and the original owner (deceased) changed strips. The bow and stern strips are copper and were poorly fit, only bent between the screw holes. Very different with the "29" HW where everything I know for a fact is original and all lines up. Any thoughts of fitting the strip to the bottom of the keel are appreciated. Hope to have the Yankee done for the "PRESIDENTIAL PADDLE" next Saturday with all my mistakes intact. At least it isn't sinkling or taking on water.
Aluminum Bang strip width and fit?
- Thread starter Jan Bloom
- Start date
Further exploration of the keel show that the aluminum bang strip was screwed on with steel screws at one time. This is a huge no no as steel and white oak love each other to the point that the tannins in the oak will totally carrode the steel. So there are a lot of screw holes with rusted busted steel screws.
Before someone jumps in and yells "galvanic action", low carbon steel as used in common wood screws and common aluminum are within 10 points on the galvanic action scale. Stainless steel and aluminum are 40 points or so apart so stailess would not have been a good odea. OT apparently overlooked the problem of the iron reacting withthe tannins in the wood. The tannins in the wood react far faster and with greater ferrocity than galvanic action. Tannins and water equal tanic acid which loves iron. White oak is high in tannins, white oak bark for years was used as a source for tannic acid by the tanning industry.
Dan Lindberg
Ex Wood Hoarder
Jan,
My 1st reation was "why do you want to put the alum strip on in the 1st place",
which was then followed by why not just narrow the alum strip?
Not sure this is of any help to but...........
But is seems it might be easier to narrow the alum then take a planer to the installed keel.
Dan
(for what it's worth, to avoid installing a full length, wide brass (?) strip on a past project, I molded some cab-o-sil fillled epoxy to the keel instead. Light and very hard.)
My 1st reation was "why do you want to put the alum strip on in the 1st place",
which was then followed by why not just narrow the alum strip?
Not sure this is of any help to but...........
But is seems it might be easier to narrow the alum then take a planer to the installed keel.
Dan
(for what it's worth, to avoid installing a full length, wide brass (?) strip on a past project, I molded some cab-o-sil fillled epoxy to the keel instead. Light and very hard.)
The aluminum strip is "original" to the boat. Considering that it only would come down about a 16th I would just grab a hand plane. I suppose it really doesn't matter if I put the full length strip on or not as most do not have a full length strip. Good point, I had not thought about leaving it off. Oh well, the poor thing is cursed anyway. Poked hole in one of the seats I had just fit in new pressed cane. I will use it even with the hole in the seat. Snow tomorrow, 1 inch, so I won't be paddling anywhere in anything.
