Morris Inner Stem Repair

[Paul Scheuer]

After having been exposed to the wisdom of this forum, I have decided that I should not proceed with my plan to epoxy the tack holes and outer stem rivet holes. The new plan is to insert new spruce, about 3/8th thick, in the carved out space at the outside of the inner stems. I didn't get pics of the as-found stem, but there were many,many tack holes.

I have a piece of sitka spruce with about 30 per inch ring count, that I plan to steam to fit.

Here's the carved forward inner stem.

 

[shelldrake]

Nice job. Use a router?

 

[Paul Scheuer]

Shelldrake: Every time I tried to figure out a fixture for a router it got way complicated. I didn't want any extra holes in the boat and dealing with all of the curves involved was more than I wanted to deal with. I'm comfortable with carving and I'm not in a hurry. I started with a small pull saw which worked well to make controlled depth kerfs on the outside curves. A chisel worked well to remove most of material with a little exacto work. I did the final smoothing with coarse paper glued to a stick that fit the slot. I did encounter one planking tack that found its way into material that I wanted to remove. The there was also one clenched steel nail through both planks and the stem. I wouldn't have wanted to find that with a router. The only power tool that I used was a dremel disc where I had some epoxy between the planking and the stem. (I had done a previous unauthentic stem top repair where I glued the planking to my replacement stem tip).

 

[MGC]

After having been exposed to the wisdom of this forum, I have decided that I should not proceed with my plan to epoxy the tack holes and outer stem rivet holes. The new plan is to insert new spruce, about 3/8th thick, in the carved out space at the outside of the inner stems.

That looks like a nice job prepping for the splice.
I am not sure about using spruce in lieu of cedar?
The stem in a Morris is cedar. Cedar will steam and bend nicely and will certainly hold tacks for you. From working on the boat you probably have lots of cedar scraps around.....

 

[Paul Scheuer]

Thanks MGC. I don't know now where I got the idea that the inner stems were spruce. I did notice while carving that the wood was a lot easier to work that the spruce that I have. I have enough cedar for what I will need.

 

[Scott Rowe]

Wow, this is timely! I just pulled my "hanger" Morris from its perch and am looking at this very same repair today. I did use quite a bit of epoxy in the stern stem but hope to be more authentic in the bow stem. My damage is exactly like yours. In pic #2 it looks like a bad spot where one of those nasty rivets went through the stem is still in need of attention, I have this as well. Will you laminate right over that? How did you make kerf cuts in the stem? Didn't the plank ends get in the way? Nice pics.

 

[Paul Scheuer]

Scott:

I'm working on the forward stem also. The distortion near the rivet hole is not as bad as it looks in the pictures. I don't plan to use the existing holes for the new outer stems I drilled out the holes so that I can fit a cedar plug in each with minimum glue. Since this is my first try at this, I'm leaning toward nuts and bolts in new holes. I don't think I could match up the new holes in the outer stems with the existing inner stem holes. I'm moving very slowly, but I hope to steam the insert for the forward stem this week. I too have a lot of epoxy on the aft stem from when I started the project years ago. At that time I wasn't too concerned about authenticity, and hadn't thought about how I was going to tack the canvas. My stem tip/deck repairs are not authentic, so that ship has sailed.

 

[Paul Scheuer]

OK, so after a few delays I got the inner stem insert steamed. The delays caused an extra week or so of soaking the wood.

I did the form just slightly tighter than the stem shape. The insert is a about 3/8 th thick so I don't anticipate any problem in fitting.

I had a few issues with the steam set up. Mainly with the tape I was using. Furnace tape doesn't like wet heat. I also carved threads in a wooden plug so I could connect to the Wagner steam generator. I haven't found the right glue to hold it in the plastic pipe I was using to inject steam into the poly tube. I'm learning. I was using a long plastic hose for the condensate drain and found that if it wasn't down hill all the way to the floor drain, enough pressure built up in the poly tube such that the tape couldn't tolerate it.

The pics are; the formed piece clamped in the form, the poly tube set up with steam, the system set up, and the form. I used a steel strap . Probably didn't need it.

 

[Scott Rowe]

Nice job. I ended up replacing my Morris stem from the blown out rivet hole to the gunwales. So much fun.

 

[Cliff Ober]

I had a few issues with the steam set up. Mainly with the tape I was using.

Paul, the next time you try taping for steam, consider getting some Kapton tape. It's good to 600 degrees (I use it to seal stove pipe joints) and is pretty inexpensive if purchased through eBay.

Cliff