Rebuilding the Square Meter: paint stripping

After 4 passes and 6 gallons of paint stripper, we have started to see the strengths and weaknesses of the hull.  This is a race boat and is built accordingly (light).  This is good for us.  The ribs will be easy to duplicate.  They are thin laminations of steam bent oak.  The lower braces are heavy oak but are not very large.  These will be recut out of 8 quarter oak and either directly replace the originals or be sistered in alongside the originals.
Here are photos of the work to date:

The stripped cockpit.  We used stripper to both remove paint layers in the bilge as well as to remove the canvas deck adhesive.

The most recent paint layer was battleship grey.  The early layers were way nicer.  A pale blue layer covered the original orangy red.  Now that's a factory color!

It looks nasty now.  Just wait.

Here is the cut out keel timber,  The top has a rabbet for the planking, the bottom is flat to receive the lead keel casting.
We are duplicating this piece out of oak.  Here is a piece of 8 quarter (2 inch thick) oak.  Additional oak will be pegged and epoxied on to build up the shape.

Here is the big oak passing through the Silver Band Saw.   Finally a piece  of wood
that is the right scale for the saw.  The saw ate through the wood like nobody's business.

Here are two pieces of new oak that we saw cut to shape.  Tomorrow we will bond them together
and continue forming the part.

Rebuilding the 1929 Square Meter, Kippis: We got the job!

The owner liked the bid well enough to give us the go ahead.  Brave Man!
There are some unknowns we will discover but he is a fearless sailor.

The first items on the to do list were to take measurements of everything that might be removed.
The biggest thing on this list is the keel timber.  It has rot but nothing is missing, so it will provide us a useful pattern.

After the measurements were recorded in a new log book, we began the process of chemically stripping the bilge planking and ribs.

The worrisome hole in the bottom of the boat.