As with most things it depends. Brazilian mahogany (thats the dark stuff) and Sepele are good and glue up well. Iroko is probably better but the grain wavers around making it a nightmare to plane. Douglas fir is quite good. African Mahogany is quite light and soft and rots eventually. Ash rots faster and beech faster still. Pine is very variable but you can buy it very cheaply from a builders merchant. The treated veriety seems to resist rot very well and seems to glue OK.
If the boat is to live outside under a cover condensation will most likely get trapped between the cover and the gunwale and this area will stay wet. A rot resistant timber will go a long way.
For a Rolls Royce job I guess Brazilian Mahogany would be favourite. For me Sepele would do and if I was desperate I'd just find some pressure treated pine. I would be looking for a tight grain (at least 8 growth rings per inch) and an absence of knots bigger than a quarter of an inch.
2 coats of epoxy will seal it up well. Leave it a week before attempting to varnish or the epoxy may interfere with the varnish.
Have a look at the Robbins website. http://www.robbins.co.uk/marine/ They supply the best marine timbers for boatbuilding here in the UK. The prices they charge for delivery are quite high so if you use them try to order all the timber you will need all in one go. If I remember correctly the Miracle was built very light so if you will be scarfing in new bits of ply you might need 4 or 5mm instead of the usual 6mm. I'm guessing but I would expect a miracle to have a 5mm hull with 4mm bulkheads and decks.
I think Miracles are very fine boats indeed. Perhaps one day I will own one.
Hi cliff and thank you for an excellent in depth reply.
not sure yet which wood to go for , so will continue thinking.
She is outside under cover and also where i shall be working on her so getting the right days of lovely sunshine will be touch n go,i have a lot of work to do to get her put back to condition, found a thumb sized hole in the hull yesterday, so she is going upside down for a thorough check today.
both front deck panels now removed, no dramas and the interior is dry and sound, epoxy on wednesday to strengthen the old seams,and a coat of paint on top to help seal her up ,such an enjoyable experience repairing an old miracle,i have the rear panels to do yet however !
For replacing the port outer gunwale strip on "Puffin", I managed to buy finished mahogany material. Unfortunately there were no suitable lengths so I had to buy two pieces and scarf them in the middle.
I wetted them, placed them across two trestles, hung weights on them at the middle and left them to dry. That reduced the amount of bending required to fit them.
Here's a picture of the material cross-section (that's a metric set-square showing the dimensions).
The material was only available at the local boatbuilding suppliers, the DIY shops in Berlin do not sell suitable wood. You may have to scout around in the UK, too.
Wishing you continued success!
Gernot H.
P.S. If anyone is bored enough, he or she could research and report on the relationships between Mirrors, Mirror 16s, Miracles etc. and put up the results here.
There were originally four Mirrors which were sponsered by The Daily Mirror newspaper
The Mirror dinghy
Hopefully I don't need to describe this!
The Mirror 14
A single trapese racing dinghy designed by Peter Milne who also designed the Fireball, the Skipper 12 and 14 dinghies and the Skipper 17 trailable cruiser. This was later modified to carry more sail and became the Merauder. I'm pretty sure these were plywood and kits or plans for home building were available for a time.
The Mirror 16
Designed by Jack Holt
Similar in concept to the Wayfarer, a large dinghy for camp cruising. It carried an enormous sail area but was well set up with reefing gear and a reefing or furling jib. These boats were self draining with under floor buoyancy. It's a concept which seems great until you realise that when the hull leaks the water gets into the bouyancy tank and there is no provision for draining the tank into the bottom of the boat while at sea. Many other boats use a similar concept and I once had to rescue a kid in a Topper whose boat had become waterlogged in this way and too unstable to sail despite the light winds. I towed him to the shore and he walked back to Del Quay Sailing Club to get some help from his mates.
The Mirror Offshore
A Van De Stadt design in fibreglass. This little 19 foot cruiser had a shallow long keel with optional bilge keels, a tiny sail area, a Volvo diesel inboard, seperate head compartment (sea toilet) and four berths. Two berths were in the cabin and two in the cockpit. Quite a tough little boat, I believe one crossed the Atlantic.
The non Mirrors include;
The Miracle
Possibly Jack Holts finest creation. The story I once read was that as he became an older man Jack Holt was having difficulty hauling his National Solo up the slipway after a race due to it's weight. He designed two ultra lightweight racing dinghies in plywood. The Streaker, a single hander and the Miracle a doublehander with a spinnaker. These boats first appeared in the mid 70's by which time the general public were getting used to fibreglass boats that didn't need painting. Perhaps it's not surprising the Miracle didn't sell all that well. 4000 boats have been built to date. The plywood Streaker was supposed to be one of the most delightful boats ever. Fibreglass copies were made and suffered from hull flex and wern't so good.
The Mirador
I've very little information on this. It's a 20 foot centreboard sailing cruiser. It might have been built from kits from Bell Woodworking.
Cliff,
you are a walking encyclopedia of nautical information! If only you drank in my local watering hole!
I was very tempted to buy a mirror offshore for there 'offshore' credentials, but after much research I thought the design was a compromise between power and sail power (effectively a small motor sailor) and bought a Hunter Europa 19 instead. I believe Sir Henry Pigott crossed the Atlantic aboard his Mirror Offshore 19 foot yacht around 1974, which proves, in the right hands, they're capable boats. Talking of transatlantic crossings, I'm looking for a copy of the book 'Very Willing Griffin' by David Blagdon, the story of the smallest boat (Hunter 19) ever to compete in the Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. I'm happy to beg, borrow, steal or pay for a copy if anyone has the book gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. It seems to be out of print now.
Sorry for hijacking the thread, to keep things back on subject... I'm thinking sanding the varnish back and running a length of 50 mm glass table down the length of my Mirrors gunwales to help slow the decay of the sandwiched plywood.
Euan
@ muckle moose: Puffin's port side decayed in that way - microcracks in the varnish, water in the centre ply, invisible rot under the paint - chainplates pulled out - mast fell overboard - lengthy repairs :.-{(
Make sure that you get as much of any rotten wood out and that everything is absolutely dry before glassing it over!
In Germany the nickname for the fibreglass over a wooden hull is a "Leichentuch" which means "shroud" but literally translates as "corpse-cloth", for obvious reasons. I watched Harold LaBorde build his first "Humming Bird" ~ 50 years ago and when I last visited Trinidad in 1997, she was up for display on the docks in Port-of-Spain with her plywood bottom rotting out inside the fibreglass sheath.
Gernot H.
sail_and_oar
Sun, 02/23/2014 - 01:49
Permalink
Wood types for rubbing strakes
As with most things it depends. Brazilian mahogany (thats the dark stuff) and Sepele are good and glue up well. Iroko is probably better but the grain wavers around making it a nightmare to plane. Douglas fir is quite good. African Mahogany is quite light and soft and rots eventually. Ash rots faster and beech faster still. Pine is very variable but you can buy it very cheaply from a builders merchant. The treated veriety seems to resist rot very well and seems to glue OK.
If the boat is to live outside under a cover condensation will most likely get trapped between the cover and the gunwale and this area will stay wet. A rot resistant timber will go a long way.
For a Rolls Royce job I guess Brazilian Mahogany would be favourite. For me Sepele would do and if I was desperate I'd just find some pressure treated pine. I would be looking for a tight grain (at least 8 growth rings per inch) and an absence of knots bigger than a quarter of an inch.
2 coats of epoxy will seal it up well. Leave it a week before attempting to varnish or the epoxy may interfere with the varnish.
Have a look at the Robbins website. http://www.robbins.co.uk/marine/ They supply the best marine timbers for boatbuilding here in the UK. The prices they charge for delivery are quite high so if you use them try to order all the timber you will need all in one go. If I remember correctly the Miracle was built very light so if you will be scarfing in new bits of ply you might need 4 or 5mm instead of the usual 6mm. I'm guessing but I would expect a miracle to have a 5mm hull with 4mm bulkheads and decks.
I think Miracles are very fine boats indeed. Perhaps one day I will own one.
Cliff.
miracle
Sun, 02/23/2014 - 10:16
Permalink
Hi cliff and thank you
Hi cliff and thank you for an excellent in depth reply.
not sure yet which wood to go for , so will continue thinking.
She is outside under cover and also where i shall be working on her so getting the right days of lovely sunshine will be touch n go,i have a lot of work to do to get her put back to condition, found a thumb sized hole in the hull yesterday, so she is going upside down for a thorough check today.
miracle
Mon, 02/24/2014 - 16:40
Permalink
both front deck panels now
both front deck panels now removed, no dramas and the interior is dry and sound, epoxy on wednesday to strengthen the old seams,and a coat of paint on top to help seal her up ,such an enjoyable experience repairing an old miracle,i have the rear panels to do yet however !
62816inBerlin
Thu, 02/27/2014 - 20:19
Permalink
Found the picture
For replacing the port outer gunwale strip on "Puffin", I managed to buy finished mahogany material. Unfortunately there were no suitable lengths so I had to buy two pieces and scarf them in the middle.
I wetted them, placed them across two trestles, hung weights on them at the middle and left them to dry. That reduced the amount of bending required to fit them.
Here's a picture of the material cross-section (that's a metric set-square showing the dimensions).
The material was only available at the local boatbuilding suppliers, the DIY shops in Berlin do not sell suitable wood. You may have to scout around in the UK, too.
Wishing you continued success!
Gernot H.
P.S. If anyone is bored enough, he or she could research and report on the relationships between Mirrors, Mirror 16s, Miracles etc. and put up the results here.
curlew
Thu, 02/27/2014 - 20:51
Permalink
Bending Wood
I have previously bent wood by putting it in a long plastic bag connected to a wall paper steamer.
David
sail_and_oar
Mon, 03/10/2014 - 21:59
Permalink
The many Mirrors
There were originally four Mirrors which were sponsered by The Daily Mirror newspaper
The Mirror dinghy
Hopefully I don't need to describe this!
The Mirror 14
A single trapese racing dinghy designed by Peter Milne who also designed the Fireball, the Skipper 12 and 14 dinghies and the Skipper 17 trailable cruiser. This was later modified to carry more sail and became the Merauder. I'm pretty sure these were plywood and kits or plans for home building were available for a time.
The Mirror 16
Designed by Jack Holt
Similar in concept to the Wayfarer, a large dinghy for camp cruising. It carried an enormous sail area but was well set up with reefing gear and a reefing or furling jib. These boats were self draining with under floor buoyancy. It's a concept which seems great until you realise that when the hull leaks the water gets into the bouyancy tank and there is no provision for draining the tank into the bottom of the boat while at sea. Many other boats use a similar concept and I once had to rescue a kid in a Topper whose boat had become waterlogged in this way and too unstable to sail despite the light winds. I towed him to the shore and he walked back to Del Quay Sailing Club to get some help from his mates.
The Mirror Offshore
A Van De Stadt design in fibreglass. This little 19 foot cruiser had a shallow long keel with optional bilge keels, a tiny sail area, a Volvo diesel inboard, seperate head compartment (sea toilet) and four berths. Two berths were in the cabin and two in the cockpit. Quite a tough little boat, I believe one crossed the Atlantic.
The non Mirrors include;
The Miracle
Possibly Jack Holts finest creation. The story I once read was that as he became an older man Jack Holt was having difficulty hauling his National Solo up the slipway after a race due to it's weight. He designed two ultra lightweight racing dinghies in plywood. The Streaker, a single hander and the Miracle a doublehander with a spinnaker. These boats first appeared in the mid 70's by which time the general public were getting used to fibreglass boats that didn't need painting. Perhaps it's not surprising the Miracle didn't sell all that well. 4000 boats have been built to date. The plywood Streaker was supposed to be one of the most delightful boats ever. Fibreglass copies were made and suffered from hull flex and wern't so good.
The Mirador
I've very little information on this. It's a 20 foot centreboard sailing cruiser. It might have been built from kits from Bell Woodworking.
Cliff
muckle moose
Mon, 03/10/2014 - 22:44
Permalink
Your a treasure trove of information!
Cliff,
you are a walking encyclopedia of nautical information! If only you drank in my local watering hole!
I was very tempted to buy a mirror offshore for there 'offshore' credentials, but after much research I thought the design was a compromise between power and sail power (effectively a small motor sailor) and bought a Hunter Europa 19 instead. I believe Sir Henry Pigott crossed the Atlantic aboard his Mirror Offshore 19 foot yacht around 1974, which proves, in the right hands, they're capable boats. Talking of transatlantic crossings, I'm looking for a copy of the book 'Very Willing Griffin' by David Blagdon, the story of the smallest boat (Hunter 19) ever to compete in the Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. I'm happy to beg, borrow, steal or pay for a copy if anyone has the book gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. It seems to be out of print now.
Sorry for hijacking the thread, to keep things back on subject... I'm thinking sanding the varnish back and running a length of 50 mm glass table down the length of my Mirrors gunwales to help slow the decay of the sandwiched plywood.
Euan
sail_and_oar
Mon, 03/10/2014 - 23:33
Permalink
Bending wood
Hannu's boatyard is a wonderful resource.
In this link he describes how to justify replacing the bedroom carpet.
http://koti.kapsi.fi/hvartial/bend/bend.htm
Cliff
PuffinInTegel
Tue, 03/11/2014 - 15:12
Permalink
Slowing decay
@ muckle moose: Puffin's port side decayed in that way - microcracks in the varnish, water in the centre ply, invisible rot under the paint - chainplates pulled out - mast fell overboard - lengthy repairs :.-{(
Make sure that you get as much of any rotten wood out and that everything is absolutely dry before glassing it over!
In Germany the nickname for the fibreglass over a wooden hull is a "Leichentuch" which means "shroud" but literally translates as "corpse-cloth", for obvious reasons. I watched Harold LaBorde build his first "Humming Bird" ~ 50 years ago and when I last visited Trinidad in 1997, she was up for display on the docks in Port-of-Spain with her plywood bottom rotting out inside the fibreglass sheath.
Gernot H.