1957 Lady Clipper Dart

[Dave H]

To start with the boat is basically done with some of the small but not inexpensive detail stuff to complete.
I only know of two other Darts one of which the person does not know what they have. The person I got the boat from road in it in 1958 and had picked up the boat about 20 years ago. At some time he stored it outside under a tarp and the rest is history. You will see in the following posts the process to reclaim this boat. The only thing original in the rebuild is the transom knee; four deck braces and pads; and the transom piece with the hull ID numbers.
Another interesting part of this project was all of the individual's I talked to that were boat builders of the 50's; worked at boat companies; or owned these boats back in the day.

[Dave H]

Lady Clipper boats where made by the Sigler brothers in Tacoma Wa. They made runabouts, cabin cruisers and the Dart which was a special edition. There are pics of some of their boats on the Sande Ace page.
So where do you start on a project that has a lot of badly rotten wood, side note rotted wood shrinks so the term pattern boat means close to the original size. The other big problem gravity, the boat sank on the trailer and pushed the keel up about 2 inch's and part of the bottom where the trailer rollers pushed up.
This boat was glued and nailed together with 1" twisted galvanized nails all the way up to 16 penny galvanizes nails. All of the glue failed along time ago so the nails were all that was holding the boat together. I used a 3/8 plug cutter over all of the nails on the deck and just lifted the decking off. They made good patterns latter.
Used 3/4" ply cut at 45 degrees to match the sides and bottom at every rib and bow deck braces. I made a fixture from 16 foot 2x6 that was square and plumb and had a center line. Then turned the boat over and did a preliminary setting of square and plumb before removing the bottom.

[Dave H]

This thing posted before I could add the pics so here they are. This is first time posting using this program, think I have it figured out.

[Dave H]

Removing the bottom fiberglass, plywood, bottom structure and transom. I left the sides in place until all of the bottom structure and transom was replaced. At this point I also pushed the existing keel and stem back up to original position and aligned the boat to the fixture and centerline. I kept all of the pieces until I had made all of the new replacement pieces.

[Dave H]

Heading the other way and starting to rebuild. The construction was fir and with the stem and chines of oak. I used Maranti for all of the dimension lumber and 3/4 ply for the transom and some of the ribs. The keel is 11/2 x 3 and I laminated it to keep it strait. The stem is white oak tow pieces 1" x 11/4" steamed and then epoxied together on the same fixture for steam bending.

[Dave H]

One thing that I picked up after bringing the boat home was a hard backed book "Boatbuilding with Plywood" by Glen L Witt, Naval Architect. This book help a great deal. My experience with wood started back in the Navy in 1968 to 1972 working in and running the carpenter shop on an Aircraft carrier. Retired from the sheetmetal trade and started a cabinet business 10 years ago making fireplace mantels to restoring vintage trailers and custom work on boats. I grew up on boats and purchased a Glasspar G-3 in 1973 and did the two foot itess. We had a 1967 sea ray with a 110 merc; 19' marlin with an outdrive; 25' bayliner. We also found out we and our girls were not ready to give up water skiing so there was also three outboard ski boats. We also had had a 32' bayliner for ten years and a 28' bayliner. I cut in a transom door on our 32 and a lot of teak cabinets. I have done a lot of work on boats but never built one so the book and talking to those that have.
The boat at this stage of cutting, fitting, gluing and screwing the inner bottom on the transom and bottom frames.

[Dave H]

One last post tonight. White oak chine rail in place. Removed the sides after marking a bunch of reference points. The side joints were all router cut for strait tight butt seams I also used backing plates behind each seam. One thing different on this boat is the location of the upper sheer rails. Most construction they are attached to the frames and on the inside of the sides. With the Dart the sheer rails install on the outside after the sides are installed another challenge. This Sheer rail is made of Maranti steamed glued and clamped on.

[Helmar]

Boy Dave, Keep posting pictures whenever you can.

Nice work by the way.

[Dave H]

The bottom and side material is 6mm Okoume which required four 4x8 sheets. The cost of the four sheets was probably more than the original price of the boat back in 1957. All of the joint cuts were made with a router to get good and tight joints. I used West Systems epoxy with the 404 high density adhesive filler and bronze ring nails. I spent a lot of time getting the chine rail planed to the correct angles and the bottom flat, real flat.

[Dave H]

The next step was to glass the bottom and after talking to a few people and watch a few Youtube videos I went with Dynel with epoxy. I like this stuff it forms easily around corners and objects with out cutting and patching. No fiber glass smell our working fast to finish before the resin hardens as well as the cloth lifting and not laying down was also nice.

[Dave H]

Turned the boat over to get the first good look at the inside of the Dart. All looks good and all the alignments look good. taking a lot of time with all of the dimension's and angles and alignments paid off.

[Dave H]

All the new Deck support material is maranti cut, planned and routed to the correct dimention's. The four front deck supports and pads are from the original boat. No steaming was required to bend the pieces in place. All pieces were epoxied into place and planed to the correct angles..

[Dave H]

The fins are made of quarter sawn Sapele that was laminated together on final installation. The original fins where fastened in place with 16 penny finish nails.

[Dave H]

The decking is 4mm Okoume and required 3 sheets. The 6mm would not have worked with the radius and compound curves. I used the old deck pieces as patterns and that worked out well. One issue with compound curves is the seam lines are not strait, I cut the seam edge strait but after installation the edge had a slight radius. The next piece requires some sanding and fitting to get a tight seam.

[Dave H]

All of the wood work compete some what of a challenge with the rear cockpit seat as there was nothing there to follow for location or angle.