Restoration of a 1961 Chris-Craft

Today was receive the wood day.  John and I split the cost of 800 board feet of Mahogany that was purchased from an outfit in Minnesota.  Thanks to John as he arranged the order and it was purchased as 800 board feet in 6/4 board (1-1/2 inches thick) and 700 board feet was sawed in half to approximately 3/4 inch. We received it at Grant Boatworks in Hartwell GA thanks to Jim Grant.  We transferred it to a trailer from the tractor trailer it showed up in and towed it to John's extra garage.  There we set about the task of splitting it up.  The pile on the right is mine. It's interesting to note that there are various widths in the stacks.  So as we split it up, we made sure that each of us had the same number of boards with the same width.  It's also interesting to note that we kept the boards that had been sawed in half as a pair.  When these boards get used, one of the pair will go on the port side and the other on the starboard side.  We a...

Now that I have the bottom off and a couple on the sides and transom, I asked my friend John over to look at the frames and discuss next steps. There is a lot of rot in the transom and corner pieces seen above.  Just about all you see here needs replacement.  Of course the vertical ribs that hold the transom planks are fastened from the top under the deck boards.  I'm crawling under and removing those now. This is an inside view of the top corner of the boat (image below).  Someone replaced a top plank as you can see it's a different color and they put in blocks to support it: The plan of attack is to replace transom pieces first, then the keel.  After that I'll do the chines.  Once all that is complete, the frames one by one.  Progress will get slower from here, shopping for wood (white oak for frames, chine and keel), clearing out and cleaning the garage to make room and getting more tools.   Yes, I need more tools of course!

Took the rest of the bottom off today.  There were some challenges but ended up powering it off and it came in one piece. I'll start working on the side planks up to the water line.

Ordered and received some reverse drill bits that allowed me to remove all the screws that were stubborn. I believe I have all the screws removed from the bottom although there were a few hidden ones that were missed when I removed the starboard side planks.  But its half off! The port side I plan to take off in one piece but its likely to be a challenge.  As I removed the plywood from the starboard side I found that they had nailed the plywood in place.  Some came up easily and some not.  Here's a photo after removing the planks and before removing the plywood:

The screws on the bottom have been exposed and I'm proceeding with removing thousands of screws.   I had to remove the filler used to smooth the bottom. Most come out fairly easy but there are always a few that don't. This is near the transom where the screw patter was different.  I ended up having to chisel off more fiberglass in some areas to expose more screws. And some were at weird angles.  Not sure if this was factory installed, due to shifting, or a repair done sometime in the past. But I'm starting to remove boards from the bottom.  On the starboard side I plan to take off each board and use them for patterns.  On the port side I plan to remove all boards and the plywood underneath in one piece.

I think I may have over estimated what it was going to take.  I have about 20 hours into this and I believe the bottom has all screws exposed.  Now I have to work on the sides from the chine to the waterline. But it's been a mess, filled a kitchen garbage bag in two days work (looks like snow): Some of the fiberglass was de-laminated and came right up in chunks. There seems to be some sort of caulk between planks, hopefully this won't be an issue: And this was someones idea of a repair.  Guess that's bondo!  and a few extra screws: