Useful assistance appreciated

We have had several old boatmen who have come by to offer a thousand suggestions and great advise on how to proceed with this "huge" project. Some of them had seen the boat sitting in dry dock idle for several years and were ecstatic that someone had bought her and is making her sea worthy and beautiful again. One boatman showed us tools to remove caulking make out of old files one day while we were on break and so we have had some made and are ready to start the big job of scraping out old cotton and caulk, and replacing where necessary. Any ideas on how to make "plugs" to put into the holes left by the countersinking of the original square nails that were used to build her? The depth of the holes are only about 1/16"..Would epoxy mixed with some teak sawdust work alright? One great source of information has been a gentleman in Florida who owns a Junk also. We appreciate and love to hear from everyone about this project since we have built houses, stagecoaches, and other wood projects before, but never a boat. We will also have to learn how to sail her yet.

We finished our trip to Kentucky and Tennessee and are now on our way back to the Marina to get back to work. We have parked our RV close by so we can start nice and early in the mornings and even sneak in a nap!

Working on the dream-boat!

During rainstorm, we stood inside the boat and began marking all the leak areas. Major leak was salon roof which required us to replace a major portion of the roof decking with new plywood, Fiberglas cloth, and used West Marine resin to seal it. After sanding the repair, we repainted the decking with non-slip paint.

In mid-April, my husband's birthday present was when we borrowed a battery from the marina manager and attached it to the big Mack engine (which we understand has not been used in at least five years) and the engine started right up and purred like a kitten. We shut it off after just a couple minutes as we didn't have any exterior cooling capability at this time. We hope to have the aid and advise of a diesel mechanic to go over the systems to make sure everything is ready to go.

Next we refinished the two masts and stood them up. It took several days after that to sand cabin walls and deck surfaces in preparation for sealing. Several pieces of the teak decking on the port side had to be replaced and sanded. Brass rub rail around edge of deck was removed for finishing along with any other fixtures. After the sanding was completed we caulked the cabin walls and deck (wherever needed) with black rubber caulking. It took several days for the caulking to dry enough sand smooth before we could apply deck sealer. We first applied two coats of TeaQua on the deck and cabin walls, them we applied a coat of Flood UV sealant as a top coat. This gave the wood a beautiful warm glow which was admired by all the other boatowners passing by, and wanted to know how we achieved the color.
We decided to tackle refinishing the teak railing around the fly-deck next. First we washed the railing with teak cleaner and then followed up with sanding and sealing the wood the same way we sealed the cabins. The starboard side of the railing had poor joinery which we solved by attaching a brass rub rail on top of the railing for support.
All of the windows on the boat have bad plastic track which need replacing. The marina manager helped us find sources for new stainless steel track to be purchased later when we can. Every window on the main salon cabin of the boat, except for the windshield and portholes, are double sliding windows. The galley windows appear to be single sliding and have brass window locks.
The starboard aft window of the salon had been used for a window air conditioner and two other windows in the salon were broken. We decided to make both aft windows a single pane fixed window.

Both the port and starboard sliding cabin doors were removed and refinished. The port windshield was broken and therefore replaced, and the other two windshield windows were also removed and recaulked. The badly leaking windshields had caused some damage to the helm dash and had to be torn out and replaced. We added tightening clamps to the bottoms of the windshields that opened, so that they could be closed and secured tightly. Damage from the helm leak into the galley wall required some replacement of wood.

Previous leakage around the main mast base caused some rot in the decking which was cut out and replaced with wood and epoxy. Future addition of veneer in the ceiling of the lower cabin will dress up the patched areas. The portholes in the V-Berth cabin are both missing their exterior trim rings.

Medical appointments are now taking us away from our project for a week or so after these six weeks of daily work on her. Our hands and knees need the vacation anyway.

Where do we start?

This photo displays the starboard side of the boat as she looked like the day we bought her. The previous owner had removed a lot of the exterior paint and had started removing all the caulking in the hull, but from what we were told that had been over the past 3 years or so while it sat in dry dock. A family had been living full-time onboard but did not do any type of preventative or emergency repairs. The roof leaked so bad into the upper cabin that a lot of wood was damaged or destroyed which could have been prevented and therefore cost less time and money in repairs. Most of the deck level railing was gone, signs that some of them had been cut off and others rotted away. The top fly-deck railing of teak was in good shape, only needs some sanding and Teaqua teak stain to look good again.

First order of business was to clean out all of the trash left behind, which filled three large dumpsters. Reusable parts were cleaned up and set aside to be reused at a later date. Starting to tear out the rotted/bad wood in the upper cabin or "salon" area. Inspection of every joint in the walls of the upper and lower cabins revealed joints that needed to be recaulked, trim that was loose or needed replacement, and a visual check of all of the windows revealed that every window needs track replacement.

Removed the exterior artwork - carved dragons on front and back decorative carved wood design on rear or aft sections. Rub rails were removed as the wood beneath was beginning to rot, so rails need to be reformed to direct water run-off away from the hull.

Chut Loon Chinese Junk Restoration Project

We just started working on a restoration project of a 12 meter (39.5 feet) chinese junk which we saw and purchased on ebay. This boat has been sitting in dry dock for nearly seven years and so we have quite a project ahead of us. We decided it was best to start the restoration from the top down. This boat was built around 1971 at the Sau Kee Shipyard in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. It it built completely out of teak lumber and slept 8. This boat is quite unusual as it has a full upper cabin along with the lower cabin which has the galley, dinnette, head, and two bunks. Forward of this cabin is the V-berth which has an emergency exit hatch and two portholes. The top cabin or what we call the "salon" has two couch/bunks; double sliding windows; three windshield windows of which two can be locked open, and the main helm. Above the upper cabin has an outside deck with second helm. The two masts were in great shape but sails are missing. Will post pictures and update our progress on this beauty as we get going on it.