Well Roy, we all do things like that, that's for sure ! It's one of the reasons that the progress on my pond yacht restoration is fairly slow. It's the only one I have, so I'm scared of messing anything up and instead of working to the old adage of ' measure twice and cut once ' I have modified that to 'measure fifty times and cut once' and still it's easy to mess up !
Half the fun though is overcoming the problems and when you finish, the pain tends to go away ...... One alternative to water in restoring shrunken planks is lots of linseed oil or a linseed oil bath even, and it tends to make a more permanent job of it.... Is the external hull varnished or painted, because you could actually put a coat of resin on externally to waterproof it, .... just thinking out loud really. ....
The deck on mine is solid and of one piece too, a piece of 3/16th pine, which luckily is in nice condition and the deck lines have been nicely engraved. Might it be worth making a new deck for yours ? Actually I think it's worth having a few jobs on the go, it's often when you walk away from a problem and let your subconscious simmer on it, that it will pop up an answer further down the line....
Yes I'm retired too, though I still paint just for the pleasure of it but it's so difficult to find the time now to do everything I want !
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