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Books By Annie Hill

  • Brazil and Beyond
  • Voyaging on a Small Income

16 July, 2017

Mid July 2017

While I've been busy all week, there isn't really a lot to show for it, because I've been preparing shelves and spaces in the heads compartment.  This has involved coating fiddly pieces of framing for the shelves and gluing them into place, as well as coating and sanding the shelves themselves. There is a surprising amount of tooth sucking going on at what probably sounds like a very straightforward project.  One of the issues is that if I put the vertical framing in too early, I can't get the shelves in.  Equally, if I put the shelves in too early it's harder to paint out the locker. 

And the cabin sole needs to be fitted, but goes under the locker, so I didn't want to fit that until I'm sure everything else is prepared.  It has a hatch cut out of it, so I had to remember to put some framing in for that.  Finally everything was ready and I took a final photo of the bilge, which won't see the light of day again.

Eventually, I plan to cover the bits of the cabin sole that you can see with hardwood, to make a pleasant surface to walk on.  I shall probably leave it bare so that it doesn't become slippery when it's wet.  Shiny varnish doesn't stay shiny for very long, I've discovered.  Thinking about the fact that I was making a space for the beer brewing barrel reminded me that I needed somewhere for the beer, too. 

It has to stand up without falling over, so I made a shelf with room for three bottles across and 7 along.  In the photo the fack looks a bit shallow, but the inboard and outboard bottles are supported by the locker front and boat side, so can't tip.  Presumably, the ones in the middle won't tip over, either.

With everything ready to install, I've started painting.  I'm trying to do as much as possible 'on the bench' for obvious reasons, but will no doubt have some touching up work to do once everything is fitted.  The masking tape is keep the wood paint free for gluing.

It will be good to have the locker painted out.  I could have left it all simply sealed with WEST epoxy, but having done that in the past, I realise that the extra work of painting them out is worth the effort.  Varnished lockers are very dark and require a head torch to find stuff!

3 comments:

Garryck said...

Hi Annie.. great work!

Ok, I'm seriously impressed.. designing in space for both a beer barrel and 42 litres of beer! I'm totally stealing that idea for my own build.

Only question is, where did you find those dark 2L plastic bottles? They're perfect!

Annie Hill said...

Well, I'm afraid you've got both the size and, therefore, your sums wrong! They are 1.25l, actually, which I found a good size for two (and on my own, am perfectly happy to drink it the next day.)

The best way to get dark plastic bottles is to go to your local supermarket, find the soft drinks and buy the cheapest ginger beer, which, while bearing no relation to genuine, yeasted ginger beer, keeps up the fiction by being sold in dark bottles. You then take the bottles home and pour the contents down the sink (sugar, water, artificial colour and flavouring: it's all it's fit for). If you use the bottles immediately they don't even need sterilising and will give your first batch of beer an interesting hint of ginger!

Garryck said...

I admit that I was a little uncertain as to size.. guessed wrong! Ah well.

Thanks for the tip. Don't recall ever seeing the dark bottles here in Oz, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for them. Totally agree with you as to how to deal with the original contents, too.