Finally I get to varnish!

I have been working really hard on the boat these last few weeks, well aware that Time is Going By and that everyone else is off sailing while I'm still in a boat shed.  This has meant that my Sundays 'off' have been more than usually busy, plus of course there was the Tall Ships Regatta.  All this is to explain why I haven't blogged for a while.  So lots of pics today to make up for it.

 I may have already mentioned these natty little floor rings from Classic Marine.  There is still a wee bit of space for dust to get into the bilges around them, but they are the best that I've seen and feel robust when you use them to lift up the sole.  They don't hold the boards down of course.  If I go offshore, I'll probably simply put screws in for the passage.

 Making the cabin sole is definitely one of the 'lolly jobs' and I am so pleased with the end result.  The tigerwood sands to a beautifully, satiny finish that feels lovely under one's bare feet.

 Another lolly job - and a rather scary one - is making the saloon table.  Many boats have tables that are works of art.  A friend has just told me how she inlaid hers, but I don't have that level of skill, so am keeping it very simple.  I had made a 'pattern' out of MDF and scrap plywood to test out the idea.  Because of the fore and aft bulkhead next to the dinette, the table needs to be able to slide so that one can get access.

The table is designed to fold, but instead of the leaf folding down, it will fold up and lie on top of the other one.  This avoids the irritating business of everyone having somehow to remove their knees when you want to extend the table.  It also gives more leg room when the leaf is up.

 I agonised for ages over the height of the table, and finally got my friend, Alan, to sit at it.  I had a moment of cold panic - it was only just high enough and I'd thought of knocking off another 50mm to suit me!  As I would like my friends to be able to be comfortable, I have compromised.  Of course, the definition of compromise is that no-one is happy!  This photo also show the table top slightly off centre - slid to one side.

 I then glued two pieces of tigerwood together to make substantial feet, for bolting the table down.  I cut them to a shape that I hope will avoid toe stubbing.

 Oh no!  More hinges and they caused me just as much grief as all the others.  Somewhere in my brain the synapses fail where hinges are concerned.  I hate fitting them with a passion!

 But they do look rather nice.  As long as you don't look too closely.

 Meanwhile, I've been working on the headliner, cutting the plywood, fitting the pieces, coating it, painting it and finally gluing it up.  Two more pieces are waiting to go in, but I decided to leave them off until I'd done the varnish.

 So while glue is setting on the table and paint is drying on the headliner, I may as well complete closing in the boat by laying the decks.  As you can see, even 6mm ply doesn't exactly flop over the camber.

 I had plenty to screw to at the forward end, with all the reinforcing for the mast.  It was good to start off with a fairly straightforward piece.

 However, the next piece presented rather more of a challenge, requiring far more screws than I'd originally anticipated.  Even my vast weight on the edge of the panel only just persuaded it to bend.

 And the matching one on the other side.  Gluing things down in temperatures of over 35ºC is not a lot of fun, even with super slow hardener, and can get a little stressful.  Thank heavens for battery screwdrivers!

 The next panel has to go between the bilge board cases: I'm still working out exactly how to cut them down.  The original idea was to hang the control blocks from them, but I have visions of some large person slipping and landing with all their weight on the 12mm plywood, breaking it off.  So I think I'll trim them flush and invest in some stand-up blocks to take the lines.

 When I dry fitted the panels, I discovered that once forced into place on the camber, they formed hollows on the fore and aft line.  I don't quite understand this.  I'm hardly 'torturing' the ply, because the deck is horizontal (more or less!) from bow to stern.  However, mine not to reason why, so I put battens along the prevent it happening.

 Before gluing the panels in place, I put down some insulation material, more to prevent condensation than anything else.

 Then I had another session with recalcitrant plywood, trying to get it to bend as I wanted.  It would have been a lot easier if I could have done it in one piece, but the bilge board cases prevent that and I didn't want to cut them off at this stage.

 I doubt you can actually see it in the photo, but in spite of my best effort - and the batten, the panel still has a bit of a hollow.  By the time I have another layer of (4mm) ply and the teak on, I hope it will have smoothed itself out.  Anyway, it will keep out the water and strengthen the boat, which is its major purpose in life.

 I find people's attitude to the camber a bit of a puzzle.  When the boat is heeling, you can walk on the weather deck and have a pretty level area to move along.  When the boat is upright, you can walk along the centre line (sail permitting).  I don't see the issue myself, but the camber draws a lot of negative comment.

 I am leaving the stove installation right to the end.  I've put a few tiles in place behind it.  They don't really do much, but they look nice.  Supposedly you are meant to leave miles of space around a heater, but I've lived with many and I doubt any of them complied.  The one I'm fitting has good heat shields and will be 100mm from 'combustible surfaces'.  I don't think it will set fire to the boat, as long as I don't crank it up too far!  And as I only have a small space to heat, I'm unlikely to do that.

Finally, I could get down to one of my favourite jobs, varnishing this lovely wood.  Masking tape was required around the white paint, which is only a semi gloss finish.

 I put three coats on the areas that will get hard wear, two coats everywhere else. If only paint were so forgiving!

 I varnished under where the heater will be.  It's much easier to remove the dust from a shiny surface!  The varnish really picks out the grain in the wood - the strange mark on the kauri to the left of the passageway is in fact a golden whorl of wood that literally glows.  It's quite beautiful.

 I like the contrast of the tigerwood and the kauri.

 And the little locker doors all look rather sweet now that they are varnished.

And I've treated myself to two lovely brass, pumps for the galley.  I am so pleased with the way my sink has worked out.  Large enough to wash my biggest pot in, but small enough that I can use fresh water to do so.

So back to the decks. 

Another year - more boatbuilding

Well, here we are comfortably into the New Year of 2019, and may it be a good one for everyone reading this.  I should like to think that my little boat will swim this year, but to be perfectly honest, I shouldn't like to bet too much on it.  So we'll carry on as before, one day at a time until the job is done.

The best news is that the New Year will see me starting a new project.  The interior is almost complete and I can get on to the decks at last.  That will be exciting.  It will also be very hot as I shall be laying them through the middle of summer in temperatures that will be in the 40°s C at the top of the shed.  However, if my usual progress is anything to go by, it will probably be winter by the time I finish and things will have cooled down.

 My last post saw me fitting the galley sink.  I then coated everything and have to say it looked rather magnificent!  I put this coat on immediately to stabilise the rather excitable tigerwood.

 I then sanded it all down again, and fitted wood plugs to all the screw holes.

 Finally I could start one of the real lolly jobs: putting down the cabin sole.  I've been looking forward to this.  The bits of masking tape have numbers on, so that the pieces all go back in the same place when they get glued down.

 Gluing the pieces in by the settee front was more than a little awkward, as I had to work under the lift-up settee extension. I decided to take the wood up the side of the boat - the white paint just looked out of place.

Screws out, glue cleaned up and everything sanded waiting for plugs to be fitted.

 I rummaged around and found some offcuts of tigerwood that were perfect for fiddles around the top of the drawer locker.  Oddly, the athwartships one looked too heavy and needed to be planed down to look right.

 I have spent a long time agonising about how to drain the sink and finally hit on the idea of a 'grey water tank'.  This eliminates holes through the hull, means I don't need to empty a container every time I use the sink and avoids a lot of pipework cluttering up the space under the sink.  I realise that this solution would not suit many people, but it fits in with my way of thinking.

 The water containers will live under the cabin sole, so the floor boards are effectively hatches, to give me access to the bilge.  In order for them to land securely, once they were cut down, I had to add some thickness to some of the existing floor bearers.

With everything cut to size, I could then start fitting the rest of the planking on the cabin sole.  I decided to fit the planks full length, running across each hatch.  Traditionally, the hatches would be framed, but I felt that would look far too fussy and, besides, the full-length planks look rather lovely.

 Everything was 'dry fitted' and all the pieces of wood were carefully marked so that they would go back in the right places and not get mixed up.

  Again, I covered the side of the boat with tigerwood, leaving white paint only on the stringer, which I think looks rather good.  I used paper to make a pattern

 and then MDF to make a more solid one I could fit accurately.

Finally, all the wood was fitted  and I could get down to gluing it down.

I took out all the hatches and put them on the table.  Quite apart from anything, it's about 5°C cooler down at floor level than it is in the hull, now that summer is well and truly here.  I added some microballoons to the glue mix, so that it is closer in colour to the wood.  Some of the pieces of wood needed a bit of persuasion to line up to the one next to them and occasionally there was a small gap that couldn't be straightened out, however hard I tried.

Then I had another big sanding session, followed by the cutting and fitting of no fewer than 420 tigerwood plugs.  My knees are looking rather the worse for wear after all this!

Because this part of the boat will have stuff spilt on it and a lot of foot traffic, I wanted to be 100% sure that there were no little crevices to trap dirt and go mouldy.  So I mixed up filler and went over the whole sole carefully, filling in every little hole I could find.  And then, of course, it all had to be sanded.  Again.

One major job left to do in the interior: make the saloon table.  You may remember that I mocked one up several months ago.  I got it out and dusted it off.  I tried it out.  It seemed too high.  I cut 50mm off the legs.  It still seemed too high, but everything I read told me that I'd already made it too low, so I daren't take off any more.  I hope it's OK.  I hate eating my dinner at chin level.

I pulled down some more tigerwood from the stack and cut it to length.

I assumed it is called tigerwood because of its stripey appearance, but have come to the conclusion it's because the wood goes wild as soon as it's unlocked.  Send it through the saw and it wriggles and wobbles all over the place.  Somewhat hopefully, I clamped the pieces to be glued into the table leaves, to saw horses to 'keep them straight'.

Then I glued them up and left them overnight to get used to the idea.

After sending them through the thicknesser one leaf was perfect; the other still showed a tendency to bow.

 I slapped epoxy on both sides as quickly as I could, clamping them flat again, each time.  Again, I left them overnight hoping that they would stabilise.  Once this is posted, I'll be taking the clamps off.  Fingers crossed that the tiger has been tamed!

Agonising over details

I've been trying out ideas, scrapping them, trying others, going back to the original and generally giving myself a lot of grief about the galley.  My friends have been tried to the limit by my vacillations and cries of woe, but I've finally come to some sort of a conclusion.  My only consolation is that I went through the same process for the saloon, and I'm now delighted with it.

 I'm not sure if I mentioned my cunning idea for extending the settee into a wider bunk.  But here it is in action.  I may require A Stick as well, to support it, but that can be easily arranged.

 While I've been agonising, I've also been varnishing and am pleased with the end result.

 It will be fun choosing the fabric for the cushions.  I have no idea what I'll send up with and suspect that I'll be spoilt for choice when I start looking.

 The kauri that Gordie gave me looks wonderful and the cosy corner produced by the bulkhead is going to be a favourite spot.

 One of the knock-on effects of any decisions made is that the cabin sole has to be divided up into hatches to allow access to the bilge.  I plan to store most of my water in the bilge and reckon on having at least 120l.  Most will be in 10l containers like the one in the photo: the rest will be in 5l jerricans.  The piece of wood along the galley will probably be glued into place, because I can get at the hull from the centre, if necessary.

I wanted a stack of drawers in the galley.  Drawers are immensely useful and it's hard to have too many of them.  However, the galley counter is pretty wide and I didn't really want super-long drawers, so am making a wee stack at the forward end of the galley.  The original idea had been to use them for dinner plates, among other things, but I can't make them quite wide enough for that without sacrificing other things.  So the plates will have to go elsewhere.  Unfortunately, the portholes make putting lockers along the outboard edge of the counter impracticable.  However, one needs light and air.  I could put a locker in between, but I don't think it would look that good.  We shall see. Here is the bulkhead for the drawers, being panelled in kauri.  Now that I have a plan, I'm excited to get on with it!