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. 

Fiddly bits

Sometimes it seems that all I do is to fit something, take it out, fit it, take it out again ...  I am so concerned about messing things up that I fall over backwards to make sure I haven't.  Still, better than the other way, I suppose.

 The backrest was a case in point, with my wanting to be sure that it would fit the shelves properly.  They are only 6mm, so if there were too many gaps in the joint, they wouldn't be properly supported.  The back rest rises above the top shelf - it provides a good handhold, that way - but makes for a very narrow shelf at the after end.  It was a bit of a mission to fillet, as you can imagine.

 Once in, however, it felt nice and strong and has provided half a dozen handy lockers.  As this will (one day!) be the guest berth, a couple of these will probably be left empty.

The concept of the galley, which as David so correctly pointed out is the heart of my boat (I like to think I live in my galley rather than cook in my boat), is taking shape.  I loathe top-opening lockers in the counter top, because (a) you always have something on them when you want to access them and (b) bits fall into them making them messy.

 But corner cupboards create problems of access.  My plan, however, is to fit the cooker aft and a stack of drawers in the equivalent place forward.  This will leave an adequately wide bench but mean that even my short arms should reach into the nether regions of the corner lockers.  However, the sink will have to go in the middle of the bench, which will be a nuisance at times, but even I have to make some compromises.

 I made an MDF bench to give me an idea of heights, spaces, etc.  As you can see, Cox's Law of Horizontal Surfaces immediately came into effect, in spite of the MDF being 6mm and therefore very flexible!  I also tacked up a small piece of headliner ply and it made me very pleased that I have added 30mm to the headroom.

 I have finally cleaned up all the portholes and fitted them.  Then I had to take them out of the forecabin again to varnish them (it will give me a holiday from polishing until it starts to peel off) and put sealant around the glass.  Then they can go in permanently and what a relief that will be.

 Another job I was picking away at was doing the trim around the headliner in the heads.  The centre piece was easy, the rest varied from fiddly to a nightmare.  I simply cannot work out what angle to cut the wood unless I have a length in my hand to offer up.  Then I had to fit quadrant around the never-to-be-sufficiently-cursed butt block: to make a neat job was an insuperable problem.  The best I could manage was 'well, it could be worse'.  And of course one of the pieces along the camber broke again at the hole for the panel pin.  If my joinery were good enough, of course, I wouldn't need the trim (although it does make it look more attractive).  But then if my joinery were that good, the trim wouldn't be a problem!  The overall effect is pleasing though, especially if I leave my glasses off.

And back in the saloon, the fiddle for the seat cushions has also been on and off half a dozen times, while I think about the bunk extension, the table, the cabin sole, etc.  What a day it will be when there are actually some cushions to be kept in place!

Three jobs at once

In theory, the boat should be coming along in leaps and bounds: I have three jobs I'm working on at present (a) reinforcing the deck around the tabernacle (b) fitting the deck liner in the heads (c) the saloon.  Obviously when something has glue or paint hardening in one place, I can get on with something else.  However, Life, as so often, has been getting in the way, and if it's not JRA stuff, it's long emails around selling Oryx, long phone calls to friends about Stuff, birthdays, visitors (nearly always welcome), a launching to attend (lucky devil) and so on.  Most of this is great fun, but it can get frustrating when I feel like I'm on a roll and then I have also to deal with tools breaking down and needing replacing, plywood to be bought or just the usual day to day cooking, cleaning, washing, etc, etc.  Whinge, whinge.  My apologies, but maybe it helps explain why I haven't blogged for so long.

 Anyway, once I had the deckliner fitted in the forecabin, it needed trim putting up.  This was essentially to hide the less than perfect joints: it's not easy manhandling large sheets of floppy plywood, trying to fit them to a pretty extreme camber and end up with gaps that you are happy for people to see.  Now that I have plenty of kauri, I can make the 'mouldings' that I want.  Just as well considering that the forward one snapped in the middle just as I was fitting it.  The photo shows all this trim on the table being coated, but I should not have coated the forward one: the epoxy stiffened it up too much.

 This is the quadrant at the after end, being trial fitted and the photo gives some idea of the camber.

 Here are all the bits of trim varnished and in place - including the wretched bit of quadrant on the forward bulkhead, which I ended up varnishing in situ.  When the deckhead was finally in place, it looked like the inside of an igloo and I wondered if I'd made a big mistake.  I'm not fond of acres of paint, in truth, but all this white paint is to keep the interior of the boat light.  However, the bits of trim made a huge difference to the overall appearance and it's quite acceptable now.

 Next job: to put the plywood around the tabernacle to reinforce the deck.  I made the first two pieces out of 6mm ply, which wasn't such a good move because of trying to force it down to the camber, with relatively little to screw to and nothing to clamp to. This is the first piece, coated underneath, sanded and ready to glue.  I decided to use offcuts from the 4mm deckliner for the rest of the reinforcing - there's heaps of it, anyway.

The 6mm ply is down forward of the mast and you can see wires leading from it, going back to the switch panel in fact.  I thought long and hard about this: when the wires corrode, as they eventually will, I won't be able to pull them out and replace them.  However, the alternative is to run them visibly inside the boat (David's clever idea of how to run the cables didn't work in practice).  I've decided to keep them invisible for the moment and when they do corrode away, then I'll run them inside the boat, with some sort of disguise.  And who knows - maybe I'll be dead before they do, in which case it will be someone else's problem!

SibLim Club members, Rob and Maren gave me a roll of foil-backed foam insulation, left home from their house build, some time ago, and I'm putting this between the two layers of deck.  It doesn't show very well in the photo, unfortunately.  You can also see the 4mm piece of ply I'm about to fit on the deck.

On the port side now, with the reinforcing being fitted around the tabernacle.  I've finally found plywood thin enough to staple - just like the Gougeon Bros recommend!

 Back into the saloon and getting the back rest sorted.  I decided on 590mm  because that's (for some reason) what David and I chose more moons ago than I care to think.  So here it is set up to cut using my latest toy, the most wonderful battery powered 150mm circular saw.  Every girl should have one!

 

 And here is the backrest in place.  Notice anything?  Yup, it looks way too high and interferes with the port hole.  So off I go to the Internet, to some magazines, to my sailing and boatbuilding books and look at everybody else's back rests.  I would say that 450mm is much more usual than 590, so that's what I'll go for.  Of course, somehow I've got to deal with the fact that the kauri 'tongue and groove' on the after bulkhead (to save **** weight) doesn't go down far enough now.  This tiny bit of weight saving has caused me heaps of grief - quite apart from finishing in the wrong place again, it's awkward to work round.  Let me suggest to anyone thinking of going for this effect, to cover the whole damn bulkhead in the panelling and forget about the 300 grams of extra weight.

 Meanwhile, I'm working on the deckliner in the heads.  Here's the port panel cut and coated on one side. Small and rectangular - what a joy!

Saloon and deck (liner)

There's been a whole lot of painting going on, so in many ways not a lot to show for the couple of weeks since last I blogged.

 The little bulkheads that support the settee base are now painted and you can see that what will be the lift-up bunk extension, is fitted between the two athwartships seats.  It's just sitting there at the moment while I try and source 'flat' bolts to fasten it in place.

 These two bulkheads are simply to divide the lockers into smaller spaces, to make them more manageable.  I did debate not painting them, but keep reminding myself that lockers with light interiors are easier to find things in.

 And there were four coats of paint to apply to the deckhead, before it could be fitted.

 I had originally intended to make the top of the dinette area out of one piece of ply, but manhandling the larger of the sheets of ply for the deckhead put paid to that notion.  I guess it's a more efficient use of ply, anyway, to make it in three pieces.  More coating.

 Filletting in the partition bulkheads.  It's easier to paint them in situ because I can do both sides at once.

 The seat tops have to be chamfered along their outboard edge to (more or less) match the angle of the hull.  I'm a bit more confident with the power plane than I was two years ago.

Finally I was ready to fit the deckhead liner.  This is part of the deck structure, so has to be glued into place with epoxy.  Because I don't want it full of screw holes, it was a bit of a mission to get it snug to the deck beams, which have a strong camber.  It's just as well the temperatures have fallen by 10⁰ or so, or the glue would have kicked off long before I finished the job.

 The deckhead installed.  Although I had fitted it several times previously, I managed to produce a wee crack in it next to the tabernacle.  I've filled this and will touch it up with paint next time I have some mixed.  No doubt it will irritate the soul out of me for the next x number of years while I lie in my bunk.

And here is a shot from the outside showing the deckhead fitted.  The forecabin is now closed in - or would be if only I'd finish cleaning up those portholes!

 Some time ago I posted about the lovely little stove I'd bought from the UK.  However, it had no window and this was a sad thought.  Some time ago, my friends, Phil and Mark again showed me their stove on Icebreaker and it was a lot smaller than I remembered and has a wonderful window.  I looked for ages to find the builder's details, without success: he doesn't normally bother to advertise.  However, fortunately, P&M still had his phone number, so I called and ordered one.  Somewhat to my consternation, he made one there and then, which did nothing for my budget.  I really can't afford it, but on the other hand, I'll get so much pleasure, sitting in my saloon on a cold winter's night (and don't believe what they tell you about the 'Winterless North'), watching the flames flicker in my little Flick stove.