Saturday, April 3, 2010

Week 8

To finish up the work from last week, I began by roughly fairing in the new plank. This will take its true shape once I get out the random orbit sander and go over the entire hull. With that done, I did a few odd jobs until I really started getting to work on the new deck that will go down. I started building the inner bulkheads, which each have two vertical oak supports with horizontal planks of 1/2" okume plywood sealed in penetrating epoxy. I put an end cap of 1/8" oak that will get faired in later. These eventually will get painted. I also took the two pieces of oak that I glued together last week to get a nice 10" tall board and cut it to attach to the furthest forward sole beam. This gets fastened into the frames and sole beam and adds support to the cabin sole, support for the bulkhead that will go ontop of it, and also acts as a back splash for the step down into the cabin. This piece of oak really adds rigidity to an already rigid floor arraignment. I am happy with its outcome.

Dave helped me decide to add some structure to the coaming beams, which before were just standing alone with a single machine screw into the sheer clamp. In between each beam, I glued and screwed in a 4" wide 1" thick piece of oak. Once done on either side of the boat, I layed out the shape of the coaming once more and cut and faired it out. The shop had a bunch of beautiful 3/8" okume plywood that I used for the decking. There will be two layers, the first will butt up to the old deck, and the second layer will overlap the over deck via the 3/8" rabbit I cut into it with the router. This overlap is nearly 10" and will avoid making a hard spot where the two decks meet and add a lot of strength. By the middle of the day Saturday, I had both side decks epoxied down and fastened regularly with #10 1" SS screws. I got good squeeze out which proves a good seal. The new plywood was left big on all sides to that I can fair it to perfection later. I had some time left in the day, so I decided to install the aft seat beam supports. The furthest one forward is made of 2" tall and 1" thick white oak and the next two aft are 1 1/2" tall 1" thick. There are three total, and they are glued down with G-Flex and fastened with #12 2" SS screws. I feel good about my progress and next week should prove to see a lot of big hurdles overcome, specifically the coaming. I head down to Tiverton, RI on monday to pick up teak for the cabin sole.