Lackey Sailing | Calliope Girl 51

January 25, 2024

Calliope Girl 51

Thursday

I began by installing the cleats I’d cut for the starboard upper compartments–3 per compartment.

To support the upper edge of these cabinets, I cut and installed four additional cleats with epoxy (with dabs of hot glue to secure the pieces while the epoxy cured).

Giving the epoxy a bit of time to cure gave me a window of time to check out some teak bulkhead corner handles the owner had hoped to use on the two galley bulkheads. I’d ordered the pieces to have on hand and check if they could work, which I suspected they would. Working on the port side, I checked the concept, then, having confirmed the function, snuck up on the final 45° cut required on the bulkhead to allow the handle to fit as intended. I’d have to figure out how these would interact with the bulkhead staving on one side, but all in the fullness of time. I repeated the process on the starboard bulkhead, which went more quickly as I could transfer some basic positioning and measurements from the opposite side. For now, I set the teak handles aside for installation later in the project.

With some rough measurements, I prepared four cheap plywood template blanks for the upper settee cabinets, then held them in place for marking and scribing as necessary against the underside of the deck, and at the bulkhead ends.

I transferred the patterns to the final plywood and cut out the blanks, leaving them to run wild past the upper dividers so I could mark them in place for trimming. For some reason, I don’t have photos of the two after panels after final trimming.

I made some reference marks to indicate the position of the locker openings in the backrests below, which, down on the bench, I used to to lay out and eventually cut the locker openings for the uppers. I chose to make these openings the same width as their lower counterparts, and positioned the lower edge of the cutouts 3″ above the base of the panel to provide plenty of support for whatever cabinet contents there might be. This allowed for a 6″ x 18″ opening.

Finally, I performed ritual final cleaning and preparation and painted the insides of these four lockers, as well as the chainplate knees forward of the main bulkhead. The open center portions of the settees would later be painted white to match the remaining cabinetry.