| Bolero
Project |
December 6, 2007 With the plywood basis for the new cockpit edges in place, I prepared to fiberglass them in place. First, however, I needed to fine-tune the edges. Because of the deck camber, I knew the plywood edges would end up canted slightly outboard at their top edge, which, if left unaddressed, would mean that the coamings and cabin trunk would end up similarly angled. I wanted to start with a vertical (plumb) orientation, however. To that end, I temporarily hot-glued a torpedo level to the flat top of a belt sander, and used the tool to remove the small amount of material required to bring the plywood edges into the vertical/plumb shape desired. The small level made it easy to keep the tool in the proper orientation to remove just the right amount of material. In essence, this meant that I sanded some of the bottom portion of the rails, since the lower edge protruded towards center from plumb. It didn't take long to make the sanding passes required, since only about 2/3 of the length of each rail (mostly in the center, most curvaceous portion) required the slight modification. This process created piles of dust that belied the minimal material actually removed. |
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Next, I marked a line about 2" out from the cockpit edge along the decks, and sanded a taper into this area to allow the new fiberglass, which was to wrap over the top of the cockpit edge, to remain flush with or slightly below the actual plane of the deck surface. I rounded the edge to allow the material to wrap cleanly over. Then, I cleaned up the dust and wood debris from the work. |
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I had a little time before a mid-day appointment away from the shop, so I crawled once again into the bow compartment with Bruce anchor in hand to test a different anchor storage orientation and make a few basic measurements. The actual construction of the anchor locker was not far off--virtually next on the list once the cockpit structure was complete--but many questions surrounding its configuration and other details remained unanswered. The owner and I had had numerous discussions on the concept, and we were finally beginning to fine-tune the ideas towards a more concrete and feasible solution for the required anchor storage. |
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Later in the afternoon, I finished up the major cockpit edge structural work by installing two layers of fiberglass material over the new plywood basis and the deck edge, tying it all together and providing a strong, weather-resistant surface against which the new cockpit and cabin structure would bear. I sheathed the edges with a 4" strip of 1708 biaxial cloth covered with a slightly wider layer of 10 oz. 90° cloth, keeping the bottom edges flush with the base of the plywood and wrapping them over onto the sidedecks as required. The 10 oz. cloth strip that I cut on the port side, in particular, ended up a bit wider onto the sidedeck than I'd intended, so I simply left portions of it dry, since otherwise I'd have to grind it off anyway. I left the fiberglass to cure overnight. |
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