One of the major projects that I wanted to complete in the near future was the construction of the coachroof.  Before I did so, however, I wanted to complete a couple jobs on the interior that I felt would be more convenient before the cabin was closed in.

Significantly, this included the hull ceiling, for which I'd previously milled and sanded a large number of Spanish cedar strips.  After bidding bon voyage to Bill and Laura, I got to work on the ceiling, beginning on the port side.

With the chainplate structure in the middle of the top portion of the ceiling, the beginnings involved a number of shorter pieces of the ceiling material.  I measured each piece using a pair of smaller pieces of the material, which I pressed against each side of the space and overlapped in the middle, giving me a good indication of the length needed.  I sawed each ceiling piece to length in turn and predrilled for and installed it with #6 x 5/8" bronze round-head slotted screws.

Once I'd installed the last short piece on the forward section--12 pieces needed--I repeated the basic process on the after section behind the chainplates, installing 12 pieces.  Then, I began to install the full-length pieces beneath, eventually running them all the way down to the v-berth platform. 

For the longer pieces, I found it worked well to measure only the first piece (it was unwieldy to measure the long pieces in the same way that I'd done for the shorter ones), and then transfer the cut length of the piece to the next piece before I installed it, and so on.  I found that each subsequent piece needed to be just a bit shorter than the one before, so I tended to cut just on the inside of the line to shorten the next piece by an appropriate (and minimal) amount.

I didn't try to make the cuts a perfect fit at the bulkheads; the slight angles involved would have doubled my installation time, so instead I planned, as I had all along, to install trim pieces to cover the ceiling board ends later on for a clean and finished appearance.  Nonetheless, most of the pieces ended up with a good tight fit, other than small gaps at one edge or the other thanks to the slight angles involved.

At the bottom, a final full-length piece fit perfectly at the aft end, just filling in the space available.  Further forward, the curvature and height of the hull left a bit more space, which I filled in as appropriate with shorter lengths of ceiling that I let die out naturally as they went aft.  Because this area would be covered later by cushions, I didn't try to taper the final boards out to cover every bit of the opening, which just seemed an unnecessary exercise in vanity and use of time.  Later, I'd paint the v-berth platform, which would improve the final look by additional increments.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of the completed port side ceiling.  Later, once both sides were complete, I planned to finish the ceiling with several coats of tung oil.

Total Time on This Job Today:  6 hours

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