| Bolero
Project |
Thursday, March 20, 2008 I began the day installing the cabin trunk front. Before I could begin the actual installation, I had to spend some time finalizing the preparations: pre-drilling the sides, front, and corner blocks as necessary for bungs and screws that would secure the corner together, and pre-drilling the holes and countersinks for the bronze mounting bolts. As with the sides, I applied beads of 5200 to the forward cockpit flange, then installed the front piece with thickened epoxy in the joints between the front and sides. I clamped the assemblies together, then buttered up the backs of the corner blocks with epoxy and installed them with bronze screws driven from the outside (7 screws per corner). I installed and tightened the mounting bolts against the cockpit flange, and then cleaned up the various adhesive squeezeout. While I was at it, I installed bungs in the new screw holes, since I had a supply of 3/8" bungs on hand; I'd get to making and installing the 1/2" bungs for the main cabin fasteners soon. |
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I spent the rest of the day on the main bulkhead. After moving the bulkhead stock from storage, I laid it on my bench with some cardboard beneath to protect the lower surface. I checked the fit of my cardboard template in the boat once more, for the first time since installing the cabin trunk (which hadn't been in place when I made the template), made the slight template modifications necessary, and then traced it onto the plywood. Then, I carefully cut out the actual bulkhead from the plywood. For bulkhead material, I chose 12mm Shelmarine Sapele, as each face would be visible in the finished boat. When I made the template, I scribed it to fit closely to the hull, underside of the deck, and cockpit flanges, though at the time I doubted I'd ever be able to get the actual bulkhead into position with such tight tolerances. Still, I wanted to try, since it'd be ideal if I could have the bulkhead extending up beneath the sidedecks and nicely around the cabin trunk and cockpit flange. My initial test fit probed that this would indeed be impossible; there just wasn't room to maneuver the bulkhead into position. The bulkhead position happened to be at roughly the point of maximum beam, and was therefore about as large as it could have been in this boat. So with the various obstructions, there was no way I could angle the bulkhead into position. |
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The first thing I did was to clip off some of the top corners, where I knew the material would be eventually removed anyway, and where it was clear that the bulkhead was hitting as I tried twisting it around. This helped somewhat, but overall the fit was still too tight and was binding badly on the areas that would supposedly end up beneath the sidedecks (as expected). So next, I cut these sections off; I'd fill in and fiberglass the gap later. With this modification, I was very close, but the tight fit of the upper curve of the bulkhead still wouldn't allow me to get it into position. Therefore, I removed the bulkhead from the boat and trimmed 3/8" from each side, from about the turn of the bilge to the underside of the deck; I left the lower half at full depth, since it was only the wide top that was prohibiting the bulkhead from fitting. I chose 3/8" as the depth of cut since I planned to fill the gap with 3/8" Corecell. Finally, the bulkhead slipped into place with only one more minor cut required to increase clearance next to the cabin trunk and allow the piece to slip to its final location. Obviously, the top portion of the bulkhead has yet to be trimmed to final shape and size here. |
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The fit looked good in all areas, so I removed the bulkhead once more and sealed the edge grain with epoxy so the bulkhead would be ready for final installation tomorrow. |
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