| Circe
| Thursday, October 15, 2009 As I looked around the boat in the morning, contemplating various options and installations ahead, I determined that I needed to think about installing some of the new through hulls and seacocks and hoses, particularly in the aft part of the boat, before I made access more difficult as the interior and engine room work progressed. This led to a rather lengthy office session as I put together a list of the things I needed and placed the orders for bronze fittings, clamps, and hoses; I expected these items to arrive early next week. With the ordering out of the way for now, I considered what tasks lay ahead in the immediate future, and decided that I needed to permanently install the settee platforms. So I spent the remainder of the morning getting ready for the installation: removing the various tools and such that were in the way, vacuuming and solvent-wiping the mating surfaces of the platforms and support structure, and various other preparations for the job. With everything thusly prepared, I applied a bead of Pro-Set to the support cleats and hull, and secured the platforms in the adhesive using bronze screws, which I drove every several inches along all the support cleats as needed. I applied additional adhesive in the slight gap where the platforms met the hull, and left it to partially cure while I cut strips of 6" fiberglass tabbing for the next step. |
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With the adhesive semi-cured, I wet out and installed the new tabbing, securing the outer edge of the platforms to the hull--probably an unnecessary step, but there you are. Then, I applied some filling compound over the screw holes to cover them. |
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Using the conveniently omnipresent and as-yet uninstalled longitudinal galley bulkhead as a countertop avatar, I made a mark on the hull indicating the lower edge of the galley countertop, and then cut a mahogany cleat to fit the area. I installed the cleat with epoxy adhesive, using dabs of hot-melt glue at the ends to hold it in place while the epoxy cured. The curvature of the hull here was slight enough that I chose to not attempt to bend or laminate a support cleat to the exact curve, filling the small gap instead with the epoxy adhesive. |
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