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Despite that, I managed to get the floors (cabin sole support members) installed and permanently glassed in place.  As pathetic as it seems, the process took several hours' work over each of a few separate days, running the gamut from sanding the excess resin from last week's encapsulation procedure to doing the final tabbing during their installation.  It seems like it should have been such a quick and simple project, and the fact that it ended up taking much longer only goes to prove the long-standing theorem of project time-expansion.

Read more about the floors here.

With the cabin sole support floors in place (finally), I continued this week by roughing out a 1/2" (or metric equivalent) plywood cabin sole substrate.  I first cut a cardboard template, and from that created the plywood sole to fit.  

Click here to read more about the cabin sole.

With a cabin sole temporarily in place, I decided to turn my attention to completing the tabbing on the bulkheads.  During initial installation, I had left the upper portions of the bulkheads untabbed, waiting until the deck framing was complete before I considered adding the final pieces.  Completing the tabbing was a chore that I managed to successfully put off time and again, but now there was no avoiding it, so I plunged in and got the job done.  It was a big job, taking far more time than one might think.

Read more about the final tabbing here.

I had a few hours to dabble on Monday, so I worked on the cabin sole.  With the plywood panel removed from the boat, I marked out for and cut two access hatches:  one in the after section, just forward of the bulkhead, and the other a bit further forward, in way of the mast step location.  Eventually, the mast step opening will need to be cut into two sections and shaped around the mast itself, but for now I left the hatch in one piece.  

Once I had carefully cut out the hatches, I milled some scrap mahogany to make cleats with which to support the hatches from beneath.  I sanded the cleats smooth and secured them to the underside of the plywood with resorcinol glue and bronze screws.  Then, I used a router equipped with a 45° chamfer bit to ease the lower inside edges of the newly-framed openings, a nice detail that provided a more finished look and feel to the cleats.  With the cleats installed, I coated the entire bottom side of the plywood--and the exposed edge grain--with unthickened epoxy resin to seal the wood.    When that was cured, I painted the bottom side of the sole with gray Bilgekote paint as a further layer of protection against the inevitable moisture that would find its way into the bilge later.

Then, after a couple more preliminary steps (see below), I permanently installed the cabin sole substrate.

Click here to read more about the cabin sole prep, hatches, and installation.

Before installing the cabin sole for good, I finally finished the mast step platform that I had been working on sporadically for a couple weeks.  I lost track of how many layers of biaxial cloth I used in the layup, but the end result was nearly three inches high at the aft end, and about half that at the forward end (to account for leveling).

Read about the mast step here.

With the mast step finally complete,  I turned to the task of painting out the bilge areas in the cabin, which would soon be substantially inaccessible once the cabin sole was installed.   It's good practice to coat all areas of the inside of the hull, as it makes them easier to keep clean, not to mention more attractive, so I needed to get this done before the sole went in.  Look closely at this photo, as it's the last time you'll see the floors and bilge area forward of the cockpit.

Click here to see the final painting.

Now that the cabin sole was permanently installed, I could begin work on some of the basic interior components.  I decided to do some of this now, before the deck sheathing went on, just to allow more room to maneuver as needed.

Click here to read more about installing the first portions of the interior structure.

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