I spent the bulk of the day focusing on the various items on my electrical list, starting with the battery wiring.  All the basic wires from the original electrical setup were in place and ready, but several of the cables required new lugs, and a few wires and cables required extension to reach the new battery locations.  Working through the requirements here took several hours, and while by the end I had all the cables terminated and wires extended, I couldn’t finalize the connections because I ran into an issue with cross-threading on two of the battery terminal fuses that were in place.  The first I definitely caused myself, as I was struggling to get the nut started in an awkward corner of the battery box, but when I tried to swap out this fused terminal with another one (there were three in total–two on the house bank (2 of 3 batteries) and one on the starter bank), I had the same problem even with a dry fit in an accessible location.  So I ordered new terminals and would await final connections till they arrived.  I installed the one terminal fuse that still had good threads on the forwardmost house battery, which was the most difficult location to access.  If I had the opportunity to start over, I would have made the entire top of the battery compartment removable for access.  I thought I’d built an expansive lid when I laid it out, but as I discovered earlier it wasn’t large enough to install all four batteries, and now, during the wiring, I found myself fighting the overhangs in a couple places.  In any event, it was adequate to get the work done–just not as easy as it might have been.

To extend the one black ground cable that required lengthening, I installed a power post in the port locker and used it to connect an additional cable; this also worked well to accept the ground cable from the windlass, which also wasn’t long enough to reach the batteries in their new location.

Now I moved on to the head locker, where I reconnected the various wires for the stereo and windlass breaker; I’d had to remove all these early in the project so I could remove the panel in which these instalations were located.  I also reinstalled and reconnected a light fixture and the stereo speakers on both sides, routing the cables as needed.

On the starboard side, I reinstalled the propane heater to the bulkhead, and reconnected its wiring, and, finally, in the bilge I remounted the terminal block containing all the wiring for the bilge pump; I’d removed this from the transverse floor when I was modifying the height and painting the space earlier.

There was still a new light fixture to install in the galley, around the corner behind the electrical panel, but it was a difficult place to access and in any event it was late enough in the day that I had to start final preparations and do a thorough cleanup so I could apply a coat of satin varnish to the cabin sole which, if the coat turned out well, would be the final coat for the sole.  I did a pretty through cleaning of the interior to prepare, and cleared out various tools and detritus from the cabin in the process, leaving only what I needed for the final stages of work to come.

To finish up the day’s work, I applied satin varnish to the three pieces of cabin side trim and the head sole grate, and applied a coat of white semi-gloss to the galley bowl shelf.

After my usual start to the new day–sanding yesterday’s varnish on the cabin sole and trim–I got to work installing the last six doors in the galley, which really brought the appearance together.

There was one more project in the galley to complete:  A second shelf for dishware, above the plates in the space outboard of the stove.  This shelf would hold bowls, with an extra space for coffee mugs or what have you.  To begin, I cut and installed a pair of small cleats to support the shelf at the appropriate height, then patterned a plywood shelf to fit the space.  I added a small divider to secure the bowls and leave additional space for other things.  Then, from teak stock, I cut the fiddle trim to size to span the opening across the shelf, and created two rounded openings to match those in the plate rack below.  I also cut some pre-finished trim stock to fit as needed in the area, to await final installation later.

To round out the work for now, I applied primer to the new shelf on both sides.  I’d pre-finish the shelf before final installation soon.

Next, after final preparations, I applied more gloss varnish to the cabin sole and bulkhead trim in the galley.

After light sanding, I applied another coat–the last–of semi-gloss white enamel to the modified battery locker hatch.

This left me an odd bit of time at the end of the day to work on a replacement hatch for the chainlocker, to replace the warped and failed one that had been in place.  I hadn’t been sure if I’d have time to replace the old hatch or not, but now some time afforded itself to get started.  Using the old hatch as a template, and avoiding curves for the moment (till I determined how to finish off/trim the new hatch), I cut a new hatch from 9mm plywood, and replicated the mounting holes from the old hatch.  I’d pick away at the hatch details in the coming days as time allowed.

In the cabin, I worked to finish up the trim around the galley, including cleaning up the new bulkhead trim  as needed at the seams, and lightly sanding it to prepare for varnish.  I also installed various pre-finished trim pieces at the tops of the bulkheads, where they met the underside of the sidedecks, and on either side of the electrical panel to finish off the space.  Then, I masked off the bulkhead trim and other areas as needed to prepare for varnish.

Next, I installed the four doors in the upper settee lockers, the first four I’d finished off with hinges and hardware.  At each location, I installed a roller catch on the inside of the opening to align with the catch already installed on the door itself.

After a light sanding and final preparations, I varnished again the cabin sole, and also varnished the new bulkhead trim, plus another coat on the long cabin side trim pieces down on the bench.  I also sanded and painted the battery locker hatch.

To finish up the day, I installed the hinges, knobs, and catch hardware on the remaining six cabinet doors.  (For some reason over the past days I’d been counting nine total in my head, but of course there were ten doors total.)

After starting the day by sanding the cabin sole and cleaning up thereafter, I turned to the trim on the galley bulkhead edges.  The shape and dimensions of this trim were dictated by the profile of the pre-manufactured teak bulkhead handles to fit and form the outside corners, which the owner had requested and with which I’d done some preliminary shaping work earlier.  Normally, this sort of trim would feature a recess and would slip over the bulkhead to cover both sides, but in this case the width of the recessed area of the handles was less than the thickness of the bulkheads, so I’d had to modify the handles–and the new trim I milled to match–accordingly, leaving the aft end flush with the bulkhead while the forward end overhung to better trim out the edge.

The point of all this is to explain why the trim was installed the way it was, and now, with these decisions and adaptations well in the past, it was time to do the final installation.  To prepare for the trim installation, a week or two earlier I cut a square corner into the bulkheads where they had previously curved to reach up towards the sidedecks, which curve had originally been matched by a similar curve where the handles would now be attached.  The square inner corner would make it easier to install the trim, versus trying to come up with a curved piece, and in any event the curve was now out of place in the cabin in its new format and aesthetic.

One side at a time, I cut the new trim to fit around the fixed position of the handles at the outer corners, then installed the trim in epoxy adhesive for strength, since one might tend to use the handles as handles.  To hold the trim while the adhesive cured, I used brads driven as needed.  Any minor misalignment at the seams between the handles and the adjacent trim would be cleaned up and faired in once the wood was firmly affixed next time.  The forward end, with its overhang, extended over the varnished faces of the bulkheads, while I kept the aft end flush, as there was no overhang here; later I’d mask and paint right up to the edge of the teak to hide the now epoxy-filled gaps along that edge.  I temporarily removed the refrigerator lid to improve access to the port side for installation.

There were a few additional pieces of trim required to finish up in this area, but I held off on these till the epoxy cured fully on the edge trim so as not to disturb it.  Meanwhile, I took care of several smaller tasks, including another coat of white paint on the chainlocker bulkhead, and, after sanding and cleaning up from the epoxy work, a coat of primer on both sides of the battery locker hatch.

With no more trimwork planned for the day, and enough to keep me busy outside of the boat, I did a final cleanup inside and applied another base coat of gloss varnish to the cabin sole, and then to the long pieces of cabin side trim.

The caning had dried overnight, and now I trimmed all the excess from the nine doors.

Next, I started working on the door hardware:  hinges, brass pull, and door catch.  I had enough time to finish four of the doors before the end of the day.

 

Back at it after a couple days away, my first order of business was to remove all the bracing and clamps from the last bit of the cabin sole, after which I gave the entire sole a good sanding to clean up from the installation and remove any errant spots of epoxy.

The chainlocker bulkhead had not been on my official list of concerns, but nevertheless should have been sanded and painted long ago; for various reasons it never had made it onto the daily radar, but today, while I had sanding equipment, I sanded it quickly to prepare for some fresh paint.

Earlier, in some undocumented work, I’d started to install the four batteries in their new compartment on the port side, installing hold downs and straps as I went.  This went well enough till I had a couple batteries in place and discovered to my displeasure that the opening, and the way the overhangs worked inside the compartment, prevented the last two batteries from angling in, even though the opening itself was abundantly larger than any single battery.  At that earlier time, I’d left things as is to be dealt with another time…and another time turned out to be now, as I just wanted to get the situation dealt with.

I needed a way to drop the last two batteries in vertically, after which they could be easily positioned as needed, and this meant enlarging the hatch.  To do this in the least-destructive way possible, I eventually chose to enlarge the after end, directly over the position of the final battery; an option would have been to create the opening over the starboard-most battery, the one oriented longitudinally, but I thought the after location was better.  So with reluctance, but the grim determination born of fate, I made the cuts required, after which I could install the final two batteries without issue.

To rebuild the hatch, I patterned the L-shaped opening and cut out a piece of plywood to fit, then epoxied and fiberglassed it from the underside to the adjacent square hatch in the appropriate corner, after the usual surface prep to remove paint from the faying surfaces.  Sometime very soon, I planned to spend time finalizing the battery and any other wiring tasks still remaining on my list.

For now, however, my focus was on installing trim, starting with the chainplate covers and bookshelf stops, now completely varnished.  Then I continued with some trim around the edges of the stove surround, and at the juncture between galley countertop and upper cabinets.  Where needed, I made the trim removable with screws so the port side of the galley could be dismantled should it ever be necessary.

There was more trim to come, but now, right after lunch, I wanted to focus on the cabin sole varnish, as I needed to apply a coat every day, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take.  I had other work I could finish in the woodshop during the remainder of the day, so didn’t mind closing off the interior this early in the day (for one day, anyway).  First, however, I started with a coat of white paint on the chainlocker bulkhead after some quick masking.

Next, I applied a coat of varnish to the entire cabin sole.  The plywood across the aft end is my temporary platform to help me get out of the boat since I had to remove the ladder for the varnishing.

While I had the varnish out, I applied another coat to the new cabin side trim (2) and grate from the head sole (2, plus whatever was on there originally); I’d sanded these earlier in the day.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon working on the caning inserts for the nine cabinet doors in the cabin.  The door frames themselves were all prepared for this, and to begin I cut larger pieces of caning into pieces as needed for each door.  Then, working with about half the pieces, I soaked them–and some reed spline–in water for 15-30 minutes to soften and expand the caning fabric.

Next, one door at a time, I installed the fabric, pressing it into the pre-cut grooves in the door frames and installing the spline with glue to hold the caning tightly.  It had been some time since I’d done any caning work, but the process was straightforward, if sometimes frustrating getting the fabric to cooperate with the grooves.  One is supposed to use wooden wedges to bend the fabric into the grooves, but I didn’t have any, and in any event I’d found during some earlier job that these didn’t work so well anyway.  My tool of choice, strange as it seems, was a half-moon-shaped plastic protractor, about 6″ long; the curved edge worked pretty well to rock the caning into the groove.  I’d used one of these long, long ago in my first caning job–out of necessity at the time–and found it worked well enough that I now had a box of protractors on hand just for this purpose.  (I broke three during this installation.)

In the event, by the end of the day I’d installed the fabric in all nine doors and set them aside to cure and dry overnight.  The fabric would shrink as it dried, pulling it tight across the opening, and later I’d trim all the excess and clean up the excess spline from the various corners.

I unclamped the sole planks from last time, and cleaned up a bit and reorganized so I could focus on the final planks remaining on the starboard side.

There were 4 pieces required:  three longer sections (full-length to the galley bulkhead), and one shorter piece at the forward end to accommodate the curvature of the hull.  I laid out, measured, and cut the various pieces required, including a thin strip along the starboard settee, and checked everything with a dry-fit.

Next, I prepared a large batch of thickened epoxy adhesive, and secured the planks with various braces as needed to press everything tightly into the adhesive.

After a while I tempted fate by removing a couple glue blocks on the outer edge of the planks where they ran by the galley, so hopefully I could finish up the final short planks to fill the small area.  Removing the glue blocks (which I’d installed to hold the planks tightly together originally) had no ill effects, so I could proceed and install the four final, short planks to fill the starboard galley space.  These required a seemingly inordinate number of vertical braces to press tightly into position.

With the sole complete for now–at least all the planks laid–I turned to the cabin side trim and milled and sanded the three pieces according to the second prototype I’d made earlier.  The piece destined for the aft end of the cabin was similar, but featured a different angle (7 degrees) since that was what I had measured at the aft bulkhead.  Once these were completely milled and sanded, I cleaned them and applied a sealer coat of varnish to all sides.

While I was at it, I sanded and varnished the bilge access grate from the head–original to the boat  (or at least to her iteration upon arrival here).  I planned just to spruce up the part and eventually varnish it to match the cabin sole.

Next, I started some prep work for the cabinet doors, which were to receive a caning insert.  To accept the caning and spline, I had to mill groves on all four sides of the backs of the frames, so after working on a sample piece to get the spacing and depth where I wanted it, I milled slots in all the doors, taking three passes on the table saw for each slot to achieve the final width.  In the past, two passes had done the trick, but the spline I had was a bit thicker, and I was using a thin blade in the saw.

I was looking forward to completing the caning, the final step before I could install the hardware and then install the doors in the boat, but that would be for another time soon as the day was done.

Happy with the state of the varnish on the interior trim and bulkheads, I removed all the masking tape to complete the job.

I test-fit the new piece of trim profile that I’d milled late last time, and it seemed to do the trick and accomplished what I had hoped.

With that, I turned my attention to the cabin sole for the rest of the day, continuing where I’d left off with a difficult piece at the starboard end of the forward cabin, extending forward along the slope and curve of the hull. This piece required quite a bit of pressure in the form of long braces running to the overhead in order to hold it securely while the epoxy cured.  Similarly, I filled in a small piece of the same plank at the aft end, though this was easier to hold in place with some weights and one clamp at the aft end.

Leaving the starboard side for now, I continued work on the port side, where the shape of the hull allowed full-length planks, as long as I could reasonably torture them into position along the curve of the hull at the aft end.  I installed two planks in turn, using glue and brads where I could on the plywood substrate, and bracing them accordingly against the overhead and with clamped-on boards at the aft bulkhead.

The final two planks to complete the port side of the sole required less bending to fit, but were entirely located on the fiberglass hull, so I had to come up with more creative clamping means to hold them securely in the epoxy while it cured.

Using some offcuts from the longer planks I’d installed, I installed more pieces of the teak sole to finish up around the hatch in the head sole, and cut and installed the final longer pieces against the port side and up on the curves of the port hull, using additional plywood-strip bracing from the overhead as needed.

By now, I’d mainly run out of pre-milled stock for the sole, other than several shorter pieces that would come in handy later.  I’d estimated the requirements roughly when I milled the original batch, but didn’t want to mill more than needed and risk wasting the material.  So from a long teak board (from which I first cut the blanks needed for the cabin side trim), I milled four more 2″ wide by 1/4″ thick strips of teak, and sanded the v-match profile on the corners.  This would give me enough stock to finish the starboard side of the sole.

The pieces on the starboard side that I’d installed earlier in the day had cured enough that I felt OK removing some or all of the bracing so I could continue with the next row of planking.  This one included a long section on the flat plywood substrate, plus a shorter angled piece at the aft end, and a longer one at the forward end, which, like its immediate predecessor, would require quite a bit of clamping pressure to hold it in place on the hull.  Measuring, cutting, installing, and clamping these three pieces consumed most of the remainder of the day, and the various clamping means required blocked access for additional work regardless.

As a final step for the day, I used a small router to trim the planks around the mast step opening, and the bilge access in the head, where I’d let the planking run slightly long for this purpose.  I couldn’t reach my vacuum through the forest of braces, so left cleaning up for next time, when I planned to finish the final pieces on the starboard side.

 

I began the day in the cabin, lightly sanding the head bulkheads and trim to prepare for the final coat of satin varnish later in the day.   Since I’d spent time over the weekend, the remaining bits of brightwork I’d been working on most recently were now complete and resplendent in their satin glow.

Once I’d finished that work, I took a few minutes to glue hardwood cleats along one side of each  galley locker door opening, where it would remain to help locate door catch hardware later.

I spent most of the day working on the cabin sole to install the 1/4″ x 2″ teak planks to create the final surface.  Working on the bench, I started with the two bilge access hatches, which ran down the centerline of the boat and would form the layout basis for the remainder of the sole.  The hatches were six planks wide by design.  Once these planks were installed, I used the hatches to finish up some basic layout in the boat, particularly just forward of the hatches where I laid out the planks to determine where they’d fall on the mast step recess so I could then cut some water drains on each side where the slot would be covered by a plank later.

I didn’t take any incremental photos of the planking, but worked throughout the day to install all the long, straight planks on either side of the bilge hatches, and then began installing some of the shorter planks where the sole met the curvature of the hull at the corners.  The layout from the hatches continued nicely and neatly past the battery box with a full plank, and then beyond on either side. I installed all the planks with glue and brads, and a thickened epoxy mixture on the exposed hull as needed.

I might have liked to continue a bit more, but it was growing late in the day and I needed to stop in order to clean up and get ready to apply the final coat of satin varnish to the interior trim and head bulkhead, along with the port side galley shelf.  Finishing the varnish now was important to keep other aspects of the interior moving forward as well.

With about 30 minutes left at the end of the day, I prepared a second prototype of the trim for the lower edge of the cabin sides.  The first attempt was good in concept, but the way I cut the angles made it visually clunky.   Now, I more or less replicated the cuts, except I started with a slightly narrower blank (1-1/4″ vs 1-1/2″) to better clear the ports forward, and cut the 14° angle on the short bottom leg, with the taller leg cut at a vertical, so that when installed, the  trim would visually follow the angle of the cabin trunk.  I didn’t test-fit the piece in the boat now as I didn’t want to introduce dust to the curing fresh varnish, but all in the fullness of time.

 

Next verse, same as the first.  This time, however, I switched to satin varnish for the final coat on all the loose small trim pieces and chainplate trim covers (coat 5), while sticking with the usual gloss varnish for the 4th build coat on the interior trim.

In a brief weekend workday, I prepared for and applied another coat of gloss varnish to the interior trim (third coat) and small loose trim pieces (mostly 4th coat).