February 6, 2021

Lively Heels Phase 3-13

Saturday

After various discussions in the weeks since I made up the rough idea of the deck box forward of the pilothouse, the owner requested that we make it a bit smaller, which I agreed with; I’d made it the size I had in order to try and fit the spare propane tank, but this did make the box larger than seemed appropriate, and another box–to be built in the cockpit–could hold the propane tank.

Needing to keep the box construction underway, since there were several other boxes on deck I hoped to conceive and build before the season, I milled the various plywood pieces down to the new size, taking off 2″ in overall height, and about 3″ in width.  These dimensions seemed like they’d fit the space better overall, even at a net loss of storage capacity.

With the pieces newly cut, I secured the box together with small plastic wire ties through holes I drilled at the corners of each seam all the way around–my version of stitch-and-glue.

With the sides and bottom of the box held tightly together, I installed epoxy fillets on the inside of the box to permanently glue the box together and, once cured, hold things securely enough to allow me to reinforce the joints with fiberglass.  I filled in the recess I’d milled in the bottom for the propane tank, using a round of 1/4″ plywood and epoxy to do so, rather than waste the bottom I’d cut previously.  Because the assembled box had a slight propensity to rock, probably because of a slight warp to the plywood, I added some weight on top while the epoxy cured to keep the box flat to the bench.  (After I took the photo I added weight to the opposite end also, for good measure.)

Total time billed on this job today:  1.75 hours

0600 Weather Observation:  30°, cloudy, snow shower or two.   Forecast for the day:   Clearing, 35°.