Head lining progress

Over the last weekend at home I carried on with lining the ply head lining panels as this was a clean operation I got to do it indoors in the warm, using the ply panels as a template I marked out the material using some dressmakers/tailors chalk, which my wife offered, I allowed a 50mm border to fold around the edge of the panel.

Aft cabin panel

Overlap marked with tailors chalk

Once the material had been cut out it and the ply was sprayed with the Trimfix adhesive, this operation was obviously not carried out indoors, and put aside for a few minutes to dry. Once dry the material was layed face down on a level surface, the conservatory floor, and the ply panel placed in the correct position and pressed down all over. As Trimfix is a contact adhesive I had marked a couple of points on the material which would coincide with the corners of the ply panel to help get the panel in the correct position as you only get one shot with the Trimfix it bonds instantly.

Panel bonded to the material

I then applied Trimfix around the back edge of the ply panel and folded the material over and pressed it down.

Completed aft cabin panel

Completed fore cabin roof panel

The carpet stretches easily around most of the curves encountered but a couple of vee cut outs were required on the more tightly curved corners on the fore cabin roof panel.

So far I have completed most of the fore cabin head lining it just needs the two small panels which fit under the side decks I thought that I had found the ply panels but on checking today they don't seem to fit but I cannot find anywhere else where they might fit needs some further investigation, the aft cabin panel which fits under the aft deck is now in place together with the saloon coach roof side lining.

Fore cabin

Saloon

I have identified and checked the fit of the panels which fit under the side decks in the aft cabin these will be lined  along with the coach roof sides in the aft cabin as the next phase of the job after which I need to make some new ply panels for the saloon and aft cabin deck heads the salon will be a bit tricky due to its size making the panel a bit floppy to deal with. So far I am quite pleased with the way this job has gone I have never done this before so it was started with some trepidation I think having the overhead lining on ply panels makes the job much easier than trying to stick the lining directly onto the roof particularly in the larger areas and working single handed its much easier to lay the material face down on a flat surface and place the panel onto it.

As an aside I went down to the boatyard on Sunday morning to find that storm Angus had shredded the tarpaulin cover, it was on its last legs and well worn when I was given it, several spares came with the boat. However the associated rain did show up a leak where the mushroom vent is secured to the fore hatch, I have recently resealed the hatch glazing but never gave a thought to the vent and so the vent will need to be removed and resealed.  

Internal work

Now that the weather is getting colder its time to move to inside work the next major task is to get to grips with the headlining. The original headlining was as far as I can gather the ubiquitous foam backed vinyl glued onto thin ply panels. I have been thinking about the replacement materials for some time and over the last week or two I have given it some more serious thought and decided to use van lining carpet for a number of reasons namely, I think that the carpet will give a warmer feel, it will give a degree of sound deadening, after a while the foam backing on the vinyl crumbles away probably not too important at my time of life and finally price as far as I can make out its about half the price of the vinyl although I will probably use vinyl for the heads in view of a shower being installed. I now have the carpet its stone coloured 'Veltrim' from Harrison Trim Supplies www.harrisonstrimsupplies.co.uk together with sufficient 'Trimfix' adhesive for the job.

Before starting on the head lining I needed to fit the laminate panels to the aft saloon bulkhead I cut out a rough cardboard template and then used this to mark out the panels which once the bulkhead had been cleaned up they were glued in position with Evostick contact adhesive

Port side

Starboard side

The port side panel is L shaped to allow a box to be built around the rear of the cockpit instruments this will be finalised when I have chosen the chart plotter so that I can give it sufficient depth. Now that these panels have been fitted I have fully secured the companionway steps with all the bolts being sealed one of the bolt holes was a persistent source of rain water, leaking in hopefully they are now all watertight I expect that there will be some rain along soon to test them.

My recent homework job was to clean up the surviving ply panels for the headlining and to check that they are suitable for reuse. I found that the easiest way to get rid of the old dried out foam was to lay them on the ground and give them a good going over with a stiff yard broom I am afraid that it does not do much for the old adhesive though they will need a good sanding to remove that. It looks as though the Marine Projects employee who made the panels has left his mark on all the surviving panels it's a bit feint, drawn in pencil. but you can just make out the face in the lower photograph below it is also in red on the starboard aft saloon bulkhead but unfortunately I did not have the camera handy at the time I covered it up. 

Fore cabin deck head panel

Makers mark

I also spent some time identifying and varnishing some more of the timber trim which can be replaced once the headlining has been replaced there is still quite a bit more of this to do

Timber trim for the headlining

Finally I have started to cut out some of the headlining carpet for the sides of the coach roof in the saloon and fore cabin I decided to cut out the window frame profile and then stick the carpet around the window on reflection I think it would have been easier to glue the carpet to the sides of the coach roof with the windows out and then trim round the opening but after having spent a good deal of time and effort getting the windows watertight I was very reluctant to remove them again.

Carpet panel for saloon coach roof side

I have been trial fitting some of the carpet panels and I find that it goes round corners very easily even when it is required to bend in two directions probably more flexible than the foam backed vinyl. Harrisons can supply an even more flexible lining it goes under the name of 'Easytrim'. These materials are designed to moulded round vehicle wheel arches etc also 'Veltrim' has a flammability type approval for which is the normal requirement for materials used in coach building and for those of you who are interested it is 100% recyclable polypropylene fibre and it comes in 2 metre wide rolls.

More glazing

Started the week by fitting the starboard saloon window back into place all went well it took a fair amount of effort to pull it into the curve of the coach roof starting with the screws in the centre and gradually working out to the ends.

Port saloon window

Starboard saloon window

I then removed the opening part of the fore hatch the acrylic glazing had been 'glued' in with some form of black mastic but the glazing had started to lift letting in rain water there was some minor crazing to the glazing but as it is 10mm thick I decided that I would reuse it. The glazing came out of the frame with very little effort after cutting round the edge of the acrylic with a Stanley knife and then gently levering it out with a thin scraper. I cleaned up the acrylic panel and the aluminium frame with an acrylic scraper and Detak which is basically chewing gum remover  but seemed to be quite effective at removing mastic I then washed the frame and glazing with hot water and detergent and left them to dry thoroughly. Before fitting the glazing I ran masking tape around the edge on the upper side to make the final clean up easier, finally I gave the glazing and frame a wipe over with methylated spirit to remove all traces of grease and put them aside to dry. While the frame was drying I removed the remains of the steel roll pin that had retained one of the locking screws and also the brass pin on the other locking screw and replaced them with some 1/8" stainless steel pins. 

Glazing cleaned up and ready for fitting

Once everything was dry I ran some EHB5321 double sided tape around the frame, EHB extra high bond or really really sticky tape, this is a transparent acrylic foam tape. This tape is a little tricky to use it is important not to stretch it so I left the red backing tape in place  but this needs to be removed to bend the tape round the corners the ends of the tape were then tightly mitred together.

Applying the double sided tape

The glazing was then pressed into place and clamped up for 24 hours.

Glazing clamped up

After 24 hours had passed I removed the clamps and squeezed some mastic into the gap between the edge of the glazing and the frame before removing the masking tape.

Removing the masking tape

Complete and ready to refit

The hatch was reassembled today which hopefully will mean all the glazing is now watertight there was some heavy rain later this afternoon so it should have been tested I will probably go and have a look tomorrow. Again all the advice and materials for the work to the hatch came from Hadlow Marine. 

Also this week I have carried out some minor fibreglass repairs to the flanges that support the wood trim around both companionways the wood trim was then replaced on the main companionway and then the stainless steel retaining bars for the wash boards were permanently screwed into place.