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.