Another piece of the puzzle

Most of the starboard side of the saloon is an open shelf which as far as I can make out had another shelf about halfway up.The forward end bulkhead carries the chain plate for the starboard lower shroud. I have been thinking about this area for some time and have decided for the time being to just line it out with some of the van lining carpet to tidy up the area and make up a timber cover to fit over the chain plate bolts.

Starboard lower shroud chain plate bolts

While searching in amongst the pile of bits in the aft cabin I came across this which is the original cover trim for the bolts the photograph below shows it after I had sanded and varnished it the notch I assume is for the original shelf.

Cover trim for chain plate bolts

After applying some carpet and fixing the cover trim it now looks like this.

The rest of the week has been spent lining out the heads locker and the galley crockery stowage with more of the ubiquitous van lining carpet which has then allowed me to secure the front panels once this had been done I could get on with fitting some of the timber trim which I had varnished last weekend the fiddle rails to the galley and heads worktops have also been fitted I used some self tapping screws into the edge of the solid laminate backed up with some PU40 adhesive sealant to keep out any water which may be splashed onto the worktop. I still have not decided on doors for the under sink locker I have been looking for something in solid wood off the shelf and at a reasonable price but at the moment all that I can find to match the criteria are louvre doors unfortunately the available sizes don't seem to match the openings I am looking for three pairs of doors so that I can do the aft cabin and the heads lockers as well.

After dismantling the old cockpit bench gratings I had some 'L' section teak sufficient to trim the lower edges of the laminate on the aft saloon bulkhead this was cleaned up, cut to length and varnished. The remains of the rebates for the original hinges on one of the pieces can just be seen in photograph below I have left it as a link to the original use of the timber, I know very arty farty or even trendy if you like it will be semi hidden along the lower edge of the piece.

View showing hinge rebates

Port side aft bulkhead

Starboard side aft bulkhead

I have just about run out of the teak from the old gratings I have just enough to finish off round the engine panel and the new wine locker. However there is still some teak trim in the pile in the aft cabin some of which was I believe cover strip which was fitted to conceal the joints in original laminate lining on the heads bulkheads I aim to recycle, or is it upcycle these days, to provide trim for the heads lockers.

 

Locker doors

I don't seem to have achieved an awful lot this week but it seems to go like that now and again I have made and fitted all the outstanding locker doors for the heads and the wine locker. To finish off these doors I had to recycle some laminate from the rotten locker front panel from the fore cabin this meant removing the Evostick from the back of the material fortunately I still have some of the Detak chewing gum remover that Hadlow Marine Windows supplied for cleaning the old sealant from the fore hatch glazing this is quite effective if a little slow I probably wouldn't use it for large areas though.

Wine locker

Heads locker

The varnishing of the timber trim pieces for the galley didn't get done over last weekend other things got in the way however I got the first coat of varnish on during the week the aim is to finish them off over the weekend so that it can all be fitted next week. Also I got the crockery restraining device painted so that this area can be finished off next week.

I have been giving some thought to doors for the under sink lockers in the galley and the heads and also the steering gear compartment in the aft cabin as my woodworking skills are not up to making them I was hoping to be a able to find some solid timber ready made doors at a reasonable price however most of what I could find fail at the reasonable price hurdle but also non standard sizes are a problem I can get louvre doors at a reasonable price but again sizes are a problem I shall keep looking.

New keel bolt fitted

Last weekend I cut one of the new set screws to length and then set it up in the lathe and faced off the end then finished off by putting a chamfer on the first thread.

New keel bolt

Once the bolt was finished I set up a piece of 3/8" plate in the four jaw chuck and bored out a 11/8" clearance hole to produce a backing plate for the new bolt.

Boring the new backing plate

New parts and old bolt

On Monday morning I greased up the bolt with some water resisting grease gave the backing plate a good dose of PU40 sealant and inserted the bolt I was aiming for a torque of around 200 ft/lbs but my torque wrench would not go that far and trying to apply that amount on two long socket extensions was always going to be difficult so after I had got as far as I could I used the 65:1 drive to just tighten the bolt a little further. Apparently the Idea is to not tighten the bolt so much that it starts to crush the GRP moulding and this torque figure is considerably less than the maximum torque setting for the bolt in question especially I would think when using bolts of this size.

New keel bolt and backing plate

Now that the new keel bolt is in place I can get on with building some form of mounting for the batteries so that they can be secured to prevent any movement.

I have been giving some thought to the crockery stowage in the galley once the items are put through the opening a means of preventing them from wandering about in what is a comparatively large space I eventually came up with the arrangement in the photograph below once these have been painted I can then finish off in this area.

The idea being that these will be installed behind the front panels to restrain the crockery I took a bit of a guess with the sizes just hope that I can find something that will fit when the time comes.

For the remainder of the week I have been making up some more timber trim for the new panels in the saloon and galley areas no pictures I am afraid the aim is to try and get some varnish on them over the weekend.

I have done a bit more wiring namely the domestic water pump which now works just needs some plumbing and water tanks to complete and also the 12 volt supply to the wind instrument junction box, as posted previously I can't do any more with this until the mast is up.

To finish off today I started making the doors for the heads locker and the wine locker these will be the same arrangement as the galley lockers I have fitted all the plastic track ready for the doors. As an aside I sourced the track from Amazon and as well as the usual product review request message I got a message from a guy who wanted to know if I thought the track would be suitable to retain the glass in his snake tank now I don't know about you but I know very little about snakes other than some are harmless and some are dangerous and as he didn't give any indication as to his particular snakes are how do you answer that one?