Back to the forward cabin

I started on Monday morning by trimming off all the plugs in the aft door frame and then trimming up the door frame so that the door would fit within the frame then once I was happy with the fit I secured the door and made a final adjustment to the frame to ensure that it would open and close smoothly. I had to re position the door hold back hook as due to the manner in which I had reinstated the door opening the door was considerably higher than it was originally. I finished the day by stripping and cleaning the original door latch.

The first job on Wednesday morning was to refit the door latch and the new catch plate this entailed fitting a block to the door frame to take the catch plate in a similar manner to the forward door.

Aft door fitted

As with the forward door I have screwed a temporary stop to the door frame to prevent any straining of the frame until the architrave/door stops are fitted, the temporary stop is the small block fitted just above the catch plate mounting block.

I began today by cleaning the inside face of the aft door with acetone which removed most of the odd bits of sticky stuff and left the door looking a bit more presentable once that was done I trimmed the plugs in the screw holes in the catch plate block, this is as far as I can go with the doors until I have obtained the material for the architraves. I then moved on to the forward cabin which was accessible now that the doors are out of the way, I started by clearing out all the rubbish and having a good clean up, the priority is to fit a door to the cable locker to prevent the east coast mud from flying off the anchor chain and spreading itself around the forward cabin which it is prone to do as the chain drop is very close to the door opening. I had cut out the plywood door blank some time ago but that is as far as I had got, so after marking the position of the finger hole I put it aside as a homework job for the weekend when I will sand and paint it ready for the edge trim. 

Door blank for the cable locker

I finished up the day by lining the after end of the anchor well between the two side locker panels using some of the grey van lining carpet.

Lining on anchor well

It can be seen in the above photograph how close the anchor chain is to the locker opening. The aim next week is to line the hull sides in the lockers on both sides of the forward cabin with a view to making it a bit more presentable, it does however need some new cushions to replace the existing rather tatty ones which are possibly the originals also I think that they have suffered somewhat from the attention of rodents while in storage.

I have had the first sight of the new swan family on the creek this week.