Wood and varnish again

I haven't done a great deal this week the aim was to finish varnishing the last of the wood trim and fixing it in place. I started in the aft cabin with pieces to cover the forward and aft end of the locker panels on both sides, the photographs show the port side.

Aft cabin forward end 

Aft end

I then moved on to the long lengths either side of the mast compression post in the saloon, the piece on the starboard side was an exact fit between the clock mount and the compression post which makes picking up the keyhole plate mountings for the clock much easier, this was purely accidental.

Trim either side of compression post

The next move was to finish the trim round the heads internal moulding there is a cover strip over the join between the locker moulding and the sole moulding under the doors. the vertical trim to the left hand side of the doors and finally the trim at each end of the worktop, this part is now pretty much complete.

Heads moulding

The last two pieces were above the windows in the forward cabin they help support the head lining and also originally provide something for the curtain track to be secured to.

I have now used up all of the original hardwood that came with the boat most of it has not been put back in its original position, but I have tried to make the best use of it without too many offcuts. Reuse, recycling or upcycling whatever you want to call it has entailed plugging some of the original screw holes which I think adds to the history well that is what I will claim anyway.

Wood and varnish

I spent some time last weekend plugging redundant holes in various pieces of hardwood trim so that on Monday I could cut them to length and start sanding them ready for varnish. I have now just about used up all the remaining timber, there are just a few short offcuts left, I may have to source some more to finally finish trimming round various panels. Once the sanding was complete I have spent most of the week varnishing the various pieces.

Varnished trim

I also managed to get three coats of varnish on the mast compression post.

Varnished compression post

This afternoon I fitted the first piece of trim where the dinette internal moulding abuts the compression post, I think that the original installation was done with a jigsaw and a very shaky hand the trim is required to cover the gap.

Gap between the moulding and compression post

On the inside of the moulding I screwed a piece of timber to the compression post so that when the trim was fitted the screws went through into the timber backing so that the moulding is firmly secured, the backing timber can just be seen through the gap.

After fitting the trim

The plan for next week is to finish the varnishing and then fix all the trim pieces in place

More fibreglass

The first job this week was to start laying up fibreglass in the repair to the heads sole the area in way of the cut out is still a little low but I was thinking possibly finishing off with a piece of contrasting laminate to form a kick plate below the door.

Repair to sole

I have used polyester resin for this repair as the intention is to finish off with gelcoat which takes to polyester more effectively than epoxy, however on opening my tin off white gelcoat I found that it had gone off apparently this stuff has a limited shelf life I will need to order some more from East Coast Fibreglass Supplies before I can go any further. I still have a pile of original hardwood trim some of which I had sanded and varnished ready for fitting so after a bit of a sort out I found the piece for the forward end of the galley moulding and fitted it in place.

Trim fitted to galley moulding

I have identified several more pieces  which need sanding and varnishing so that will be a homework job for this weekend providing the gloss varnish has not gone hard in the tin. going by the present record it does not look promising although this tin is of more recent purchase. To finish the week I sanded the mast compression post ready for varnish next week on this boat it is in two pieces one on each side of the bulkhead, I made rather a mess as unbeknown to me the dust bag had become detached from the random orbital sander and it had blown dust everywhere before I realised what had happened.

One half of the compression post sanded ready for varnish

Back to the heads

The first job this week was to sand the forward heads door it seems that the original finish had been removed at some time and replaced with varnish however my tin of satin varnish which had not been opened for several years had gone solid so that job was put on hold until the chandlers reopen.
I then moved on to the forward doorway, I had already screwed and glued a piece of plywood into the base of the door opening to reduce the size of the gap at the base of the door, space has been left for a section of the door frame. Once that was done I turned my attention to the sole moulding for some reason a piece had been cut away under the door I am unsure why but I decided to reinstate it.

View showing cut out in the sole moulding

I have been thinking of a way to infill the cut out for quite some time  one of those jobs that was always thought about and then relegated to the too hard list I finally decided that it was time to get on and do something with it. The sole moulding was not tabbed to the bulkhead as would be expected but had been secured with screws however I don't think that these were original, stainless steel posi type, and there is a bit of a gap between the upstand and the bulkhead, however the sole moulding is secured to the hull also it is secured to the aft bulkhead by screws. After some thought I decided to build up the forward bulkhead to meet the so;e moulding and then use the bulkhead as backing to the infill of the upstand. to start with I removed the original blue laminate as I guessed that resin would not adhere very well to it, I also removed a piece of the new white laminate on the right hand side of the door opening to square everything up the cordless multi tool was just the job for this. Once this was done  I gave the exposed ply a good sanding to remove the old adhesive.

Bulkhead ready for glassing

I then used a mixture of woven rovings and chopped strand mat to build up the bulkhead to the level of the back of the upstand, there was no particular reason for using this combination of glass mat it was just what I had in stock.

Bulkhead glassed up

That is sunshine coming in through the window in between the rain this afternoon. Next week the plan is to build up the upstand from the bulkhead I don't think that it will be an invisible repair so I think that I will gelcoat it and leave it as a bit of a feature. Strangely the moulding for the heads sink unit is tabbed to the bulkhead but on the forward face of the bulkhead the forward cabin internal moulding again is not tabbed to the bulkhead in fact on the port side there is quite a large gap I am not sure what has gone on here but it looks as though the boat was originally built this way.