Thursday 30 December 2021

Door frames

New Morning has not been totally neglected since my last post I have been pottering about doing odd maintenance jobs but recently I became motivated to finish off the heads door frames. Since this involved making up four arch section pieces of architrave to suit the original doors I had been putting off starting the job, however I decided that it was time to get on and get them finished. I started by making the four arch sections these are made from six pieces dowelled and glued together before being cut to shape with a jig saw and sanding.



After glueing


Sections cut and dowelled

The straight sections were then cut and secured to the bulkhead with wood screws then once the arch sections had been fitted the screw holes were plugged and the whole lot sanded.


Forward side of forward door

Unfortunately I could not get far enough back in the forward cabin to get the whole door in frame, the architrave is wider on this side of the door so as to form the stops. Above the door can be seen the cover strips, I cut from the laminate used to cover the bulkhead, these are to cover the joins in the laminate infill piece after I had reinstated the original arch top doors. I was going to continue the architrave up to the head lining but I thought that this might look somewhat heavy by the time the wood had been dyed and varnished in any case I had lots of suitable laminate offcuts. I then gave the timber two coats of Colron deep mahogany wood dye followed by three coats of varnish to complete the forward door frame. It has turned out a bit darker than I was hoping for but there is a bit of a mixture of colours in the original timber trim anyway.



Aft side forward door



Forward side of forward door

I have now moved on to the aft door most of the parts have been made and temporarily fitted but I still have the liner in the bulkhead opening to fit at the base of the door and also some laminate to cut and fit to complete the bulkhead, I have just enough of the laminate that came with the boat to complete the job.


Aft face of the forward door

As can be seen from the above photograph there is still a gap under the door to be filled and the laminate to fit to the bulkhead.