Locker lids Part 1

Slow progress again this week, after watching England thrash France yesterday there was little hope of me having any co-ordination until at least early afternoon.  I didn't want to be inside the cabin so sidelined the galley unit and had a look at the cockpit locker lids.

They look pretty ropey but cleaned up reasonably well,  I used a heat gun and scraper to remove the varnish and then went over with the sander.  I have decided to route out a pattern and fill with black Sikaflex to make them look like a planked deck

I marked out the pattern in pencil, click on the picture for a clearer view.

I then clamped guides on to keep the router on track.

Unfortunately it all went a bit wrong.  After doing the more difficult lines I must have got a bit complacent and really farked up the easy lines.  Fortunately  I had some 12mm marine ply left over from last year so I cut out a new locker lid and started again.

It nearly all went to plan, except for the second from last cut which I managed to balls up.  As it is just a cosmetic line I cut a slither from an off cut and glued it in. Once set I'll sand it down and I think it will look ok.

I still need to shape the corners, I will then mask it up with tape and fill the grooves with sikaflex.  I'm still not sure how I'm going to finish them but I think I will paint with sadolin. The reasons for this are.. Colour, the ply that I have is very light in colour and will look odd with clear varnish.  Maintenence, If it start to show wear mid season, it is easy to apply a repair coat without having to have perfect conditions.  Experience, the rubbing strakes were painted with sadolin last year and stood up pretty well to the conditions.

Galley unit part two

I managed another couple of hours on the galley unit tonight.   I had cut the front top corner off at 45 degrees so I needed to make a hardwood trim to finish that off.  After chopping out the recess on the table saw, I mitred it to fit with the vertical and horizontal trim.

Luck was on my side as, without planning it, the radius of the arc was 90mm... and the paint pot from decorating James room was 18cm across; result, I had something to draw round.  I initially drew this on paper, thats how I worked out how wide the block needed to be.

With the arc drawn on the block I roughly cut the excess wood off and glued the block onto the upright.

Once clamped in place I used a wood rasp to shape the block more accurately. I have left them like this and will use the power sander to do the final finish tomorrow.

I apologise for the poor quality of the pictures, the iphone struggles in low light.

Galley unit part one.

With the boys room decorated and a hint of spring outside I made a dash for the boat.  With so many jobs to do it wasn't hard to find something to attack.   The galley unit caught my eye first so I set about it with a lump hammer. The trouble was that the Origo stove is just a tad larger than a standard twin burner camping stove so I would have do something to accommodate it.

The forward bulkhead could not be moved as it helps support the mast so I would have to move the rear upright by about 1/2 inch.  I decided to cut out the old side, just leaving enough of a flange to screw the new panel to.

First I marked where I wanted to cut, then cut it out with a jigsaw... no turning back now.

I only had a small piece of 9mm marine ply left over from last years efforts but it was enough for the new side.  It was a bit shorter than the previous one but still ok.  My plan to screw it straight to the old flange didn't work out, it was still too narrow.  I was going to use washers to space it out but decided it would be better to trim some 3mm strips of hardwood on the table. These  worked perfectly, they packed it out enough to accept the stove without pushing it out so far as to foul the locker lid.

Here it is roughly put together.  Before finishing up I made some hardwood trims for the edges, put an up-stand behind the stove and spent a a load of time scraping and sanding the artex off the bulkhead.

The space underneath was a bit of a dumping area so I have decided to get some polystyrene and make this area into a cool box for food.  More on that later.

Sailing Scenes

While gazing into my picture of Jelly Bean and myself battling around Harrys Rock, I thought I could do with a similar picture of Ciao Bella to keep her company on the Lounge wall.   David Harding took the picture of Jelly Bean so I looked up his website to get his contact details. The plan being to find out when and where he was likely to be so that I could arrange to be out there at the same time and get some good quality pictures taken.

Better than that, he'd already got some pics from my last trip to Yarmouth,  so I've now got a 10" x 15" photograph on order.   I've chosen the Portrait syle one as it will go side by side with Jelly bean.  David will make all the fine adjustments before printing to show it at it's best. The Cost is £27 plus £1.50 postage, I reckon that's not too bad for a professional photograph.
So the moral of the story is.. if you sail around Bournemouth bay and you want a top quality pictures of your pride and joy to hang on the wall next to the ceramic ducks; it's worth checking Davids website; as he may already have snapped you. If not you can call him to find out where he'll be loitering (Generally taking pictures of race events) and head in his direction.

http://www.sailingscenes.co.uk/