Spoke Too Soon

In the last installment I was gushing over how everything lined up so well and didn't need much trimming.  Well you know what they say about pride and falling.  It seems that I have lived up to that adage.  Do you notice something wrong in the photo below?

If you can't catch it there used to be a footwell frame batten attached to the transom.  After fitting the footwell sides I realized that I glued and screwed this incorrectly.  It was actually tilted such that the port side was about 1/2" above the starboard side.  Minor cold sweats ensued.  I thought about it for about 20 minutes.  Maybe I could trim it even.  But that might make it too thin.  Maybe I could reinforced the trimmed support from below.  This is starting to get complicated for one small piece.

In the end I grabbed my Dremel oscillating tool with a wood cutting blade and removed the offending piece completely.  Unfortunately I had covered the recessed screws with epoxy putty and I couldn't clean it out enough to get a grip on the heads with a screwdriver.  So after I loosed the wood all around the screws I put on metal cutting attachment and cut the screws off flush.  The remaining screws in the transom will be just left in.

It's amazing how quickly I can make a piece once I've done it before.  I was able to cut a replacement, including the bevel to compensate for the transom angle, in no time.  It is now glued and screwed in place and it took less time than it does to blog about it.

All the deck framing and the footwell sides are glued in place.  While they're easy to get to I'm going to paint the interior sides of the footwell.  Then comes the decking.

Hours this session: 4

Hours total: 289

Hiding the Beauty

Since the last post, I cut about 150 plugs to fill the screw holes in the floor boards.  This was a real chore for my little $69 Harbor Freight drill press.  It ran hot, smoked, and stalled frequently, but in the end it got the job done.  Pounded them all in place, trimmed, and finished them.  Ooops... forgot to take pictures.  Take my word they look great!

So I'm at the point where I begin construction of the cockpit decking the footwell.  It is almost a shame to cover all my nice interior with newsprint so that I can continue the process.

To my surprise the decking required very little "tweaking" to get it to fit correctly.  Every time something like that happens (an it has happened often) it reassures me that I got everything straight and true from the beginning.

After placing the pieces in their position I used the "compass trick" to mark where the edges would have to be trimmed.  Then I used a plane to nibble it down.  Just to be anal about it I also beveled the edges slightly to match the angle of the hull at that point.  Final result is an almost perfect fit.

The trial fitting of the boards for the footwell went even better.  All pieces fit snugly without any trimming/alterations required!  Way to go Chesapeake Light Craft!

I did deviate from the instructions at this point.  I decided that I wanted a little bit more strength from the decking so I fiberglassed the underside of both pieces.  In my usual fashion I used peel ply over the glass so that I could get it all done in one step.  The only hitch in the process is that it is Florida's "Love Bug" season.  Hundreds of them committed suicide in the epoxy.  Luckily they did it on top of the peel-ply (except for just one couple who ended up on top of the fiberglass).  A little gross but in the end no-harm no-foul.  Of course the bugs may have a different opinion.

The footwell sides and bottom won't get the fiberglass treatment.  They seem strong enough as they are.

The decking and footwells haven't been glued in permanently yet.  I've got to add the supports to the side wells and then epoxy seal the three pieces.  Hopefully I'll get this done this weekend.

Hours this session: 12

Hours total: 285

Hours remaining: 135

Note:  Since I know there is NO-WAY I'm going to finish this in the allotted 500 hours.  I'm going to remove the "Hours remaining" from the bottom of each blog from here on out.  One less piece of math I have to do!

Painting and Floor Boards

After hours of sanding and practicing my contoursionist skills the interior was ready to paint.  Again I used my HVLP Erlex paint gun to apply the color.  Incidentally I didn't go with Wembly White.  I went with a brighter Orca White instead.

So the interior turned better than I had hoped.  All the sanding paid off and so did my anal attention to getting the fillets right and smooth.  After seeing the kind of flaws that the high build primer can mask I realized that I overdid the prep of the interior.  How often can you say that!

Certain areas that the pain gun couldn't reach had to be done by hand.  For this I simply used a small foam brush and feathered the paint into the areas that were sprayed.

I wanted a part of bulkhead number 2 left bright.  I masked this off with some "Frog Tape".  This stuff has a gel edge that swell when in contact with water sealing off edge from paint seeping under.  I had a problem with the last boat I built.  Since the WR-LPU paint is so thin it can wick under regular painters tape.

Here you can see the front storage area with the supports for the battery platform.

I wet sanded the interior with 600 grit.  It gave it a final nice smooth satin finish.  Then I added the finished floor boards.  Pretty happy with the results.

Here you can see where the pull strings for the wiring exit from underneath the floorboards.  The wiring will power the light for the compass and the rear navigation light and some accessory outlets.

The screw holes with be plugged with darker wood (like black walnut or cedar) to give it a neat look.

The pull strings at the front exiting the conduit.  I found a 8' pre-made conduit with fittings already installed.  It fit the cutouts perfectly and cost about $11 at Home Depot.

Front to back view of the floor boards.

Another view of the under floor board storage.  There is much more room in these things than it seems while assembling the hull.  Some of that room will be taken up by internal ballast.

Hours this session: 12

Hours total: 273

Hours remaining: 147