Custom chart racks designed, built, and installed

SCAMP has a ton of storage in front of bulkhead 3, though I expect it will be best for lightweight items like sleeping bags, pillows, clothing.  And if out on a multi-day trip, it would be good to have some reading material along.  Rather than let maps, books, and magazines fall to the floor I thought it would be good to have some dedicated storage for those items.  Inspired by builder Dan from British Columbia, I decided to build some racks.

I started out with a cardboard prototype that I modified a number of times.  It was very difficult to get all the angles to look right and fit the hull.  I eventually decided on something like this.

I then built the prototype again, this time in some light plywood from some old panelling.  The cardboard flexes and lets you cheat a little with the fit, so using more rigid material let me finalize the angles and fit of the pieces.  Masking tape works fine to hold the pieces together.

Once I had all the pieces fitting right, I disassembled the shelf and transferred the dimensions to extra ply from the boat.  The bottom of the shelf is 9mm, and the sides and front are of 6mm.  

One of the benefits of making a good pattern was that I could reverse all the pieces and make a mirror image, so I did that and made a chart rack for both port and starboard. 

I taped the parts together again.

And ran a fillet of epoxy on the inside.  I didn't make any effort to glue the pieces together except for the fillet, and that works fine.

Next I taped on the front pieces.

And filleted them in place.  After the epoxy cured I used the 12" disk sander to sand all the overhangs flush.

Here's a shot of the progression from cardboard prototype to finished item.

The angles look a little funny here, but they all make sense in the boat.  Nothing is square on these, and all the compound angles made this a challenging little project.  I spent more time designing and building this than I care to admit, but I'm happy with the result.

I decided to let the wood shine through on these parts, and applied 2 coats of epoxy to finish them off.  No need for varnish or anything to protect from UV as they will be in an enclosed area of the boat.

I lined up the shelves and marked their position, then fired two pin nails from the inside of the boat through the hull to mark where the bottom of the shelf was.  I then buttered up the edges of the shelf with thickened epoxy and held it in place while my wife helped out by firing two pins from the hull exterior into the bottom of the shelf to hold it in place.  One strip of tape held the top of the shelf against the hull. 

I then filleted around the shelf/hull joints to finish things off.  I'll touch up the paint that I had to scrape off to mount these and the installation will be complete.