Cabin and front deck beams, cockpit sole cleats installed

I have now constructed and installed the beams that support the cabin roof and the front deck.  

Installing the deck beams fixes the bow transom in place, and I wanted to be very sure that it was centered.  The keel piece had somewhat of a bend to it, so I carefully measured from the corners of B3 to the top corners of the bow from both sides.  I pulled the bow over to the right and held it in place with a stick and two clamps.

Then measured again.  And eyed it up from the front.  And measured again...  Finally decided to go ahead and glue up the beams with thickened epoxy.

Here the ends of the deck beams poke through B2.  

After the epoxy cured and I removed the clamp I measured again.  And it wasn't straight.  <sigh>  So I softened up the epoxy with a heat gun where the beams pierced B2 and pulled it over to the right a little more and reclamped.  2nd try was perfect, so I went ahead and reinforced all the joints with fillets to fix things permanently in place.

Here's a shot of the cabin roof support beams.  Before installing these, I drilled a couple 3/8" holes and chamfered the edges.  These are in case I want to hang something from these supports sometime.  I also rounded over the edges that didn't meet other pieces, and then coated with 2 coats of epoxy.

I also cut and installed the cockpit sole cleats, except for the ones aft of B7.  These were installed with thickened epoxy.  I could clamp the side to side ones with bar clamps, but for the fore and aft cleats I braced them against each other with sticks.  This method of clamping is handy when it works. In both cases, I carefully aligned the cleats, then shot in a couple pins from my 23 gauge pin nailer to keep them from sliding around, then applied clamping pressure.

And here's the view after removing the clamps.  Looks nice.  One of my next steps will be to epoxy coat and paint all the interior spaces that will be easier to get at now while there are no hull panels to reach over. 

Mast trunk installed

I have now installed the mast trunk, which I assembled outside the boat some time ago. This part had a bit of twist to it and I was a little worried about being able to get it installed straight, but having the surrounding pieces firmly fixed helped a lot, and I was able to get this nicely aligned using only a couple handscrew clamps.  The lower portion was fixed in place over the keel and in slots in the bottom hull, and applying the clamps twisted the top portion straight against bulkhead 3.

After installing with silica-thickened epoxy I followed up with fillet mixture.  I was glad to be done with the fillets back in the narrow hard-to-get areas. 

Here's a view down from the top.  I'll have to reach in through the front of the box to try to get a fillet on those corners (to the right in this photo).

This was a good job done.  Nice to get the 'engine room' in place.

Forward bulkheads installed

Finally time to get the remaining bulkheads in place.  First I trimmed a bit off the keel between B3 and B4 to allow clearance for the hatch backing plate that will be in the cockpit sole in that area.  It's much easier to make these change before the parts are installed.  

I then glued down the keel and B2 and B3 using thickened epoxy.  I used a couple sticks to push the center of B3 forward about 1/4" where it was tending to bow backward.

I also attached the cleats that will support the bow transom (bulkhead 1).  As with the seat cleats, I applied thickened epoxy, then used the pin nailer to temporarily hold them from sliding around while I attached clamps.  I like this method better than the suggested method of dry fitting the parts, drilling and fitting screws, disassembling, applying epoxy, assembling with screws, and then filling screw holes later.

  

I then planed the bevels on the bow transom so the hull panels meet up nicely, and installed that.  Again, pin nailer, followed by clamps.

After the glue dried on the joints, I followed up with structural fillets to bond all the pieces into place.  This is looking more like a boat all the time! 

Seat cleats and transom doubler

Next job was to install cleats along the bulkheads to provide glue surface for the seats, which are installed later on.  I cut pieces from the cleat stock that I had previously prepared, and applied thickened epoxy to the cleat.  I then lined up each cleat and shot a couple 23 gauge pins in to keep it from sliding around, then follow up with clamps to ensure I had good contact.

I cut the ends of the cleats at a 45 degree angle and sealed the ends with thickened epoxy.  Cutting the ends like this will give me more clearance when I later apply the fillets between the bulkheads and the hull panels 

I also took this opportunity to glue on the transom doubler.  I had some difficulty clamping this part.  I had the part on my plywood risers, but ran them from side to side rather than front to back to make sure the panel didn't bow.  Doing that meant that the risers were in the way of my deep-throat vise-grip clamps.  

I was able to reach  parts of the panel from the edge, and some from the tiller cutout using my home-made cam clamps, but still needed more pressure out in the middle of the panel.  I tried piling on all my leftover lead ingots, but that wasn't fully effective.  Using go-bars between the workpiece and the shop ceiling finally did the trick.

B3 Hatch covers

To construct the hatches for B3 I epoxied the stiffeners that I had previously laminated out of 2 layers of 1/4" baltic birch plywood.  First I had to clean up the glue squeeze out and round over the corners on the router table.

The 9 mm ply cutouts had a twist in them and would not lie flat, so I took this opportunity to try to correct that.  I put spacers under the low corners and clamped down the high corners.  This flexed the plywood in the opposite direction of the twist.

I then applied thickened epoxy to the stiffener, and clamped it down to cure.  After removing the clamps I found that the hatch now had a slight twist in the other direction - my spacers were a touch too thick.  But it was much closer to flat than previously and the hatch latches should be able to flatten the hatch for a good seal.

B3 hatch openings cut and backing plates installed

After completing the installation of bulkheads 4 through 7, the next order of business is to install B1 - B3.   However, I wanted to install access hatches in B3, and decided I should do that before installing the bulkhead, as it's much easier to work on now.

I needed to cut out the hatches, manufacture a backing plate for the hatch to seal against, and make hatch stiffeners to reinforce the hatch itself.  I decided to make a router template to make all the cuts.

First I did some paperwork to figure out the template spacer diameters I would need.  I used a 1/8" bit to cut out the hatch, a 1/4" diameter bit to cut the groove for the gasket, and a 1/2" bit to cut the inner rim of the backing plate.

With dimensions in hand I moved to the lathe to cut out the spacers.  I used a template guide with no spacer for the first cut, so just needed to create two.  I used 1/4 aluminum.  In the photo above you can see dimples on the spacer where I hit it with a ball pein hammer to snug up the inner diameter.

I then drew out the template.  The opening size I decided on was 12" x 18", and I needed a line outside that to account for the first template guide.  I then cut out the template with a jig saw, and smoothed it with spokeshave and drum sander.

Then clamped the template to B3, took a deep breath, and cut out the hatches.

As I was cutting out the backing plates, I realized I could also cut the hatch stiffeners from the same piece of ply, using the same template, by making a big spacer (about 6" diameter).  I cut that spacer out of plywood, and it worked fine.

 After cutting out the backing plates, I checked for fit.  Looks about right.

Next I laminated the hatch stiffeners.  I am using two layers of 1/4" baltic birch plywood.  Nice wood.  I would have bought 1/2" thick if it was available.

And then laminated the backing plates.

After cleaning up the glue squeeze out, rounding over the edges, and an overall sanding, I 

installed the backing plates in the bulkhead and cleaned up the glue squeeze-out.  

I had to clampea board across the bulkhead to keep it from sagging from the weight of the clamps!

Nice to have that job done.  There will be a little followup work on these to coat with epoxy, but I can do that after the bulkhead is in the boat.

I'll be able to use this same technique for the seat-top hatches and the cockpit sole hatches.  I can use the same router bits and template spacers, I'll just need to make a new template for different sized hatches.  Should go a lot quicker next time.

First bulkheads installed

It's a milestone!  The boat is now in 3D!  No longer a collection of flat panels, I've finally got some very visible progress.  Bulkheads 4 through 7 and the seat longitudinals are now all in place, glued and filleted.

This was a bit of a nerve-wracking process.  There were a lot of moving bits and some slippery with glue.  A second pair of hands was very welcome.  Once the fillets hardened up, all the pieces are very firmly fixed together and the whole structure has stiffened up.

Working around the limber holes was tricky, and I have a little bit of further work to do here before I'm satisfied.

These fillets are not perfect, but are pretty good.  I can spend a little time removing rough spots after all is hardened up.

Here's a view down the startboard side from the bow.  The round hole is in bulkhead 4 and will take a 6" hatch.

All in all, I'm very pleased with this latest progress!