Deck mast hole, more port settee, mast step sole area

 

Not a ton of progress to report for the amount of time, mostly because of a week of in Florida with Lisa nearly finishing her training on her NEW Fly Products Eclipse with an Atom 80.  The world makes a Lisa sized motor!  Hurray!  This is her disappearing into the sky.

And us toasting success at some lake in the area.  

I've decided that there needs to be a step up at the forward end of the saloon heading into the v-birth.  It will cover the mast step and with the mast in the way, the v-berth entry is pushed way over to the hull where the turn of the bilge creates difficult geometry for footing.  So it's solved with less headroom and more foot room. 

The front edge of the step will be curved - I knocked together a quick laminating jig and glued up four layers of the 3mm okoume (from the insulation cover material) to create this riser. 

Here's the port settee area coming together.  Paint on the forward portion.  The fan is sitting where the new step up is going.

And here's the oddly shaped opening to the head.  This is the final dimension, as far as I know for now.  I have a lot of thinking still to do for the compartment, including the shower pan and overall layout.  It will get an Airhead.  That I know.  And a shower.  But the rest is very vague. 

The laminated curve for the step riser.

This area presents a little departure from the rest of the sole construction.  I want to be able to lift out the entire sole top to get fully at the mast step when needed. So the pieces will be screwed but not glued in.  On the right side of this picture, I beveled, epoxied, and later glassed in  a 2" wide piece of white ash to accept screws, and the forward and starboard cleats are glued and screwed. 

The sole itself is made of 12 mm ply.  I will trim about an inch off the right side in dead straight cut and glue and fair that offcut into the hull.  The rest of the sole here will be able to be lifted out.  I'm not sure if I'll use screws or some other easy-to-remove-but secure-when-installed method of holding it down. 

Here it is with the mast hole cut.  It needs to be two pieces cut along the mast diameter so I can lift it out when the mast is in place.

Both pieces got a little post/support glued underneath so that I didn't need to add any framing to that might get in the way of mast step access.  This makes for some awkward pieces of wood, yes, but they're not really hatch covers and will only be knocking about the cabin during rare moments of maintenance. 

Here's another example of three steps forward, one step back.  I glued these cleats on the wrong side of the curved step riser.  Some quick work with the oscillating tool and glue swapped them over.  But this kind of little mistakes happens more than I'd like.  It's one of the downsides of designing one's way forward.  So many details, and a lapse in concentration can bump one backward. I blame Critical Role's campaign 2 episode 24 podcast.   I never thought I'd find myself listening to other people play Dungeons and Dragons, but my goodness they are entertaining and, mercifully, nearly devoid of current events references.  

Just a little to port of the step work the settee slowly nearing completion. I'm not happy with the poor fit I'm getting with the insulation covering - there are gaps all around that will allow dust and crud to slip between the lockers and covering and be impossible to clean.  But the work to prevent it seems really high right now.  I'm considering some kind of taped seam or something? I dunno.  I'm not thrilled with any of the ideas so far. I've kinda avoided taking a good picture of the gaps because I'm so dissatisfied.   Maybe next entry. But the settee in general looks great.

I just found by reading the Practical Junk Rig that the deck mast hole I made at 10.5 inches diameter should have been much larger:  12 inches.  So I had a large task of creating that.  I filled the center with some chunks of wood attached to a piece of scrap plywood screwed into the underside of the deck (saloon roof).  Then I got out a long-dormant acrylic trammel I made many years ago for my plunge router. 

With a Whiteside 1/2" diameter 3" long carbide tipped bit, two fans blowing, dust collection roaring, and full face mask, I began the hour long set of shallow passes to cut this baby out. 

I stopped frequently to scape and vacuum out the swarf and let the router cool. Only twice did the bit loosen up and rattle:  because of the depth of cut at the end of this job, I had to seat it shallowly in the collet: It was a little unnerving and my cuts got very light indeed.  At one point it did vibrate out, drove itself right through the plywood support piece and fell into the cabin.  No harm done, and a danger I was prepared for.  

But eventually the job was done.  A lovely ring popped out of the hole.

And from underneath we have a 12" hole for a 10" mast.  I'll put a few layers of glass around the inside of this to protect the balsa and plywood layers from any water that SHOULDN'T find its way into the mast collar. 

This is pretty much what the area will look like when the sole removed.  I'll fit a little hatch into the sole on the starboard side so I can peek under here without removing anything. But I like the wide open space if it's needed.  I hope that using only screws to hold it in place won't result in squeaking.  Squeaking and me don't get along.  

Here's that little piece of the step sole getting faired into the hull. I like this solution to this particular challenge.