On the starboard settee, I went through the careful twelve step process of aligning and attaching the hardwood sliders. This side got five of them. The fit is a little tighter than I'd like, but it will work.
There's the berth/seat top ready to slide on. At the top of this picture you can see a fiberglass half-cylinder I made to soften the edge on the forward portion of the settee bulkhead. It will somehow become some sort of cubby under the emerging end-table cabinet thingy going between the settee and main bulkhead at the v-berth entrance.
A little out of sequence, here's that fiberglass half-cylinder drooped around a 3 inch piece of tube covered with plastic. I think I used three layers of the 6 inch wide 1708 tabbing tape. It came out fine.
And here we see that odd little corner starting to take shape.
And A bit more. I'm not quite satisfied with the curve of the countertop - There's something very subtle required, and I think it's going to be a game of 1/8th inches to get it to feel just right. I've left extra material to play with. I think the small cabinet above the counter will look good, though.
Here is one of the templates for the insulation going under the v-berth lockers. I'm leaving them about a 6 inches short of the very bottom because I expect gung or perhaps some water will collect there. This is not an elegant solution, but nothing about the insulation installation has been.
There was some more nice weather, so when better to cover up my entire body and put on a full filter mask to grind out the area around the keel smile? Copper and lead dust. Nasty work when fiberglass dust is the best thing covering you.
It took a few hours, but I cleaned out all the years of gung and flexible caulking that had worked their way into the crack, and then sanding back a groove and bare space over and under it.
Then I mixed up many small batches of epoxy thickened with cabosil, putting each one into a pastry decoration bag and slowly squirted the contents deep into the space between the keel and hull. I suppose this wasn't necessary because the keel bolt are said to be strong enough, but I didn't like all that space and no bearing surface - I just saw too many stress failure options. So this step was to create a large bearing surface to reduce the potential flexing distance. The compression strength of the thickened epoxy should be okay. In any case, it's better than the mere caulking that had worked for 30 years.
I a few days later I cleaned it up and put on a heavy application of West Marine's G-flex over the join zone. I had left a good 1/2" groove in the crack to make sure plenty of this 30% elongation material could fit in there. I've never worked with it before, but it was pretty straight forward, if disturbingly mucus-like during application. A true Ghostbusters experience.
Sanding to follow.
Back in the v-berth the insulation is cut and fitted, and the lockers painted. I'm really not crazy about the paint I've chose in the lockers, either. It's a decent grade latex, and I don't think it's going to be robust enough to withstand locker use. The lockers in the port settee still have a sticky feel to them. I have a sneaky suspicion this stuff will peel off in sheets in a few years. I hope not, but we'll see. They are just lockers.
It does make me reconsider the one-part paint I was thinking for the interior. That will need to be more robust.
And then there's this lovely photo snapped by Molly of both Lisa and me in the sky at the same time over Hadley, Massachusetts. It was a beautiful evening with an amazing view south over the Holyoke Range.
And a couple of days later, Farmer Ned, who owns the grass field near my house I usually fly out of, snapped this shot of me flying over all his cows. Some great flights were had in the middle of all this boat stuff.
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