February 2025

 Feb 9

I finally hung that sliding door. I works pretty well. There was one hitch and it got better when I added some silicone spray. Might have to do a little filing. Lets see.

 

Note: I did end up sanding the inner edge of the slot. Works even better now. I noticed if the door sits for awhile,  it can stick initially. Maybe some lube. I removed most of it when I re-sanded.

A closer view of the upper track.

A closer view of the upper track with the door open.

We have a hall way!

Most of the sole is in. I just need to finish that long access hatch.

Another view of the sole from the companion way.

Feb 16

The sole is complete. All access panels are made and put in place. I still need to buy a few more latches but buying stuff is never that easy. Money does not come easily. That is why I make most things. 

I am starting to finish what I can of the interior cabinetry. I would like to hold off on finishing the upper cabinets in the galley until I have some more of the major systems in like refrigeration and range/oven. I am getting some of the uglies hidden. I had to hack out the plywood bulkhead in order to set the inner shear strake  in place. I made these black walnut covers to hide the mess. There are 18 of these of various sizes. I have finished with all of the ones that are not inside lockers or bathrooms. 

Don't look behind the walnut cover!

January 2025

January 13,

 It's a new year but the goals remain the same. Keep on working.

After adding all of those 5/8"x1" strips along the rafters, I can start putting up the ceiling. This is some old southern yellow pine bead board plywood that I had laying around. It is not really in all that good condition and I won't actually use it but I put it up temporarily so I could work out the finish I wanted to use. The exposed rafters will be varnished so I was going to either paint the bead board or stain and varnish it. I think I'm going to use a golden oak stain and varnish. If I dislike it in the future, I can always revert to paint. 

This is a top view of where the main mast will come through the cabin ceiling. The center (going horizontal) rafter in this photo will have to be cut along with the center 1x2 which would leave the rafter hanging on the starboard (left in this photo) side. The other side is supported by the wall. I added another 1x2 to the left of center in order to support the rafter. I have not drilled for screws yet (in this photo) and I have not epoxied it in place since it was way too cold for epoxy work. Cutting the rafter makes more since than having it in an alternative location because the spacing is essential for where the cabin top plywood will be attached. I hate ending up cutting up sheets of plywood to fit oddly placed rafters. Maybe this is more of personal preference.

Jan 26,

Finally got a chance to work on the sliding door... but first some sole news.

Yes, finally working on the cabin sole in the living area. The hard part is working out where and how the hatches are going to be placed. The long hatch at the top of the photo will give access to the plumbing and keel bolts. At the other end, the hatch will access the water pressure pump. The square hatch in the middle is for access to the shower sump cut-off valve and the black water tank fill level sensor.

Rails and styles for the sliding door out of black walnut. This is not square but a slight parallelogram to match the slope of the cabin sole.

Panel dry fitted.

Aluminum rail that the sliding door will hang from. I've made sliding bearings that fit that groove out of HDPE left over from the tank construction. HDPE is pretty slippery and with a little silicon spray, I think they will slide nicely.

Jan 31, 

I finally got the rest of the sole purchased. Again, I had to order it but I got an amazing price. This stuff had been going for $150/box and I found it for less than $100/box.

Working out the pattern and the hatches that I'll need. I'll have to have access to the keel bolts and valves for the fresh water tanks. That is the long hatch in the upper middle. I will also need access to the fresh water pump and another access to the level sensor for the black water tank. All of that access will also get me to most of the plumbing in that area.

Rough laid to make sure everything works well.

I have labeled all the boards so I know exactly how to put them back in during final assembly.

All the hatches have been made and fit. The salon area is laid permanently, but I still need to make final adjustments in the galley.

After I tighten the sole up, I plan on finishing the sliding door to the port cabin. Then I will be ready to install the ceilings. These need to be installed so I can work out all the lighting and electrical runs for said lighting. Fun days ahead.

December 2024

 Dec. 16.

I finally finished up all those drawers for the cabinet under the sink. I had to wait till it was warm enough for epoxy. Temperatures should remain above 40 F (4.44 C) for at least 24 hours, preferably longer. 

The space at the top is for the double sink that is planned. I may add a small pop-out storage there. I'll have to see what kind of room I have when the sink is installed.

I decided to add more drawers on the side instead of having excessively long drawers in the front. The top drawer is only as long as the front one is wide to leave room for the sink.

The wall on the right is complete. It is only temporarily in place. I'll epoxy it together when I have time and temperature. The end of the wall pillar (black walnut) is attached to the floor using a hanger bolt. A hanger bolt has a wood screw end that is screwed into the pillar and a bolt end that is attached with a nut under the floor.

I've also finished the spacers between the rafters. I think this finished it off quite nicely. 

A close up of the top spacer and the wall pillar. The black walnut pillar will be trimmed at the ceiling. 

The next big step is fabricating and installing the sliding door for the port cabin. It will slide along the wall just installed and close the area off.

End of December:

My nephew forgot to bring the parts I needed for the sliding door. They were purchased in Chattanooga where he lives about a 2.5 hour drive away. Oh well. I decided to put in the dead wood that the ceiling will attach to. Every rafter will have to have a spacer all the way around to screw up ceiling bead board. It is very time consuming. At least now I know what to do with those really warped 5/4" boards I keep coming across.

This kind of board is only useful for building boats. That curve is just what I need for the following work.

All those curved rafters are getting dead wood to screw the ceiling onto.

A close up showing the 1"x5/8" wood strip. There will be a 1" space between the ceiling bead board and the decking. I plan to fill that space with 1" closed cell foam board. This should keep the boat cooler in direct sunlight.

Another view showing both sides of the rafters with the strips of wood. It is a lot of work. 

To complete this work, I also was finally forced to secure all the interfaces between the walls and the ceiling... or rather work out what I was going to do. Next, I will have to add some strips along the perimeter of the cabin roof. These will have to be beveled to match the cabin roof-side wall angle. All of them will be short (between rafter beams) so I'm going to go through all my scrap wood. Actually, I'm running out of oak again but I think there is enough to finish everything. I really don't have a lot more to build with the white oak. 

November 2024

 November 11,

Finished up the last locker in the forward half of the boat. I've move back to the galley sink cabinet. I've worked out all the drawers and cabinets that I am likely to be able to fit in the space. 

Completed locker with shelf on top. I may add a small sub-shelf later.

Galley sink cabinet. 

Rough fitting the rails for the drawers. Note that the back side of the rails have built-in rails for the side drawers that I have not cut out yet.

Rough fitting the fronts.

I have cut out the side drawers openings and I'm making sure that the rails are where they need to be. Even though I carefully measures, some were a bit off. It was easy to adjust them.

Everything rough fit into place. The rails will have HDPE as slides (on the bottom and sides like before) and I'll have to cut those out and fit them as well. Because of the tight placement of everything, I'll have to install the rails one at a time starting from the bottom. 

Drawer rails are temporarily installed to check alignment. It was off and a little work was needed a bit of work.

Nov. 23,

Drawer rails are finally installed. This was a major pain to get all the alignments that were necessary. In the end, I liked the results. 

The drawer slides on the side.

Nov 30,

I have made a lot of progress over the Thanksgiving holidays. All the drawers parts for the Galley cabinet are completely made and tested for fit. The cabinet door parts are also made and tested for fit. No glue yet as it was too cold and will continue to be too cold for the next week or so. I really need over 40 degree F (4.4 degree C) for the entire cure time (roughly 24 hours). The next warm weekend will be a frenzy of epoxy work and some significant changes to the interior. 

 

I cut the remaining part out for the latches and put a few together. They work very well but I'll need a set screw for the handle to ensure that the bolt rotates with the handle. Right now, it relies on friction.

From here on out, all of the rail and stiles will be made out of black walnut. The market for white oak is insane and I can't afford it anymore. Luckily, I have a nice supply of black walnut. It sure is pretty when it is cleaned up and it makes a nice contrast to the white oak and meranti plywood.

How do we fit a square wall into a curved space. You 1) level the floor and measure up and 2) square off a bulkhead and measure down and 3) reconcile the difference.

It fits pretty darn good. There are some minor adjustments that needed to be made but I left plenty of extra for that. 

It's starting to look like a hallway. Actually this is just temporarily installed. I still, at this time, need to notch out for the overhead beams and put in a footer trim. The notching is so that the plywood extends enough to notch into the trim spanning the overhead beams. Both of which have been done but I don't have a picture yet.

The aluminum rectangular tube needed for the sliding door has finally been ordered. It's pick-up in Chattanooga (about 2 hours drive) but I haven't heard that it is ready. My nephew just bought a house in Chattanooga so he'll grab it for me. Earlier in this blog, you'll see a picture of him working on the boat when he was about 10. Yep, he's all grown up now.

October 2024

 Oct. 10

The weather is getting much nicer and I'm itching to do more work on the boat. Last week I finished the jams for one of the lockers (closets) and mostly finished the other. I completed the putting together doors for both. I'll upload some pictures when I take them. I've also worked out some custom made hardware for the latches.  I'll probably make these out of black walnut to contrast with the white oak.

The drawing on the left is an edge on view of the door with the door jam on the right. The right drawing is looking from the inside (door not shown) with the latch (gray oval) engaged with the jam. I'll probably replace a bit of the jam with HDPE so as not to wear out the wood. The bottom drawing shows that I'm planning to use some bearing material (sleeve) for the stainless steel (SS) bolt. 

My wife took a few good photos that I'd like to share below.

That is yours truly.

Me and my wife hanging out and dreaming.

Now some recent work. I hung the locker doors. I used half pin barrel hinges so if you open the doors up all the way, you can lift them off and get them out of the way. But really, they open flat against the cabinets so I only expect to do this when outfitting the boat for a voyage.

Eight door latches for the design at the top of this page. The only question is: Is eight enough. These are made from some black walnut that I've had for awhile. I always wanted to have black walnut accents to counter the white oak and I think this will be a nice start. These will be nice and shiny when they are clear coated. 

Oct 19.

I had to drill the 1/4" hole for the bolt and the slightly larger hole for the bolt head and I wanted to do them all in the same place. So, I make a jig. Drill the bolt head hole first which only goes in about 3/8" and then drill the 1/4" hole all the way through. That way I can quickly drill all of the handles.

A view showing the hole.

I do not have the hardware complete on the inside yet but I needed handles so I could open the doors. 

This is the locker door. I was pretty sure that the door would clear the casing for the cabin door so it would lay flat. I did not know it would be this close. The light (on the right) coming through the edge of the door is extremely uniform. This is how square and true this cabinetry turned out. I am rather surprised it was this good.

I finally got some screws for some of the cabinetry that I've been putting off buying for awhile. I was able to glue up a lot of the cabinetry in the main salon and finish the trim on the berths. Everything is feeling more finished. I'm still basically working from the bow of the boat to the stern but nothing is linear. 

Finishing up the bulkhead end trim for the last locker. It still needs some significant sanding and finishing.

There will be a locker below where the pex for the shower comes out and I'll put a shelf above.

Long view.

This will be the header for the locker with two handles. It will be partially morticed into the jams. It will match what we did on the other two lockers (see photos above). Since I have a rounded corner, I choose to bring the header (with the handles) down below where the curve starts on the left.