V-berth Platform Tops

March 31, 2019

I had a slight change of plans for the day's work.  I decided to not effect a final installation of the cabin settee tops, but rather to finish the starboard side and then move on to fabricating the tops for the V-berth.  So to that end, I got to work on the starboard cabin settee top.  Where I left off yesterday was that I completed the port side settee and then had cut of the starboard top, including the top-access hatch lid.  However, I had run out of time and did not install the cleats to support the hatch lid. In the shop, I prepared four cleats to support the hatch lid.  I ripped and planed the boards to the same width and height, took measures on the hatch opening and then cut them to the proper lengths.

I brought the cleats over to the settee top, pre-drilled, then glued and screwed them into position.

With the cleats installed, I replaced the hatch lid (showing a flush appearance).

I returned the starboard settee to the cabin, and would wait for the next full day of work to do the final install.  Next, I turned my attention to the V-berth.

I returned to the shop and ripped additional lengths of the 1/4" doorskin material for patterning. With the hot-glue gun, I followed the outboard curvature and the inboard contour of the existing fiberglass molded V-berth platform.  In order to be able to fit the new platform through the boat's companionway, I split the V-berth platform into two sections - the forward most seam will be filled and faired for a seamless presentation.   

I carried the port and starboard templates down to the workstation below the boat, and then laid them out onto the remaining 1/2" meranti material.

After transferring the patterns to the 1/2" meranti plywood, I then cut them out with a jigsaw.  I eased the edges to remove any splintering wood and to just improve the handling characteristics of the boards.

I brought both halves back up into the boat for a test fit.  The fit was good in a planar dimension, but did reveal a couple areas where the molded fiberglass platform suffered some unevenness - this would ultimately be covered, so I was not too concerned.  

I then cut out the forward hatch that spanned both pieces - as can be seen below; I will need to come back and cut out the top-access hatches to either side of the V-berth platform.  

Total Time Today: 5 hrs

Cabin Settee Tops

March 30, 2019

I decided to get away from the fiberglass work for the day, including filling, fairing and sanding, and moved into a bit of woodwork.  After a recent on site conversation with the owner, it was decided that the cabin settee tops could use a bit of a freshening up, or warming up of the cabin.  The existing settees were part of the molded interior (fiberglass), with a top-access hatch on each side as well as two vertically-oriented access hatches on each side.  The top-access hatches were to the aft end of each settee, and at some point they hand underwent some work - it appeared that their apertures were increased in size, and while this was done the molded recessed tabs to prevent the hatch lids from falling through were cut out.  As the top-access hatches currently exist, their hatch lids rest on top of the settee itself, and as a result do not create a pleasing accommodation or aesthetic.  To rectify the situation, it was decided that the settee tops would receive a 1/2" meranti plywood top, with new top-access hatches created where in which their lids would lay flush with the settee top itself.  So, the day's task was to create these settee tops.  Before I broke out into my best Norm Abrams impression, I had to water-wash the last round of fairing compound (thickened epoxy) I applied to the deck, coachroof, and cockpit surfaces.  I scrubbed them with a scotch brite pad and water, then dried the surfaces.  

To begin the settee tops, I went into the shop and ripped several lengths of 1/4" doorskin material (cheap and lightweight panel product perfect for template work).  I quickly sanded the edges to remove burs and tear-outs, and with the hot-glue gun carried them to the boat.

I began on the port side and worked the strips of doorskin along the outboard edge as well as the forward and aft ends in a athwartship orientation, and then hot-glued them together.  

I glued in some strengthening pieces to help hold things together when I eventually removed them from the boat.

I laid the template out onto a fresh piece of 1/2" meranti and transferred it to the plywood.

With a jigsaw, I removed the new settee top.  

It took a few trips up and down the ladder before I dialed things in, and achieved a great fit on the port side.  When I achieved the fit I was intending, I then reached through one of the vertical access hatches and traced the top hatch opening onto the bottom of the new settee top.

After carrying the settee top back down to the work station below the boat, I made several measurements for the new top-access hatch, including the dimensions of the cleats to be secured to the underside.

I removed the new hatch, and then glued and screwed cleats to the underside of the settee top.  The new top access hatches would be slightly smaller in dimension while retaining enough size to accommodate the owner's need for the space.  

I wiped up the glue squeeze out with a damp rag, flipped the settee top over and repeated the clean up.

The test fit of the new top-access hatch was perfect.

I carried the settee top back up into the boat. The cleats easily fell into the old top hatch aperture, providing for a tremendous improvement in appearance. 

The boat is looking saltier by the day!

I repeated the process for the starboard side of the boat: laying up the strips of doorskin, hot-gluing them, and using this template to cut out of the new settee top.

I carried the settee top up into the boat, and had better results with the initial test fit - requiring no further adjustments.  While in-situ, I traced the existing top-access hatch onto the underside of the plywood, carried it back down to the workstation, and cut it out with the jigsaw.

With domestic duties looming, I did not have time today to get to the cleats for the starboard side.  I would get to the cleats tomorrow, as well as gluing the settees in final position and tabbing them to the hull surface.  A fiddle and trim will eventually finish the edges and seams of the new material.

Total Time Today: 4.75 hrs

Last of the Grinding, Plus Fairing

March 24, 2019

Continuing the relentless pursuit of a properly prepared substrate that will yield a great looking topcoat paint, I went straight to work with more preparation.  First however, there we some areas within the boat that required my attention with that certain junkyard dog of a tool, dangerous as free-soloing El Capitan, the 4" angle grinder without the safety shroud attached.  I outfitted myself in full Tyvek, tapped bottles, sleeves, a hoodie, and full-face respirator.  

I began in the bow of the boat, and sanded a radius in the openings in the molded v-berth platform created for the old head through-hulls.  The new owner of the Allied 24 opted to close these holes in (great decision), and go with  a simple portable head since this boat was to be a weekender or daysailer - no need for these holes to persist.  I moved aft and lightly grinder the edges of the new 1708 biaxial I applied to strengthen the chainplate knees, and then dropped to the bilge to prep this areas for an application of bilge paint.  Continuing aft, I cleaned up the forward portion of the underside of the cockpit well and adjacent outboard hull and bulkhead surfaces.  I moved further aft, gaining access through the cockpit locker openings, and sanded the new applied tabbing and hull surfaces.  With that, the grinding is finished (unless I come across something I missed, hopefully NOT!).

I cleaned up the interior by vacuuming, blowing the interior out, and then vacuuming again; I moved out onto the deck and cockpit, applied the blower and vacuum, and cleaned these surfaces.  I wanted to get to some fill work done today as well, so went after the old eyebrow fastener holes (now filled with a light cloth epoxied in), and solvent-washed them.  I also solvent-washed a few areas on the port side of the cockpit, as well as the old icebox repair, and forward portions of the coachroof.

After I solvent-washed these areas, I applied a film of epoxy resin without and thickening agents ("neat" epoxy). 

I also applied this neat epoxy to previously faired surfaces, to include the old icebox pictured below.

With all the areas properly prepared, I moved forward with the application of lightweight fiberglass cloth for the port side areas.  Since these areas were larger and would be subject to foot traffic, I wanted to apply at least a 10oz cloth as part of the repair.  With the patches cut, I applied them to the already wet out surfaces.  

With a foam brush and small amount of neat epoxy, I worked the resin into the cloth to fully saturate the fiberglass.

I moved onto to some other work on the boat, but eventually cam back to these areas when they had become tacky, and applied a skim coat of fairing compound to both fill the weave of the cloth and fair out to the surrounding surfaces.

I continued on with filling the old fastener holes for the eyebrow trim, beginning on the aft starboard side of the cabin sides...

...and finishing on the port side.

I returned to the shop and prepared another batch of thickened epoxy, and applied that to the forward portion of the coachroof.  There was a substantial area of cracked and chipped gelcoat, and that required me to remove it down to fiberglass substrate and fill and fair.  

I moved over to the port side of the coachroof and applied the first round of fairing compound to the area that  I had recently installed new core and top skin to.  I chose to only apply fairing compound to this rather large area of the coachroof due to the fact that I had additional lamination work at the mast step (the area that the shop vacuum was sitting upon).

The last area that I applied a round of fairing compound to was the old icebox repair.  With the hole structurally closed in, the work left to do is to fair it in with surrounding surfaces.

Total Time Today: 5 hrs

Sanding & Fairing

March 23, 2019

I had a serious amount of sanding in front of me, and rather than putting it off any further I decided to get to it.  The difficult sanding aspect would be the hand-sanding in the tight corners and radius areas of the cockpit.  I devoted the day to knocking this out.  I began by water-washing the last round of fairing compound applied, and did so using warm water and dish soap with a scouring pad.

With a combination of mechanical sanders and the old reliable fingers, using 40 and and 80 grit papers, I spent a nearly half of the time today completing this dreaded but necessary endeavor.  The gutters at the outboard edge of the cockpit seating proved most difficult to access, and had significant cracking and chipping gelcoat.  I removed what I could of the layers of paint and loose material, and plan to address the uneven surface with fairing compound.  In fact, I could not get to all of the tight areas within the cockpit - leaving the gutters around the cockpit locker access for a later date.

With the hand-sanding work out of the way for the day, I turned to the larger areas that could be addressed with the 6" and 5" DA sanders.  using 80 grit discs, I worked my way from the poop deck forward.

I removed the protecting plastic sheeting I had draped over the coachroof and sanded this repair area for the first time.  I decided not to apply fairing compound to this area today, leaving this potentially for tomorrow's session.

I sanded the starboard sidekick, bring this area to a close and ready for primer paint.

I then removed the peel ply covering the old fastener holes for the eyebrow trim.  The current owner decided against replacing this piece of trim, and I have to agree with his decision.  I believe the boat will look cleaner without this piece of brightwork breaking up the coachroof and cabin sides.  I sanded the errant 10oz cloth and fairing compound that I had previously applied.

 I started on the starboard side of the boat, and moved forward and down the port side.  The small repair areas will require another coat of fairing compound, which will likely come in tomorrow's session.

The final item that I was able to get to today was filling the old coaming board fastener holes in the molded cockpit coaming.  The Allied 24 has a 10 to 11" tall coaming board, and I will fabricating new boards from the fresh teak stock on hand.

I solvent-washed the interior and exterior surfaces of the molded fiberglass coamings, and then applied backing tape to the interior surface to prevent the thickened epoxy from squeezing through.  To prepare the surfaces for new epoxy work, I painted on a light coat of neat epoxy (epoxy resin without any thickening agents). I  then used a plastic squeegee to apply a layer of fairing compound to the repair area.  I cleaned up and called it a day after this application.

Total Time Today: 8 hrs

Tabbing Cockpit Bulkhead & Chainplate Knees

March 17, 2019

Today's focus was to get some tabbing done on a couple areas of the boat that I had intended to do for a couple weeks now - the bulkhead supporting the cockpit well and the chainplate knees.  To begin, I solvent-washed the cockpit bulkhead (the focus today was the aft face of the port side of this bulkhead) and the four chainplate knees (two each to port and starboard).  I then took measurements of the tabbing material required for the various structural work.  I measured both 4" and 6" lengths of the 1708 biaxial tape for the cockpit bulkhead.  I then measured various lengths of the same 4" and 6" biaxial material for the chainplate knees.  In all, 10.8 feet of 4" tabbing material and 7.6 feet of the 6" tabbing biaxial.

I returned to the shop and prepared the various lengths of material.

I started with the cockpit bulkhead.  I wet out the surfaces of the hull and existing bulkhead with straight epoxy resin, and followed that with a pot of thickened epoxy to create a fillet, a radius, between the vertical surface of the bulkhead and the horizontal surface of the hull.  This fillet would allow the biaxial tape to lay down without voids forming.  With the surfaces on the boat properly prepared, I then wet out the 4" 1708 biaxial tape, carried it to the boat and applied it.  I made sure to remove any trapped air bubbles from the applied laminate.  I repeated this process for the 6" biaxial tape.

With both the 4" and the 6" tabbing applied, I again reviewed the application to ensure no trapped air bubbles were present.

I then turned my attention to the chainplate knees.  The 3/4" plywood used for the chainplates appeared in fine enough shape, and the existing tabbing did not alarm me; however, I did want to repair a few voids and weak connection points by applying new epoxy-based 1708 biaxial cloth. 

I began by wetting out all of the chainplate knees and surrounding hull surfaces with neat, or straight, epoxy resin.  Back in the shop, I laid out the prepared cuts of 4" biaxial tabbing and wet those out as I had done to the bulkhead tabbing material.  

I carried the 4" tabbing to the boat, and applied it to the hull on either side the chainplates.

I was not concerned with overlapping this 4" tabbing material onto the hull and chainplate knee, I simply wanted a new foundation for the 6" material to be adhered to.

I moved from the starboard side to the port side, and applied two lengths of 4" tabbing to either side of each of the chainplates.

  

Wit the 4" biaxial cloth applied as "foundation", I returned to the shop and proceeded to wet out the 6" biaxial material.  On a cardboard pallet, I brought the 6" tabbing material to the boat and applied it to the chainplate knees.

This time, I made sure to overlap the hull and chainplate itself.  Given the tabbing material is 6" in width, I made sure to evenly split the material by overlapping 3" onto the hull and 3" onto the chainplate knee. 

I finished all chainplates in this manner - 4" tabbing followed by 6" tabbing.  I finished each chainplate knee with a layer of 10oz cloth wrapped around the inboard edge of the chainplate itself.  The two aft chainplate knees also received thickened epoxy on this inboard edge, followed by another layer of 10oz cloth.  The chainplates knees, as well as the cockpit bulkhead tabbing, will get a good sanding in the coming days to ready them for paint. 

Total Time Today: 4 hrs