September 14, 2019
There were a few areas of the battery box and battery mounts that needed attention, so I focused today on addressing those. First of all, the template required a bit of fine tuning since being created from the battery dimensions and being applied to the cabin sole for the first time. I had made some earlier dimensional reference points, and thought I had things dialed in for the battery mounts to be installed; however, when I laid of the template I quickly realized that the actual dimensions would require a bit of manipulation to get things to fit.
The changes that I made to the mounting blocks: I moved the entire template aft, narrowed the machine screws that secure the aft block to the cabin sole.
Pushing the battery mounting blocks aft required that I remove material on the outboard ends of the aft block due to the narrowing of the cabin sole as it goes aft. The flat portion of the cabin sole narrows as the cabin sole moves aft, with the outboard edges sloping upward. That upward slope in the more narrow aft portion of the cabin sole would require me to shave some material from the aft mounting block. Next, I marked the new fasteners for the aft mounting block, and then drilled them out on the drill press back in the wood shop.
With the aft battery mounting block adjusted, I marked the locations for the fasteners, and drilled them out - both for the fore and aft mounting blocks. With the points pre-drilled, I then tapped the holes for the planned 1/4" machine screws.
With the battery mounting blocks addressed to the point that they were ready for a final install, I moved on to adjusting the battery box / companionway landing platform. The starboard side of the forward, vertical panel required a bit of height reduction to allow for a level assembly. I used a hand plane to shave off the material I needed to, both for the front panel and the starboard side panel. With the landing platform now lying level, what was left would be to trim the exterior with fiddles and transition pieces - these would be done later with the teak supply.
While I had the top of the battery box / companionway landing platform on, I scribed a line on the interior face of the forward portion of the cockpit well. This line would serve as a reference point to epoxy-glue a cleat to support the lid of the battery box.
I completed all required adjustments to the battery compartment, and so moved on to prepping for paint. I highly sanded the surfaces, vacuumed and solvent washed-washed them. I then tapped off the forward boundary of the battery box, and applied TotalBoat TotalProtect epoxy barrier coat.
With the leftover paint, I applied it to areas within the cockpit that required it. On the starboard side, in a previous priming session, I had run out of paint and since it was not getting direct sunlight, I left it unpainted. Earlier in the day, I sanded these areas with the 5" random orbital and by hand. The starboard areas needing paint were the vertical face of the starboard settee and portions along the coaming and both the coaming and locker gutters.
On the port side I painted the coaming and locker gutters.
I applied paint to the underside of the settee locker lids...
...and the v-berth locker lids.
The final paint applications I made were to both port and starboard inside corners of the primary bulkhead and outboard edges of the settees.
After applying the tabbing to glass the new settee top to the hull, there were some voids in these areas that required filling with thickened epoxy. I had sanded these areas earlier in the day, and now solvent-washed them to paint them. Next step for the interior is to sand the primer, spot fill the laminate voids, and then apply finish paint, or topcoat. Of course, teak trim to follow that.
Total Time Today: 5 hrs
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