October 15, 2019
I got started today with cleaning the recently sanded topsides with an acetone wipe down, and followed that with a can of black spray paint. I applied a thin layer of paint over the surface to use as a guide coat for sanding and fairing the surface. I will come back and longboard (long sanding board) the surface to take off as much of the black paint as possible. Any remaining black paint will highlight low spots on the surface that will need to be faired with an epoxy fairing compound.
But sanding the hull was not in the cards today. I returned to the companionway slide rails to finish them. First thing that I did was to trim the surplus length of StarBoard that I glued in the rails to provide an easy slide surface, as well as to secure the hatch.
From there, I routed out a groove in the StarBoard material to capture and hold the companionway hatch. I accomplished this by using a small trim router with a guide attachment set to run down the middle of the StarBoard. I then began to ease the edges and shape the rails to a finished design.
A protective coat of varnish will be applied soon, followed by fitting the rails onto the coachroof.
With the rails nearly complete, I set out to build the companionway hatch itself. I started by selecting a length of teak from the stock I had on hand, and cut the lengths for the hatch frame.
For the port and starboard boards (I'll refer to them as the two outboard frame boards) that will make up the frame of the hatch, I will be setting in a length of aluminum to serve as the slides. These two aluminum slides will be captured in the groove I cut in the StarBoard insert glued into the companionway slide rails. The thickness of the aluminum slides is 3/16 of an inch, so I raised the table saw blade that amount in order to remove material on the underside of those outboard frame boards.
On the forward section of the outboard frame boards, comprising two of the four frame boards of the companionway hatch, there is roughly 4" that will not include the length of aluminum slides. Forward of that point, I reduced the height of the outboard frame boards by 3/6" - to accept the aluminum slides, and appear flush to the bottom of the teak frame boards.
With the frame boards ready to glue up, I turned my attention to dimensioning the slats that will make up the top of the hatch. My plan was to set the width of these slats to be 1.5" and the thickness to be 1/2". The overall measurement of the hatch frame is 26.5" in width by 26" in length. The top of the hatch would require 18 slats.
I crept up on the thickness of the slats by running them through the planer, taking off material in increments until I achieved the 1/2" thickness dimension.
I laid out the hatch slats, and then moved them around until I was happy with the order of slats - looking for like color and grain. I was low on epoxy resin, so the glue up would have to wait until later in the week, but the hatch top is ready to go.
I did, however, have enough resin to glue up of the frame boards. I aligned the boards as I wanted (for aesthetics), flipped them over, and then wiped the boards down with acetone to remove the teak oils. I mixed a small amount of resin, and then wet out the surfaces to be joined.
With the remaining resin, I thickened it with 406 colloidal silica and applied it to the surfaces to be joined. With clamps, I pulled the boards together and cleaned up the squeeze out. You can see the "step down" on the frame board in the picture below...this is where the aluminum slides will be mounted, and will be flush with the bottom of the hatch frame.
Total Time Today: 7 hrs
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