Saturday 21 February 2015

Main cabin progress

While waiting for keel bolts and for me to countersink the holes for the nuts/washers I have continued with the main cabin.  The fit out is slow, but getting there.

First off was to plan and position the head (toilet) and galley area.  I have decided that I don't want to cut extra holes in the hull of the boat and put a marine toilet in, nor do I want to have a holding tank as such.  Variety of reasons including no discharge zones, maintenance etc.  I may well find out it doesn't work, but I am going with a cassette style toilet initially.  Same as the ones in many campers/RV's, manual with inbuilt flush tank and 17litre holding cassette.

Below is looking at the space between frames 4 (forward end of galley) and 5.  In the plans the side face is 12mm ply screwed and glued onto the compression post with fasteners each 50mm.  The plans do say that it is load bearing, so to make up for the space I cut to inset the toilet (cut out down the bottom) I have used another 12mm piece on the inside to replace it. There is a 300mm overlap in height between the two sheets, which I have used to strengthen it and make a small shelve (12mm as well) to tie both faces together.  All these are dry fit at this stage pending painting/epoxy covering were required:




This is the outside face, the horizontal wood supports and ties the shelf to each vertical piece, the pencil outline is where the outside edge of the toilet is with extra support and the top hole is the flush tank filler hole (filled from under the galley, which is also where the cassette comes out).


Below is the inside piece in position, it will be screwed inside to the compression post in the same way as the outside piece, you can see how much I overlapped them to make up for cutting the outside piece.  I believe it will be as strong as just a single straight piece of ply, hopefully John Welsford will let me know if it is a problem.  I probably should have checked first!



Outside top piece in position:



From the inside looking over the top of the shelve, another top piece yet to complete the outside wall:


Looking from lower inside:




Once they were done I positioned some supports for the galley bench:




And dry fit the bench.  Two layers, one 6mm ply then 9mm (left over hull planks).  Also note the shelf on the right, you can just see the 12mm base which also ties the two layers together while providing a place to put your beer whilst slaving over the galley:



And a view from slightly further back:




I continued the reuse of 9mm left over planks to make the front faces of the main cabin storage. Below is the port side topmost piece in position, very fiddly with notches for side deck supports:



Once I had positioned the second and third piece I marked and cut out holes for door fronts made from other 9mm ply left overs.  Two top will be 600mm wide and close, bottom right will be open and a much smaller open one to the left for books, phones, ipods etc (with charger points) above your berth:



Managed to get my keel bolts.  Various lengths of 3/8 inch silicon bronze rod with thread each end. Eight in total, looking forward from left to right they shorten as the distance between the hardwood cross pieces inside and the bottom of the lead decreases.  With washers and heavy nuts to suit, will have to get on with countersinking holes in the lead and attaching the keel when my supervisor returns from his latest holiday with mum.