Time on My Side - Floorboard Fitting

I thought I'd be shut down ostensibly until May with a rush to get done by my self-administered June 30 deadline. There's quite a bit of benchwork that has to be done, but even some of that needs to wait until more progress is made to ensure a proper fitting. Now that the heater's installed, I have more time than I know what to do with

The day began with my wife and I taking a knot class from the Captain I took my ASA 105 with. I'm OK with knots and so is my wife, but we figured we weren't doing much (I was supposed to be on a trip that got cancelled), the class was cheap, and maybe we'd even learn something. She also wanted to meet the Captain in case she wanted to further her sailing classes. There were a lot of people there, more than would be conducive for this kind of class, so it was difficult to follow along. The real reason I bring it up at all is to show off my much improved woodworking skills.

The class required a knot jig. Anyone who's taken a sailing class has seen one of these. They would be available during the class, but for "only a few dollars more" one could buy a "deluxe kit" for about $30 which included a knot jig. They wanted $15 for the knot jig alone and another $15 for the DVD. I'm all for supporting local businesses, but $15 for something that I knew I could build from scrap in about 2 minutes? No thanks.Total cost: about $1 in scrap supplies and 10 minutes of time. We didn't buy the DVD, either.

Knot practicing jigs.

As they day rolled into night, we finished up a movie and got ready for bed. I wasn't tired so got up and turned the garage heater on. In about 30 minutes, it was warm enough to start working, and in about an hour, it was downright hot. I finished up the electrical wiring fore and aft by hooking up the bilge pump. I only had a couple more crimps to do but I remember it being around 4 in the morning when I stopped back in November and I was too cold and tired to continue. The next day the temperature plummeted to the teens and that was about the end of the season until Fleet Farm came to the rescue.

With the electrical done, I went to the basement shop and sanded down the cockpit decking with a quick rub with 60 grit to knock off the hard stuff then hit it with 120 to prime for painting. Four hours later, they had the dull matte grey that all boatbuilders yearn for. Fiberglass here is well worth the extra effort and materials for the added strength and stability. I put everything away as it was about 4 in the morning once again.

With the cockpit deck ready for installation and the electrical done for now, at least the electrical that needs to run under the sole, I pulled the finished boards out of hibernation and attempted to redo the puzzle. The padauk darkened somewhat in storage and my pencil marks were difficult to see. I knew, roughly, where things went, but it was still a bit of a chore to line everything back up. I couldn't do this in the garage so my living room served as a staging area while I figured it out. I then labeled with green painter's tape and began fitting them in the boat.

Laid out in living room. Took far too long to do this.

The goal here isn't to put these down permanently right now. I need to figure out where I want the liftouts. Anywhere there's a liftout will also require a little additional cleat for the liftout to sit on. These new cleats will need to be epoxy'd and painted, so that's just more work. Whatever. I also like the idea I saw which had a little hook accessed through the fingerhole. In case of a knockdown, the liftouts won't become flying objects.

In total, I need access to two bays on each side for the ballast, another for the bilge pump, and one towards the back for the electrical access. I also want access between bulkheads 3 and 4, the space right in front of the centerboard trunk. This is a fairly deep bay right under my nose. I'm sure I'll find a use for it. In the back, I can keep these screwed down, but I do need to be able to get them out easily.

While inspecting, I realized that I installed the cabin bilge pump in the wrong bay, one too far forward. This is because I remembered from the manual that the ballast should go "in the compartment closest to the front of the trunk" which to me means between between bulkheads 4 and 5. However, when I went to the manual for something else, I saw that the ballast is actually between 5 and 6, where my bilge pump is on the starboard side. For a few seconds, I thought I'd leave it there and put the ballast around it (the ballast is poured or bagged lead). But I want the bilge pump to work; having 75# of lead on top of it wouldn't be good. I know how I'd feel about having 75# of lead on my head, so I'll have to move it back one more bay.

Starting to lay out the boards. The bilge pump return and electrical conduit is visible back there.

Boards "dry fit." I would've liked to go a little wider but those last outboard boards were really hard to shape.

View of bulkheads 7 and 8. Tickled how well the lines run under this. The middle accent board will be a lift out, as will the two left and right of it. They'll be screwed down as I don't expect to need to get back here often, but when I do, I should be able to get to it pretty quickly.

View forward. One of the reasons I chose padauk is that when it ages, it takes on a darker brown, not grey like teak or mahogany. Should still keep a pretty good brightness for awhile, though.

If one were in the boat facing forward, this would be the view.

Later in the evening, I dropped the cockpit decking on top to see what would be the last bits and pieces I'll need to do before permanently installing it. With the top on, it will be far harder to work back there. The result is I'll need to run a couple more wires now before screwing it down for good. I'm not going to install an inspection port in bulkhead 8 as previously debated because as warned, it was really hard to crawl back there and not worth the effort. I am happy the speakers are back there, though.

PS: I received a note the other day that while the blog is "great" it's hard to find stuff, that they have to sift through my ramblings. That's true; there's a lot of rambling. So a little mini project is to be sure people can find things easier by using the post titles, not just the search function or keywords. If the post isn't something specific to PocketShip, then it's surely not something about PocketShip. The title here is the first post in an attempt to fix the offense.

dunnoduncare

One of the interesting things I've found about building PocketShip is how much less I care about some things I cared a lot about not long ago. One of these things is my lazarette compartment.

In the traditional design, the area between bulkhead 8 and the transom has a good layer of flotation. While watertight, it's otherwise open to the elements. Open the hatches, and you're staring at flotation. Water gets in there through rain or worse and without a bilge drain, it can get a bit, shall we say, musty (I'm looking at you, PocketShip #1).

Aesthetically, no one wants to stare down into Menard's finest home insulation. Practically, it makes it that much harder to find the beer. Many builders have installed "floors" here to separate the laz area from the flotation, which of course is an idea I'll borrow mercilessly.

Back in August, I carefully and skillfully measured the area I wanted back there. I wanted to leave a certain height to fit a 3 gallon gas tank. I measured it so carefully I was afraid to cut the cleats until everything was just so. Fast forward two months, and there were still no cleats, until tonight, anyway.

I was working on the battery platform (another long-delayed build) and mixed up too much epoxy. Rather than let it harden in the cup, I decided to go ahead and use it for the laz cleats. I couldn't find my original notes with the careful measurements, so I ran upstairs to the boat and quickly measured out 22", 26", and 17", and cut them from a ribbon of pine I had laying around the shop. The longest and shortest ones needed a 15 degree bevel to support the rake of the transom and hull.

Laz cleats in place. Left to right: 17" 26" 22". The 17" and 26" get 15 degree bevels. I aligned it with the bottom of the footwell. If I'm off a little, I'll just raise with dowels or something.

Ten minutes later, they were epoxy'd and screwed into place and I suddenly have port side laz cleats. The rest of the epoxy in the cup was getting too hard so couldn't do the starboard side, but it was nice to get something done that's been on the agenda for a long time. I don't know if it'll fit my 3 gallon gas tank, but it doesn't matter. Not lost on me is how quickly I was able to do this, based on my original attempts when building the deck cleats.

A benefit to doing this is now I can size and cut the holes for the deck plates that will give me access to the laz area from the cabin. That was an idea from mtsailor, a builder from the boards. Turns out I can fit a full 6" plate there if I want but I'll probably go a little smaller so as not to interfere with the deck or footwell.

I also expanded the holes for the secondary limber holes I drilled into the floorboards. The original secondary holes I cut into the floorboards were 7/8". The conduit I got is bigger than that, so I had to make the hole bigger. I used the old woodworker's trick of a pilot hole. First, cut the new sized hole into a piece of scrap. Then center the scrap over the old hole and clamp/secure it in place. Then drill the new hole. The scrap wood will hold the hole saw in place while you cut the bigger hole.

Scrap with new hole clamped over old hole.

I then trimmed back some of the plastic of the thru hulls and they look and fit great. I test fit the new conduit and ran a wire down the length. Very satisfying to have something work. This is a huge win for my intolerance for wires. I'll have a couple in the cabin - unless I can figure out how to invisibly run the RAM3 wire - but there won't be many.

Trimmed back the thru hulls. They fit and look great.

View of thru hull from above. Transom is to the left. To the left.

The only thing missing from the electrical infrastructure was the battery platform. A battery platform can be very simple, and indeed, many PocketShips have a couple pieces of scrap holding up the battery box, and that's just fine. I don't know why I decided to build a xylophone for my battery platform, but I did. I think it's because these were the closest bits of wood near me and I wanted to see if I could make it fit the design.

Getting the angles right was tricky. It reminded me of the exercise in futility that was the sole: measure once, cut twice, measure four times, cut once, until it fits. Finally happy, I mixed up some epoxy and screwed the pieces down with brass screws. This will then be epoxy'd onto the hull permanently, and the battery box platform will be screwed into this. Whew!

Xylophone? Nope -- battery box holder. Top holes for conduit; bottom arch for limber/water flow.

It fits pretty well. I drilled a couple holes in case I wanted to run the conduit through, but seriously, this whole exercise was completely unnecessary. In hindsight, I think I was just having fun in the shop again after ignoring the build for so long.

Lamination of cabin sole, part 2. Some day this will be done.

The last sole lamination for the sole was done tonight. That means I'm completely done with this finishing project. The manual mentions it's a big finishing job - file that under no sh!t!

I'm undecided if I want to build the speaker boxes before painting, or paint before the speaker boxes. I'd like to bust out the primer and paint as little as possible, but I know I'll be painting the top sides whenever I get around to that, which means if I put off the speaker boxes until then, no harm.

View from the garage at the rear of the other boat. It was a nice late afternoon to work. That's my father in law back from a walk,