Speak to me

I really should make a master list of every single item that will go on the deck moulding as i nearly forgot the housing's for the four speakers in the cockpit. After taking delivery of the Fusion 402's via Ebay i got to work measuring and making and have to say they look pretty blooming good. The goal as with everything in the cockpit is:

1) Flush-mounted so no crick in your back when sat against the coaming and

2) It looks like they should be there, you know 'factory fit' look.

Having acomplished this my mind turned to the locker lids as the last one i made the other day has now been lipped so its time to reinforce them both. The big one i made a while back had started to bow where i had been walking on it un-supported so I decided to dust off the vacuum pump and put the lot in the bag to get the lid straight.

As of this evening to be doubly sure i placed a couple of boxes of plaslode 1st fix nails and a saw on top of one lid while the other didn't look too bad, here take a look.

A week (almost) in pictures

I've really been at it this week having got the last in the trilogy of cockpit lockers fitted out and almost complete. Barring a temporary lack of materials it went quite swimmingly although that did slow my pace a bit.

Next week i'll start on the speakers housings for the cockpit then coamings for the coachroof and finally make the composite window frames after this its sanding time and barrier coat everything thats made of ply with 422B additive as i've got tonnes of the stuff left.

The move after that is to the engine room to start working out bearer placement which i'm none too looking forward to but it must be done. The original plan at this point was to get the engine in and bolted down on its bearers then paint but seeing how much damage i'm doing to things like the cockpit and companionway area i will get the interior bulkheads and frames in so as to minimise any further damage.

The reason why i need to fit interior bulkheads and frames is i'm gutting the saloon as i have figured out an astonishingly easy way of getting a decent size galley and a usable (4'6" x 6'6"') double berth into the main area but more on that another day.

Cheers

Rog

Pull your finger out!

Spent Sunday resting my face..... sounds odd; but too much fine glass dust in contact with your skin and no matter what mask you have - eventually it gets through and quite frankly i was on fire and not in a good way. 

Being a bit bored i took a look at my usual t'internet sites, no not those ones boat ones and thought i'd have a shuffty at Tim Lackey's rather excellent site , (i recommend everyone to by the way) and was amazed to see in the time its taken me to get my boat ready for primer he has completely stripped and rebuilt four whole boats (one a year).

I don't know if Tim has an army of workers or whether he doesn't sleep but i can't figure out how the guy does so much quality work in so little time. To be frank it got to me as i've been working solidly since February give or take for work and thought i was making steady progress but this guys in a different league.

Undeterred i wiped everything from the wipe-clean board and re-wrote my tasks then broke each task down into smaller tasks and now have a site diary with everything written in daily that i want to accomplish. 

Two potential outcomes might occur: either you'll see the Centaur hit the water quicker or i'll hit the bottle quicker, one of two. 

I hope its the former but in all seriousness i have let the day to day planning slip a lot finding myself plodding instead of crashing through the tasks. So todays goals were to cut the hatch garage out and fix a ply panel to it and cut out and frame up the final locker in the cockpit.

I'm pleased to say Job done

Ah that's what I should've done!

Its a little frustrating working on the boat at the moment as i'm cursed with a hindsight-based problem-solving capability. Its happened a few times where i've spent the day making something only to sit back; look at it & instantly come up with a better way of doing it.

I now intend to plan a bit more before jumping in, i did this when it came to making the instrument binnacle as normally i'd look through one of my many sketchbooks and go "that one" and then to the shed to make it.

Not so - since my new-found powers have emerged, i spent half a day making a cardboard prototype of said binnacle and sure enough it looked a bit ridiculous so after a couple of alterations came upon the winning design to which i set about making the thing for real.

I don't know if its down to the fact i'm slowly losing the interest that i'm throwing everything at it or if its just my default setting of 'jump in' and worry about everything afterwards but once more with an eye to my ever reducing wallet  i need to stop and plan more so as to keep waste to a minimum.

Still that said i now have the binnacle and hatch garage all finished, i just need to glass in the hatch top but for some peel ply which i ran out of and then onto the coamings which i'll start this week. 

After that frame up the cockpit tidies cut in the speaker housings and frame up another locker to port and we're ready for primer. I've still got just under three weeks to achieve this so will push like crazy to get there.  

All hand's on deck!

After what seemed an eternity (two months) working my amateurish magic on the hull i could finally look upwards to all things deck based..........yes! I'd finally have gravity working with me for a change. I got done sanding the hull back to 400grit by mid April then had a couple of days tidying away the canopy and getting sorted for a move upstairs. 

I was trying to remember the last time i did anything on the deck as there was plenty of unsanded filler about, the main goal was to get a lot of the detailing sorted like filleting and glassing-in all things wooden. Originally i was going to barrier coat the wood but like the keels i don't ever want this job again so have gone for the 'belt and braces' approach of sheathing everything in 450g biaxial cloth.

First thing was rounding over every square edge to get the cloth to sit down, not a big job on paper but in practice two very long days. 

I decided i'd mask up as much as i could as i have an almost pathological aversion to avoidable sanding and hoovering. As i write this all the woodwork is now waterproof if a little ribbed in places. I've also fitted the front end piece to take the bow roller and windlass so that went on today so i'm getting through the jobs but with only one pair of hands there's still  loads to do.

Next on the list is to fill in the centre of the old hatch garage to avoid water getting trapped and then onto making the instrument binnacle and coamings. Seeing as paid work's at an absolute minimum i want the deck ready for primer by the end of May...........here's hoping.