Vacation, Dorade Boxes and Roof Deck Cleats

Building was put on hold for a few weeks while I went to Beaufort NC. Had a great time and did some sailing a couple of days. Had a real interesting day sailing one day in 25 mph winds. Won't do that again! But live and learn.



Dorade Boxes
This past week / weekend I got back to work. I first started on the installing the Dorade Boxes. I cut them to fit and drilled the holes for wires to hold them in place. Nothing difficult about this, but take your time.

Below you can see both the port and starboard boxes with tack welds. In some places I actually did a fillet, but I went back over with larger fillets later on.  You can see the sliding T-Bevel in one of the pictures.  I made sure both sides had the same angle before applying the tack welds. You don't want a lopsided boat! :-)

Below are both boxes with the fillets. I did on both the inside and outside. I am considering what to do on the out facing angle where the two boards come together. There is a fillet on the inside, but I am thinking about applying some fiberglass tape to strengthen the joint.

You cant see in the pictures, but there is an outside drain hold for water that gets caught in the foredeck area. For each Dorade Box there will be a inside and outside drain for water to flow through. I drilled a larger hole and filled it with thickened epoxy on the outside. I will be drilling out a smaller hole in the epoxy later on. I also will need to drill the drain hole in the bottom inside corners. In the picture below the drain hole goes in the bottom left.

Drain hole to go in bottom left. 

Drain hole to go in bottom right on the starboard side. 

Cabin Roof Cleats
Next I decided to the cabin roof cleats. I had a piece of thin board that came in a packing crate for a piece of furniture we bought. I save a lot of stuff like this and it usually comes in handy. I cut the board which was about 1/4 inch thick into strips to use at patterns on the roof cleats.  Below shows 2 of the patterns. I had to use a piece of cardboard to create the pattern for the largest cleat. ( middle)

Patterns for roof cleats. 

I think took the patterns and cut out the cleats using 3/4 inch thick wood. The angle where the roof cleats touch the side cleats is a little tricky, but I took my time and only wasted 1 piece. LOL.

Below are pictures of the cleats doing a dry fit.

Dry fit of cleats in dorade boxes. This will give the roof deck a place to glue to. 

Once I cut out each cleat, I then used a router to do a round-over on the inside edges. The edge that I will see in the cabin. I then took my sander and sanded each piece. Using the bandsaw, you get the marks of the blades, but this was easily taken off. 

Another item I will note is that you don't want to leave the cleats flush with the top edges of the bulkheads. Per the manual you want to have some wood to shave off, so you have the angle correct all the way around. That will be one of my jobs this week once I epoxy them. 

Painting Locker

And yet another one of the jobs I started was painting the lockers. I put two coats of primer in each locker and plan to put 2 coats of Interlux Brightside paint. I wanted to get this done before installing the seat backs. 

I think I had a productive week and it is nice to see things coming along!