Tabernacle Hardware Fittings | Installation

With installation of the upper hull hardware fittings more or less complete, I turned to the tabernacle.

The first task was to remove excess paint which had filled every screw and bolt hole during the repaint.

Here I am scraping the paint out of the countersink recesses for the 8mm bolts which secure the tabernacle to the front cabin wall.

Chisels were the answer here.

Smaller screw holes needed to be drilled out. I used a hand drill, like this.

The first things I fitted were the port halyard block padeyes. The padeyes have a very small footprint so I used butyl tape to make small gaskets to seal the screw eyes.

Here are the port padeyes, with the butyl tape being trimmed around screw eyes with a sharpened wooden spatula.

This is the tape itself.

And here are the finished port padeyes.

They look good.

Next was the jib halyard cleat.

This was not so easy, because the screw holes were completely concealed by paint.

I tried pricking them out where I thought they would be, without success.

In the end I had to sand the area to find them, leaving a scar. Like this.

I drilled out the screw holes and primed the scar, followed by three coats of white gloss wet sanded with a P400 grit between coats.

Here it is, taped for primer.

And here it is after three coats of gloss, with the final coat feather edged.

I can see the touching up, but the casual observer won't know it's there!

Then came the cleat itself. Here it is.

Looking good!

The boom gooseneck fitting was the last piece to be installed. This is it.

That's the tabernacle finished and ready to be fitted, as and when required.

Now, what's next... ?