Fitting Out | Preparation For The Portlights

 A quick test fit of a metal portlight showed that they no longer fitted due to the build-up of paint on the edges of the portholes.

So the holes had to be cleaned up, like this.

I used an abrasive cylinder in the drill. It did a quick and effective job.

I then made a final test fit of each portlight, practising final installation which will be with sealant.

First the outer flange is held in place with two machine screws, taped down so they don't move.

Then the portlight itself is fitted from the inside and secured with a dome nut and washer on the two screws. Like this.

Then the other four screws are inserted and taped in place, and the remaining washers and nuts are fitted inside.

Here is the fitted portlight, looking very smart. This one is open.

Final installation will be made in exactly the same way but with sealant on the inner and outer flanges, to completely seal the holes.

I removed the portlights and labelled their boxes so that each would go back into the same porthole, eliminating any issues about fit.

Having cleaned up the porthole edges they were now bare wood, which did not seem a good idea.

 So I masked off the topsides and applied two coats of clear resin to seal them up.

Next time we revisit the portlights will be their final installation!

Fitting Out | Ship's Cat

Our cat developed a keen interest in the fitting out activities, with a particular fondness for the metalworking vice while I was cutting screws to length.

That's one very weird cat ...

Fitting Out | Companionway

The companionway drop boards and their retainers had been languishing inside the house for ages and it was time to give them a test fit.

The retainers are fastened in place with stainless steel machine screws, with washers and dome nuts inside the cabin.

Here are the drop boards in place.

And here is the companionway slide in place.

That looks good.

Next task was to fit the hasp to allow the slide to be locked. I made a test fit on a piece of scrap to get the dimensions right before drilling holes. This is it.

Then I marked up the slide and drop board and used the drill guide to make the screw holes in the slide. My first attempt at freehand drilling did not go well!

Here is the hasp, dry fitted.

Lastly, I made the final instalment of the hasp and the slide runners using sealant and set them in the cockpit to cure, as here.

That's the companionway finished!

Fitting Out | Bowsprit & Bobstay

It was soon time to start thinking about fitting out the spars, and I accordingly sought out the very first sheet of the plans, which the build manual tells us gives exact locations for the hardware.

It's half right, as usual. Some fittings are accurately located, and some we will have to guesstimate.

Anyway, I pinned the plan for the spars on the wall, and started to figure out what goes where.

Here it is, up on the wall.

That feels like progress!

The bowsprit looked quite straightforward, so I started with that. Dimensions for the pad eyes are given, and I marked them out on the spar using masking tape. Like this.

Next came drilling the holes for the machine screws. They are through spar fastenings, so have to be accurately drilled.

Here is the pillar drill, set up for this exercise.

It is very important that the bowsprit is level on the drill table both lengthways and sideways to get perpendicular drill holes, so using a spirit level is essential.

Here the holes are being drilled.

I test fitted the pad eyes using the stainless machine screws and plain steel washers and nuts - the final installation will be made with stainless locknuts which are not reusable.

A test fit of the bowsprit had earlier revealed that the bow eye was ever so slightly out of place. Either that or the bobstay supplied in the sailing hardware package was a tiny bit too short.

Either way, it would have been a miracle if the bobstay fitted perfectly. I hadn't even realised that it was included in the sailing hardware pack until I opened it up and was expecting to make my own, so length would not have been a problem.

Anyway ... the problem was easily resolved by moving the bobstay pad eye backwards a fraction, by turning it around.

This is the bowsprit with its bobstay in place.

And here you can see how I have reversed the lower pad eye for the bobstay, so it through bolts to the jib pad eye only at one end instead of both.

The shackle supplied for the bobstay looked a bit flimsy to me, so I substituted it for a much more substantial one. Here is the bow eye, shackle and bobstay.

That doesn't look as if it's likely to fail any time soon!

We are definitely getting there ...

Fitting Out | Mainsheet Block Issues

As mentioned in the previous post, I was able to fit all of the deck hardware apart from the mainsheet ratchet block. There was a significant issue with it.

It is supplied with machine screws and dome nuts for through deck fastening, even though this is not possible. The mainsheet block is located on the cockpit deck in the centre of the forward wall of the footwell, right on top of the centreboard case. It is impossible to install it there.

I read on the PocketShip forum that one builder had addressed this by drilling screw holes into the centreboard case and using the inspection port to somehow tighten the nuts from the inside. That seemed highly unsatisfactory. What I would call a 'bodge'.

I am guessing that every builder who purchases the hull hardware kit hits this problem, which again makes me question why such issues persist after so many years of production. It should not be this way!

I decided to make a pad to allow the block to be installed in the right place but properly supported and using through deck fastenings.

I made a drawing of the support pad, as here.

This will allow the block to be through fastened to the pad with the nuts being contained in a recess underneath the pad. The wider pad can then be through fastened to the deck, either side of the centreboard case.

This piece of cardboard shows where the pad will sit.

I made a second drawing to make sure that the pad fastenings would be located well outside the sides of the case and its cleats. This is it.

I made the pad from two thicknesses of 9mm ply, with a recess cut in the bottom layer. Here it is being glued up.

Then the pad was cut to size and planed fair, like this,

Holes for the fastenings were drilled in the pad, as here.

This view from underneath the pad shows how the block will be fastened through the top of the pad, with its locknuts in the circular recess.

 And this is how the mainsheet ratchet block will look when installed on the pad.

Then I gave the top of the pad a 3/8" round over on the router table, to make it elegant as well as functional. Here it is in progress.

A couple of clear coats of resin were applied and sanded smooth before the first coat of primer. This is it.

The small squares are part of an experiment to solve the ventilator fitting conundrum. I will explain later ...

More primer and lots of gloss will follow before polishing and fitting with the block. A lot of work to resolve a simple design issue!

Fitting Out | Deck Hardware

While I was struggling with the ventilators, I started to fit the deck hardware.

Some of the machine screws provided are too long because they are fastened with dome nuts and have to be exactly the right length.

This means careful measurement and cutting and filing, like this.

I also needed to purchase quite a lot of new fastenings because of the way I had installed the boom gallows tubes and stern mooring cleats.

And then came the challenge of drilling exactly perpendicular holes through the blocking inside the seatback tops. This is extremely difficult to do freehand, so I used my drill guide.

Here it is being used to drill holes for the boom gallows stanchion supports.

This was fine for the two holes in the front of the fitting, but there was no room to use the drill guide for the two rearmost holes. So, I inserted a length of threaded rod in one of the holes I had already drilled to act as sighting guide when drilling by eye. Like this.

The resulting holes were not perfect but were good enough for a secure fit.

I had a lot of trouble with the stanchion support on the port side of the boat. The support tube did not fit into it and I assumed that it was the wrong size at 7/8" instead of 1".

The kit supplier sent me a replacement which fitted the tube but had an uneven bottom which caused it rock on the seatback top. So that was no good.

So, another replacement was sent and that cured the problem.

I now had two unusable stanchion supports sitting on my shelf and when I compared them I quickly saw that the first one was in fact the right size but had not been machined correctly.

You really do have to wonder about the manufacturer's quality control, or lack thereof.

Final installation of various bits of hardware followed, entailing bedding them in marine sealant.

This is what I am using.

It is Geocel Marine, formerly known as Dow Corning and highly recommended.

We use silicone rubber sealant on fixtures and fittings which do not require permanent installation.

I bought this tube three years ago when fitting inspection ports in the centreboard case and bulkhead 1 and I wondered if it was past its use-by date. The vendor didn't seem to know so I cut the nozzle and tried some out. It looked fine and set nicely so I am using it for the rest of the hardware.

Methylated spirit and kitchen roll clean up any squeeze out easily.

Here is one of the stern mooring cleats, sealed in place.

And here is the starboard stanchion support with boom gallows tube fitted.

Here is the port fitting.

Sockets are needed to get to the nuts inside the seatback locker, and a screwdriver to hold the screw while it is being tightened.

I found that a syringe was quite useful for accurate application, like this.

The drawback is that the sealant hardens in the syringe nozzle so it cannot be reused.

I eventually did the final fit of the hardware in the forward deck well and cabin roof.

Here are the starboard halyard cleats.

And here are the starboard jib sheet cleat and halyard cheek blocks.

This is the hardware on the forward deck and tabernacle. You can see the forward mooring cleats, the jib halyard cleat, and the starboard halyard lead blocks.

The only piece of deck hardware which I could not fit was the mainsheet ratchet block, which will be the subject of the next post.

Ventilators | Cutting New Holes

I explained in a previous post how I cut the holes for the ventilator cowls in the wrong place and had to do a lot of work to fill them and refinish the tops of the Dorade boxes.

This really annoyed me, but these things happen and we have to press on regardless. Which entailed cutting new holes in the cabin roof. Not something I was looking forward to ...

First I used masking tape to outline the cleats inside the Dorade boxes; where the halyard cheek blocks would be located; and lastly where the new holes should be cut.

Here I am making the first hole with the Japanese keyhole saw.

It's much easier to drill holes and cut the hole like this than using a jigsaw.

The roughly cut holes were then shaped with a rasp and an abrasive cylinder in the drill. Here they are.

A test fit of the ventilator followed, like this.

It became apparent that there was a problem here.

The inner piece screws into the outer flange from inside the Dorade box to close the ventilator, and I had assumed that it would bear directly onto the roof to make a seal.

However, the outer flange is secured with machine screws and locknuts which protrude into the Dorade box and prevent the inner piece from closing. It simply grinds against the locknuts.

I will have to give this some thought to find a way around the problem.

On the face of it seems that the ventilator is badly designed. To allow it to be closed fully there cannot be any fastenings inside the box, which would mean using very short wood screws which would not be strong enough.

I contemplated making a gasket to go inside the box which would allow the locknuts to be recessed, out of the way. I even started to make it, as here.

I soon realised that the gasket would not allow the inner piece to be screwed up because its thread is too short!

So I can't see how this can work at all.

More thought required.