Fairing and Brightwork Fabrication

December 16, 2017

Halcyon days!  I slept in this morning until 10am.  I haven't done this in years, and enjoyed every minute of it.  When I finally roused to the day, I got to work water-washing the previous day's epoxy work - fairing the navigation light patches and the cabin top through-fittings.  

With the amine blush removed, I started a round of sanding (fairing) the cured epoxy.  I first brought the port cabin sides patch to fair...

...and then the starboard side.

I finished with the holes from the former cabin top through-fittings and their fasteners.

With the sanding work completed, I moved on to continue fabricating the brightwork.  I began with the aft cockpit trim.  I placed it on the teak stock I had selected for it, and transferred its dimensions.

Using the jig saw, I then removed the new aft cockpit trim to rough dimensions and set it aside.

The next pieces of trim would be the companionway slide hatch trim.  From the remaining section of teak stock used to pull the toe rails from, I lined up the starboard side and transferred its dimensions to the new teak. 

I then removed the starboard trim from the teak stock.

I repeated the steps for the port side of the companionway slide hatch trim.  The new piece of trim, like all others being fabricated, start as a rough cut, but will be fine tuned in their finished state.

With the all of the brightwork at least in a rough state, I decided to break out the "steam box", or tube rather.  I use the steam box to help form and shape pieces for their eventual installation.  In this case, I wanted to form the cockpit seat trim pieces and the companionway slide hatch exterior 'push' trim.  This 'push' piece of trim for the companionway slide hatch is not necessarily what one's hand would go to first, but it serves to secure an additional piece of trim to the underside of the slide hatch which a tang is attached to that slides through the top drop board to lock the cabin.  Got that?  Good!  Anyway, since the slide hatch has a convex top surface, I wanted to bend the new teak trim to allow for easier installation.  As the steam box was heating up, I started working on cutting the new teak trim as well as a form to clamp it to once out of the steam box.

I laid out the old trim onto a scrap piece of birch ply, marked and hot-glued small blocks of wood to follow the form of the old trim.  I then pre-drilled and drove a screw through  the underside of the plywood, thus securing the blocks in place.

With the steam box emitting a good amount of steam, I slid the cockpit seat trim and companionway slide hatch pieces into the box.  I plugged the open end with a wet rag to trap the steam inside the box for maximum effect.

As the pieces of trim were being treated, I started on a form for the seat trim.  Just as I had done for the companionway hatch trim, I repeated the process for cockpit seat trim.  Since this trim was a bit taller in dimension, I came back and installed another small block onto the original one.  Also, since I planned to clamp both pieces to the same form, I wanted to ensure I had a robust form to clamp onto.

At this point, I decided to change directions.  I thought about still needing to shape the cockpit seat trim to the final aesthetically pleasing dimensions, and so pulled these two pieces from the team box and leaving the companionway hatch trim inside.  So, while the companionway hatch trim limbered up, I looked at layout of the motor mount.

In the coming days, I will need to over-drill the holes for the motor mount plate and fill with epoxy, followed by drilling and taping for bronze screws.  While I like the location - outboard of center line - I thought I should orient the motor mount in a more parallel position to the center line.  More to come here...

I returned to the steam box, pulled the companionway hatch trim from the gaseous environs of the steam box and set it on the form with clamps.  I used scrap pieces to protect the new trim from the clamps, and then set it aside to cool and set.

I returned to the cockpit seat trim to continue shaping them so that I could steam bend them to final form.  Using a combination of the hand plane as well as the jointer, I brought the 'rough' pieces of trim to their final dimensions.  I did run out of time for the day, but would soon round the edges on the router table and then fire of the steam box one more time!

Total Time Today: 4.25 hrs