December 26, 2017
Well into the holiday break and back from a visit with family, I returned to working on Joule with full intention of a focused project wrap up by the end of January. With the primer coats in place, I was ready to begin layout of the deck hardware. To that end, the owner was able to swing by for a consultation on preferred layout, etc. While waiting for this meeting, I went ahead and pulled the companionway hatch trim from the form. I did get a bit of spring back, but the piece was easier to bend over the convex form of the hatch and will mate well with the stop trim that is mounted to the underside of the hatch.
Having discussed the hardware layout and usage with the owner, I resumed working the shop on the taff rail. At this point, most of the new brightwork was in "rough" form. My focus over the next few days will be to get the brightwork to a point of near completion so that I can dry-fit the various pieces of trim and joinery onto Joule prior to finish paint. For the taff rail, I made a jig with a carpenter's rule to allow me to achieve a unified width from one side to the other. I ran the jig on the aft portion of the rail and placed a pencil at the leading edge, tight against the jig, and ran that line along the rail. The shorter outboard ends would not allow the jig to transfer the line to the forward outboard ends of the rail, so to complete the curve I applied a batten along the penciled line to then extend it. I removed this "excess" material, and hand-tuned it with a block plane and sanding work. Due to the unevenness of the trailing edge of the poopdeck, I will need to remove some additional material on the taff rail, providing a consistent taff rail-to-deck appearance for installation.
With the taff rail in place, I laid out the location for the deck plate portion of the motor mount.
I continued to layout the aft deck hardware: starboard cleat, mainsheet cam cleat and standup block. Upon close inspection, the original cam cleat was suffering severe cracking along one of the cams, and with a bit of pressure on it succumbed, and eventually broke. I procured a new mainsheet cam cleat for Joule and continued with the layout process.
With the aft deck hardware marked, I went forward to drill and tap for the foredeck cleat fasteners. Because I used G-10 fiberglass board for the replacement core material, I did not have to overdrive and fill in order to isolate balsa core from future water ingress; the G-10 board was also stronger solution for this important cleat. I applied tape to the area and set the cleat in its final position. I then marked the fastener locations onto the tape, removed the cleat and then drilled for 5/16" - 18 machine screws using a 17/64" drill bit.
With the holes drilled, I used the 5/16" - 18 tap to create the threads through the the fiberglass top and bottom skins, as well as the G-10 board.
The foredeck cleat is ready for installations - post finish deck paint.
I moved aft once again, and began to overdrive the marked fasteners holes for the poopdeck hardware. I used a 1/2" forstner bit to open up the top skin and the core material. I was careful to drill out the balsa core and not plunge through the bottom skin. The overdrive process is used to isolate the future through-deck fastener from direct contact with core material that could be compromised with the presence of water. Since the aft deck was cored with balsa, I chose to overdrive to protect the integrity of the deck.
The overdrive process is complete, time to move on to filling the holes.
I vacuumed the debris and detritus thoroughly, followed by a solvent wipe down, mixed a small batch of epoxy thickened mostly with 406 colloidal silica and applied to fill the holes. The next step here will be to water-wash the amine blush, and then sand to fair with the surrounding deck surfaces. Finally, I will drill and tap for machine screws, which will be bolted with backing plates from the underside of the deck.
With work on Joule complete for the day, I returned to the shop to continue fine-tuning the brightwork pieces. I inserted the aft cockpit trim into the vice and dialed in its fair curve with a small block plane.
Satisfied with the fairness of the curve, both top and bottom, I ran the edges which would be exposed to eyes and hands through the router to cut 1/4" round overs. I will not fully complete this piece of trim until the coaming boards are in place, or at least dry-fitted.
Reaching the end of what I could do with the aft cockpit trim, I turned to the companionway slide trim. As I had done with the aft cockpit trim, I snuck up on final dimensions with a block plane, and then ran the upper edges through the router to give the trim piece 1/4" round overs.
The port slide hatch trim ~85% complete.
I repeated the process with the starboard trim - both port and starboard pieces shown below, ~85% complete.
Total Time Today: 6.5 hrs