January 22, 2018
With arrangements made for a working day on Joule, I set out to finish the final pieces of the trim - the cockpit seat trim. In previous work sessions I had used the original trim pieces as templates to remove the new trim pieces, in rough dimensional form, from the new teak stock. With the new roughed-out trim pieces cut, I placed them into the steam box in order to be bent onto a form I had created that replicated the curve of the cockpit seating.
At this point, I placed the new teak trim pieces for the cockpit seating on the boat, they ran a little long and so required a bit of trimming. I ran both the port and starboard trim over the table saw with the cross-cut jig, and removed 1/2" from the fore and aft ends of each board.
With the length dimension fine-tuned, I mounted the starboard cockpit seat trim using four small clamps. The purpose of the seat trim is to hold seat cushions in place from starboard to port tack (burying the rails on each tack!). I set the height along the length of the starboard seat, set the clamps firmly in place, and then measured the spacing of seven fasteners along the length of the trim board. With the location of the fasteners identified, I then drilled very small pilot holes through both the trim and the cockpit seat itself.
The small pilot hole allowed me to separately drill the cockpit seat and the cockpit seat trim for the tapping tool. I used the #25 drill bit for the #10-24 fasteners, and drilled the seven holes on the cockpit seat as well as the cockpit seat trim. The picture below shows the tapping of the first fastener hole on the starboard cockpit seat. I repeated this process for the balance of the 6 holes on the cockpit seat, and then moved onto the starboard cockpit seat trim board...tapping those. Finally, I drilled and tapped the same way for the port side of Joule: first the cockpit seat, and then the cockpit seat trim. With he Cockpit seat trim dry-fitted, I turned to other pressing items: painting.
In the coming days, I will begin to oil all of Joule's trim pieces: toe rails, rub rails, port and starboard horizontal companionway trim, port and starboard vertical companionway trim, companionway slide hatch trim (top and bottom pieces), port and starboard coaming boards, aft cockpit trim, port and starboard cockpit seat trim, the taff rail, and the various deck pads for hardware installations. For now, I started application of the first coat of interior paint: Pettit EZ CabinCoat.
The paint application does not require a special primer or sanding for mechanical bonding, so this will be a great on-going maintenance paint for Joule's owners. The prep for the application of the paint simple requires a warm water-ammonia solution scrub to free the surface of any waxes or other contaminants that would foul good adhesion. Old habits die hard, and so in a previous work session I sanded the surface of the molded fiberglass interior (v-berth, overhead, cabin sole, and quarter berths) with 80-grit paper by hand and with the RO sander. With the amount of work thus far, and Joule's interior open to the environs, I went ahead and roughed the surface us with a couple 80-grit discs (hand-sanding) to be safe.
After the sanding, I thoroughly vacuumed the surfaces of the interior, followed by a good wipe with a solvent-laden rag...rags. The time had come to paint, and it could not have been simpler: open paint can, mix paint, pour into roller tray, apply. No thinning is required with the Pettit EZ Cabin Coat, and if you must thin, it calls for thinning it no more than 10% by volume....wait for it...with WATER!
Okay, so over the next couple hours I applied paint to the interior - working some areas repeatedly. There will be, likely, two additional coats going onto the interior surfaces.
Total Time Today: 5.5 hrs
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