Interiors and Visitors

It's been a fun and productive few weeks down at the boat shop.  Cody has been cranking out the interior;  the galley is nearing completion, the aft cabin is pretty much done...  His progress is very visible, which is fun!  It's crazy to look back and see how far we've come in such a short time.  

Kitchen drawer assembly line!  Simple, strong construction.  These drawers are now assembled and faced with Vertical Grain fir, with Mahogany and fir trim.  I've been working on sanding and varnishing the faces lately.  I think I should be able to finish them this afternoon.   

This is our aft cabin.  In this photo, it's just framed in.  

Here is the aft cabin again, with the floor/bed platform glued in.  It's big enough for two to sleep in, and sits just  below the cockpit.  We had originally planned to run the cabin along the side of the hull, so that you would sleep with your head pointing toward the bow, and feet at the stern.  We started mocking that design up, and there just wasn't enough room for it to be practical- it would have been like sleeping in a coffin.  So we rotated the bed 90 degrees, so now you'll sleep athwartships- head on the starboard side, feet on the port.  This will be our "guest room,"  and I hope we'll have lots of chances to use it!   

There's lots of space beneath the aft cabin, and we have to take advantage of every inch.  You can see we've cut several access hatches in the floor of the aft cabin.  

  

My Mom and Dad came out for a visit to Salt Lake, while on their "Offspring Tour 2012."  My mom coined the name of the tour.  I'm pretty sure she has no idea who The Offspring are.  They went to Chicago to visit my youngest sister, Grace,  then to Asheville to see Amy.    I think they're really enjoying their empty nest!  While they were here, my Dad built us our first cabin-top deck beam!   

We had a great time with my folks- I'm so grateful that we all get along so well!  Unfortunately, the weather was some of the worst of the year- rain and snow, but we managed to snag a sunny window to take a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  We walked to a waterfall, and drove up to the ski resorts- I hope we inspired a ski trip out here this winter!  Alta and Snowbird were just receiving their first snow of the season, and I saw the look my Dad had in his eye.....   

We also had a great, GREAT meal at Forage.  If you are looking for the best dining experience in the state of Utah- perhaps the whole mountain west, go there.  I mean it.  

Remember scarf joints?  We're at it again, gluing up the cockpit floor.  

Cody's getting so creative with his clamping techniques.  In this photo, we're looking at the floor of the foot well in the cockpit- that piece of plywood that's been scarfed together.  

To reinforce this structure, we've glued wood fillets along the corners. 

 Now, the white cross pieces in this photo are resting not on the floor of the cockpit, but only on their ends, on those wood fillets- the pressure from those lead bricks is pressing outward, not down!  

Pretty clever,  Mr. Harris, pretty clever.  

The Galley has probably been the most exciting progress we've made lately.  You can see where all those drawers are going to go.  Cody is attaching the under-mount sink, while I am supposed to be handing him his drill, screws and screwdriver.  Instead I'm taking photos of him and laughing at this ridiculous position he's gotten himself into.    

 Once that sink was mounted beneath the counter top, Cody routed the holes out on top.  

Look at that!  I have a nearly complete galley- with an awesome, deep double sink!  

Sorry I laughed at you, honey. 

Cody had some paying work yesterday, so I did some sanding, then took advantage of a dust-free shop to get some painting done.  Here's the sea-berth/couch, painted and looking pretty!  

Happy Halloween everyone!  

More Boat Stuff

 Kind of a slow week here in Salt Lake, my ankle is healing up, and I can get around now, but by no means at full speed.  Its very hard for me to take it easy, especially now, the weather makes me want to get outside and climb, and I'm at a really fun spot on the boat project.  The good thing about having a hurt ankle is that I am bored enough to want to update the blog at more reasonable intervals.    So here is what I've got.

This is the gimbal setup for the stove/oven that I was talking about last week.  Its a plywood base, where the stove will attach to, then welded those side support triangles which rest on a bolt that sticks out on each side.  This was the first time I have welded stainless steel and I TIG welded them, which is quite a bit different than the arc welding I'm used to.  They turned out ok, plenty strong, but not very pretty.  I think I will have plenty of practice in the future.

 I went out to Magna UT the other day to visit the RV junkyard, where I picked up our sink.  Its not installed yet, but thats where it will go.

The galley has been quite a puzzle to put together, these are all waiting to be glued into place to create, shelves and drawers and door frames.

Here is a drawer, ready to be glued together. The bottom piece fits into the grooves cut into the side pieces.  Nothing fancy, but strong and easy to build.   

Drawer being glued and clamped. You truly can't have too many clamps.

This is a little side project I'm starting.  I won't need these pieces for a few weeks, but I like to try and stay a little ahead of the game.  Actually I just want a break from sanding or some other brain draining activity.  So, what I'm building are carlins, they are laminated out of several pieces and I'm using the side of the boat to get the shape right.  They will be the base of the cabin sides, which follow the same curve as the sides, hence using the boat as a form.

To be clear, they are not glued to the boat yet, they go inboard at the base of the cabin.  Lots of terminology, its confusing for sailors as well.  Beth and I went sailing yesterday and our skipper Brian a sailor of 50+years was getting things mixed up.  

 Enjoy the fall, do something awesome!

Fall is here in Salt Lake, the daily highs are in the 70's and the mornings are finally cool and crisp.  We have been slow to update, but climbing season is back and its hard to want to sit down and blog.  Beth and I had been getting out climbing a couple times a week until two days ago when I sprained my ankle hiking to the crag.  I actually sprained it on the trail about 100 yards from the car, two days and I still can't walk, but I'm close, probably tomorrow.

Before my unfortunate accident Beth and I had climbing projects right next to each other, in fact, one on top of the other.  We don't have any pictures of us on them, but here is what they look like.

This is "All chalk no Action"5.12a , Beth's project, I think she will finish it pretty fast.  And the best part is that I have to climb it to get to my project.

This is "Orange Crush"5.13b Absolutely stunning, a testpiece of very technical rock climbing. 

On to the boat

 This is the sea berth/couch,  After building it I realized there was a serious problem.  Because the decks are not on its easy to forget that they will someday be there, so one evening as I sat on the sea berth I realized that at the present height of the berth I would have to cut a hole in the deck for my head to stick out.  I was pretty bummed, but I cut it apart and lowered it, and now its perfect.

 After debating on what to use for interior trim we have decided to go with vertical grain(VG) fir trimmed with mahogany.  I wanted to buy a sheet of 1/2" plywood with a (VG fir) veneer already on it, but all the plywood we found had particle board cores, which don't hold up in moist environments.

So we ended up just buying a sheet of 1/2" plywood and a veneer.  Usually to put a veneer on you have to use contact cement, which smells worse than bondo.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that our veneer is self adhesive.

I am peeling of the paper to veneer one of the doors for the dinette.

Here are some patterns for bulkheads and sea berth parts I've been making.

Its crazy, but we are actually getting ready to fit the stove into the boat. Here I built a mock up gimbal to find the center of gravity of the oven, and determine the correct pivot point. 

Lots of clamps for gluing up some mahogany and fir

A deck beam I glued up, that will commence framing out the cockpit. 

The boat shop has been fantastic lately, so much fun work, great temps, and a plan(for now).