MiToS re-built/fit- versilcraft Mystery43

[vas]

sorry J & A

didn't mean to say I'm definitely going ahead to a straight exit, I said I'm considering...
Actually, I spent some time today measuring and checking heights and elevations. Lifting the shower/heads floor 50mm means that the flat part of the shower tray will be 100mm wider (sloping frames come in place....)
Cannot go any further up unless I change the height of the heads door, which is silly as the four doors are next to another and I'm not going to do it.
So, box as Alf suggests will be used.
J, I've got three rule style immersible (sp?) pumps and 5 or 6 diaphragm ones all curtesy of previous owner, so I'm not tight on the pump front, simply I don't particularly like the extra complication and noise you get out of them.

Spent a few hours only today (got to do the day job occasionally and it was 5h teaching today...) test fitting the two bulkheads that where moved from their original position to the new ones.
Worked out quite well, need another hour or so and should be ready for glueing them down.

First two pics are from the corridor. Remember the corridor is now extended by 500mm, the bow cabin door is shifted that amount towards the bow, and the first heads door (originally by the foot of the steps) is now to the far end of the corridor (port side):

the following pic is from the bow cabin looking aft towards the corridor and staircase.

the next one is the area of the new corridor with the 4 doors around it. Sorry pics are not particularly clear, old xperia has seen better days, less dust and epoxy

final pic shows again the bow cabin, and the support iroko beams (70X70 with a 12X11mm groove for the bulkheads to secure into). Spot the mock for the slope of the slanted bulkhead making the main heads shower area:

An added bonus of the blanking the original heads door at the foot of the steps is that I can redo the staircase more relaxed (as in longer threads, same height) and cut a bit the dash panel above it. Perfectly doable and I gain a two drawer spot above the staircase. Probably get plates/cups/glasses there. We shall see.


Will try to paint strip and sand the difficult to access bits around/under the corridor, so that we can glue in place the various bits over the w/e.
Looks like we'll do a small patch in the stbrd side (generally in much better nick than the port side!) from the lower sprayrail to the keel and replace in the process the 3 seacock flanges and patches/mess around them.

l8r

V.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Thanks for update Vas. As ever, hat off to you. I'm a bit sceptical about shower draining straight to the sea unless shower tray is well above w/line, which it isn't. An upward U bend/antisiphon isn't possible so it feels like a big sinking risk surely? You could use a n/r valve but you have no head so it will slow down the shower draining too much. Also would clog with hairs.

Surely you gotta use one of those little sumps? Only €30 if you mould it yourself or can find a suitable vessel into which you fit €25 of ebay pump and float switch

Yes our small Aquastar has a shower sump made out of an oldi ice cream container with a bilge pump in it. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. And yes I agree with jfm, no way should you have a direct drain overboard. After all those hours of hard work, don't risk the boat for a small modification.

 

[vas]

thanks again for the comments.
I think I have to try to explain the rationale behind my initial thought (before you eat me alive that is )

Since the hull is plywood, I'm very keen on having extremely dry bilges, hence the idea of routing all grey water straight out is valid. Alas, gravity and hull design wont allow it.
So following a few hours measuring and head scratching yesterday and today, I came up with a combo idea.
The bow cabin head washbasin dumps water straight out (that's the one mainly used when the two of us will be onboard).
The main head washbasin + the two shower trays go to a 330X186X111mm box (like the one mentioned earlier in the thread, fitted with a 750lph pump)
This goes (obviously) to another above w/l exit. OK, my terminology is carp but you get the point...
Now, first Q. Am I right in thinking that if the pump fails, the water doesn't overflow in the bilges but instead comes up to the lowest exit point (that being the shower trays) and then you spot the failure???

Considering that I'm about to shift the aircon from the utterly stupid and inaccessible place to a easier to reach spot under the corridor bed of the port cabin, I'm also thinking of dumping the condensation from that into the said box.
Any objections?

This way I only get 2 seacocks for the air con, one to suck water in, one to dump water out. Is the panel okay with that?

Also is the panel happy with ONE seacock feeding two el.marine toilets? Hope so!

Trying to finalize the seacock/holes layout in general on the cabin area, so that I can organise them in convenient places according to the hatches I'm planning.

Another seacock/hole related Q. Moving the heads towards the bow, means that throwing grey water out above the hard chine means that I'm maybe 300mm above w/l. Is that OK? Don't really want to go below the chine!


Now, I'm happy to report that MiToS will survive the next tsunami (as in it will float and not sink) as we replaced the 2nd port patch and now hull is complete! OK, last tsunami around here was just under 3K years ago, but it's good to be prepared for the worse
Unfortunately phone run out of battery so no proof, I'm afraid you have to believe me

On the heads bulkhead front, spent 4h yesterday to shape the first slanted panel, took only 15 test fits, marking/testing/cutting/retesting/recutting/sanding/etc
But now it's a perfect fit and very happy with it!

Next week should see us getting the frames for the other three panels properly aligned and secured in place.

Now, this securing in place of all the heads bulkheads has me worried a bit as I've not yet decided on their cladding and if I go for a glue in formica type of material then I might as well stick it in first and glue them afterwards
Thing is I'm slowly driving away from the tiles idea and looking towards linoleum/alloy claddings. So plan is to get the frames in, glue them in place, shape the panels and have them ready to either glue, or clad/skin and glue. So ideas on materials much appreciated.
Especially ones that can be glued in place - softish roll cut with the stanley knife would be my favourite especially if I could glue them with a glue that would let me move the material a bit to get a decent fit/match and then press it on.

I'll scan one of the recent plans for the cabin layout and post during the w/e

cheers

V.

 

[BartW]

The main head washbasin + the two shower trays go to a 330X186X111mm box (like the one mentioned earlier in the thread, fitted with a 750lph pump)
This goes (obviously) to another above w/l exit. OK, my terminology is carp but you get the point...


This way I only get 2 seacocks for the air con, one to suck water in, one to dump water out. Is the panel okay with that?

all my "whitewater" goes in a accumulation box (about 150l), and this empty's automatically when its full (unless I switch it off)
that pump is on a timer and automatically stops when the tank is empty
outlet is above water level obviously.

outlet of my airco seawater cirquit is also above water level

I have quite a few outlets on the stern, about 40cm above water level,
Airco, White water, washing machine, desalinator, bilge pump, backup bilge pump, blackwater,

 

[vas]

Thanks Bart,

that means that aircon only needs one hole below w/l!
Coming to think of it, yes it maybe a bit more noisy, but unlikely to be of issue as it will be running with the genny which is noisier

Looks like I only need:

bow:
inlet for two el/toilets
inlet for aircon
[backup inlet for anchor wash, may skip that now]

aft:
inlet for each engine
inlet for genny
inlet for watermaker

not bad

regarding the progress of works, I owe you a few pics from the port side patches:

I've done some progress on the stbrd side moving aft need a couple of metres to reach the P bracket-that's two days for me:

last pic shows how clean the hull is around here, except from the soaked in steering wheel fluid patch in the middle of the pic.


Finalising the framework for the rest of the heads bulkheads and even tested where the toilet will be placed.

Did spent a couple of hours dismantling and checking the el/toilets. JFM, you're right, they are very clean (I was postponing the job as I always thought it would be a filthy smelly mess...) Both macerators were slightly stuck, but a helping hand had them spinning nicely. Unfortunately the PO when converting from manual bought one motor at 24V and the other at 12V :argh: That's quite annoying as these motors do have a rather high amperage and I need to wire new cabling for it. Further it's not a mater of swaping them over if one fails and I want to use the other toilet more... So, will probably get another 24V motor and keep the 12V as a useless spare

Spent 9h yesterday folded in two, sanding/scrapping and hoovering the lower part of the hull around the stbrd cabin. Back hurts today, so tomorrow will do some stretching work. Time to remove the trim tabs and see what's happening there. The stbrd side is leaking. Interesting to identify the brand and model so I can get spares next week in Athens.
Need another day to finish sanding/cleaning the hull/frames from the amidship diesel tanks bulkhead to the anchor locker. V. happy as no more dust and mess about there other than the constructions deriving one.

cheers

V.

 

[capsco]

Vas Regarding cladding/lining for your heads bulkheads you could do a lot worse than using Mural Mouse, this is very easy to work with a stanley knife.

Have a look at Hawke House website they are in Gosport UK.

thanks again for the comments.
I think I have to try to explain the rationale behind my initial thought (before you eat me alive that is )

Since the hull is plywood, I'm very keen on having extremely dry bilges, hence the idea of routing all grey water straight out is valid. Alas, gravity and hull design wont allow it.
So following a few hours measuring and head scratching yesterday and today, I came up with a combo idea.
The bow cabin head washbasin dumps water straight out (that's the one mainly used when the two of us will be onboard).
The main head washbasin + the two shower trays go to a 330X186X111mm box (like the one mentioned earlier in the thread, fitted with a 750lph pump)
This goes (obviously) to another above w/l exit. OK, my terminology is carp but you get the point...
Now, first Q. Am I right in thinking that if the pump fails, the water doesn't overflow in the bilges but instead comes up to the lowest exit point (that being the shower trays) and then you spot the failure???

Considering that I'm about to shift the aircon from the utterly stupid and inaccessible place to a easier to reach spot under the corridor bed of the port cabin, I'm also thinking of dumping the condensation from that into the said box.
Any objections?

This way I only get 2 seacocks for the air con, one to suck water in, one to dump water out. Is the panel okay with that?

Also is the panel happy with ONE seacock feeding two el.marine toilets? Hope so!

Trying to finalize the seacock/holes layout in general on the cabin area, so that I can organise them in convenient places according to the hatches I'm planning.

Another seacock/hole related Q. Moving the heads towards the bow, means that throwing grey water out above the hard chine means that I'm maybe 300mm above w/l. Is that OK? Don't really want to go below the chine!


Now, I'm happy to report that MiToS will survive the next tsunami (as in it will float and not sink) as we replaced the 2nd port patch and now hull is complete! OK, last tsunami around here was just under 3K years ago, but it's good to be prepared for the worse
Unfortunately phone run out of battery so no proof, I'm afraid you have to believe me

On the heads bulkhead front, spent 4h yesterday to shape the first slanted panel, took only 15 test fits, marking/testing/cutting/retesting/recutting/sanding/etc
But now it's a perfect fit and very happy with it!

Next week should see us getting the frames for the other three panels properly aligned and secured in place.

Now, this securing in place of all the heads bulkheads has me worried a bit as I've not yet decided on their cladding and if I go for a glue in formica type of material then I might as well stick it in first and glue them afterwards
Thing is I'm slowly driving away from the tiles idea and looking towards linoleum/alloy claddings. So plan is to get the frames in, glue them in place, shape the panels and have them ready to either glue, or clad/skin and glue. So ideas on materials much appreciated.
Especially ones that can be glued in place - softish roll cut with the stanley knife would be my favourite especially if I could glue them with a glue that would let me move the material a bit to get a decent fit/match and then press it on.

I'll scan one of the recent plans for the cabin layout and post during the w/e

cheers

V.

 

[Divemaster1]

last pic shows how clean the hull is around here, except from the soaked in steering wheel fluid patch in the middle of the pic.

V... cannot stop thinking that whilst oil is water repellent, it also will prevent whatever you put on the outside won't "stick" ... so by not replacing, are you creating a future problem ??? Would just hate you going throught all this work, only to find a problem in a year or so .... Happy to be corrected as always !!

 

[MapisM]

FWIW, when I bought my boat, a couple of planks were a bit soaked from a previous spill of diesel inside the e/r.
And in fact, the a/f didn't stick to them for long, leaving small patches of wood exposed just a few weeks after hitting the water.
But it actually wasn't such a big problem, on one hand because the hull wasn't fouled anyway in those areas, and OTOH because they self-dried progressively.
The following year, it took longer for the a/f to detach, and in smaller areas.
After three seasons, those planks were just fine, and also from inside you would not even notice that anything ever happened.
Can't be positive that the same will happen to the above patches of course, but I see no reason why it shouldn't, either...

 

[vas]

capsco, thanks for the pointer, trying to figure out what to do...

I think that regarding this lining job, i've got a comms/terminology problem
Seems that for starters vinyl and leatherette are the same thing, right?
so foam lined vinyl is the 3 or 5mm foam on the back of a leatherette type of thing that MiToS originally had (and I just removed) Dont get me wrong, nothing wrong with that (and that's how I'm going to reline most of the craft anyway!), but for the shower/bathroom areas I'd like something harder/thicker to glue on.

JFM, I'm afraid that although I fully agree with you, I cannot really go for the formica, for starters a couple of bulkheads are already there and I cannot remove them no matter what! Unfortunately the one of them is the main shower area "wall"
Further, I can fit the whole heads layout/bulkheads within the next week and start the pipework if I decide that I'll choose the right material and stick it in in situ at a latter date. I know not the best, but cannot really afford the time and hassle atm. Got a few pressing jobs to do

On the oil in hull issue, Alf, before placing the two patches on the port side, I spent almost an hour with the 1800W hot air gun heating the ply/keel area (moving constantly the gun over the whole area). It did smoke a lot at the beginning, reduced after 15-20mins and eventually stopped after 45mins. CPES didn't have any adherance problems, epoxy on top of it was obviously fine. I think I'll do the same for the stbrd side keel area (after all it's mainly a strip 200mm by the keel plus a 400mm square patch just under the leak area) I'm pretty sure it will be fine, else I'll give it some time as MM did

Rest of the bulkhead frames for the rest of the heads were put up and glued/screwed on Sat, tomorrow I'm going to put back the first bit of flooring again so that I can stop feeling like a ballet dancer moving about the bow space... Back is eversoslightly hurting or should I better say annoying me, so tomorrow will be doing stretching with electrics as rain is predicted and will be a bit windy for me to work on the trim tabs as planned.
Photos tomorrow eve.

cheers

V.

 

[burgundyben]

and the finished article:

Vas,

I was a little unsure about that repair when you did it and I held back from mentioning it, but it crossed my mind today when I did a little job on Playtime, a wooden boat gets its strength largely from the continuity of the lengths of wood, in other words you cant build a boat from lots of little bits and glue.

A better job would be to pull the entire scantling out and replace. I guess now the bottom is on its too late, sure it'll be fine.

 

[vas]

Vas,

I was a little unsure about that repair when you did it and I held back from mentioning it, but it crossed my mind today when I did a little job on Playtime, a wooden boat gets its strength largely from the continuity of the lengths of wood, in other words you cant build a boat from lots of little bits and glue.

A better job would be to pull the entire scantling out and replace. I guess now the bottom is on its too late, sure it'll be fine.

Ben,

I was sure you didn't like something somewhere, as you've gone very quiet but np.
Regarding the point you make, you are if I may say so almost right.
Yes, you can argue that timber gets its strength from the continuity of beams and planks, but that is in order to keep sections small, light and manageable.
You are obviously aware of glulam (glue laminated) beams used for bldg frames and roofing beams spanning silly sizes up to 25+m. These rely on smallish pieces of timber (50x25x400mm or thereabouts) glued and pressed together to form beams of 70X160, 200X600 whatever you wish basically. There, strength comes from the sheer size of the material which in effect is considered to be continuous and its stress capabilities are evaluated with smaller safety coefficients since the material is free from knots and other non-continuity blemishes inherent in a natural material such as timber.
Now, the way I consider this "repair" and bearing in mind that it was 40% sound (as in only 50+ % of the section lost it's continuity) was to add a 20mm section on either side of the original 25mm section. Effectively doubling the section. Epoxy it and screw it through. In effect and considering the (bending) forces it will be receiving, I consider it slightly stronger than the neighbouring pieces of frame. If you also consider the way stresses distribute within the framework, the importance and loadbearing/load-distributing capabilities of 15mm ply, I'm pretty sure (as you say) that it'll be fine. Don't forget the whole skinned frame is a hyperstatic (ok, that's translating the greek term, ahem, not even translating it!, from my uni days of structure classes...) system with complex albeit smallish (relatively) forces being distributed all over the place from keel to deck and bulkheads.
My moto is repair but DONT overdo it in an unbalanced way since that'll create uneven distribution of forces somewhere (god knows where...) and that may create a failure of a seemingly sound frame in an odd/unexpected spot maybe somewhere at the other end of the hull... So keep it balanced is the way to go (IMHO!)

Now, regarding progress, there's been some

Bow cabin bulkheads are cut/test fitted and the first one glued in place:

stbrd cabin wardrobe side "wall" cut/fitted/glued in place:

Bow thruster is tried on, looking for the forwardmost place I could fit it, unfortunately there's no way it fits in front of the ex-crew cabin bulkhead (as it's almost level to the water line and there's no space for the motor!) so it's got to go to the next frame interval:

Measured carefully, drilled a 10mm through hole that goes just in the middle of the lower spray rails and made a couple of 185mm dia disks from 15mm ply to test fit the bowthruster chassis. Frames get in place so a slanted setup is to be employed leaving decent access to the toothed belt, to the 5kw motor (fck it's too heavy!) and still keep the tunnel 135mm below the w/l as specified in the QL manual.

Still looking for a 6mm 185mm dia tunnel, I may end up building one on a mold with epoxy and matt. I will use George's router to create solid timber sides to the tunnel taking up the slope so that the grp/epoxy tunnel will be sleeved into solid timber before being epoxied down to the hull. Yes, sounds complicated and labour intensive, but you'll see what I mean hopefully soon.

Sorted out all three cabin electrics with:
shore power/genny (proper 16A shucko (sp?) plugs)
separate 2pin 6A inverter power
2pin 24V plugs (some odd looking different thickness pins plugs for non-alternate current) probably for fans and tbh don't know what else, but we shall see!
USB sockets that will be delivering 1A@5V for all charging needs via a solidstate xformer (expected to arrive within the week)
They look good, just need the panels to drill the right holes to bolt them on (ok, that will wait but not in a hurry)

site is working very badly today, almost lost the whole text while editing, so I'll stop here and continue another time...

cheers

V.

 

[RIN]

Vas
I really enjoy your posts. I normally pick them up on my phone but wait until I am home and can sit down with the big monitor and see what you have done or are about to do.

Makes my Day

 

[rafiki_]

Vas, good progress again. Are you sure you can't find a thruster pipe? It does little work, so does not need to be too robust, as long as it can be bonded in effectively, as I see you are carrying the motor load on a different bracket.
I'm a bit envious of your Continental sockets, they are so much neater on a boat than our massive 3 pin jobs.

 

[vas]

Vas
I really enjoy your posts. I normally pick them up on my phone but wait until I am home and can sit down with the big monitor and see what you have done or are about to do.

Makes my Day

thanks, unfortunately the last few month pics are carp in quality as xperia x10minipro is over 2yrs old now but cannot justify getting a nice new phone just to cover it up in epoxy and dip it in sawdust atm...
More interesting stuff should be coming up over the next couple of weeks as I'm planning to uncover MiToS and start working on painting the exterior.

Got a mental deadline for end of June to get her back in the water (obviously unfinished) but we shall see...

Vas, good progress again. Are you sure you can't find a thruster pipe? It does little work, so does not need to be too robust, as long as it can be bonded in effectively, as I see you are carrying the motor load on a different bracket.
I'm a bit envious of your Continental sockets, they are so much neater on a boat than our massive 3 pin jobs.

Tunnel, I did find a co selling them at a reasonable cost but they dont answer the phone we'll see.
I'm not so sure on not being heavily loaded as there's going to be some stressing going on when working and for a 5KW motor I'd expect a soft start mechanism or something but it's plain relay switching!

yep continental sockets are lovely, can have a 16A 3pin schuko, couple of 3pin 1U 6-10A, a USB and a 24V all in 150mm!
Always thought that your massive fused plugs are OTT, but make up with an easier el.panel and installation

Working (with lots of disruption from real work!) both inside the bow cabin setting up the double bed frame and the hull stripping the last bit of a/f off the stbrd side.
Setting up the bed was a major task since as I've mentioned before the yard didn't manage to level the boat properly so I have to use a spirit level AND remember how much it's off in both axes... That's fun. Anyway, managed to secure the foot of the bed and George is now shaping and fitting the port side frame.
Iroco beams slightly oversized at 50x70mm are used throughout. Better safe than sorry (although tbh cannot fall that much down with a hull shape like that)

Sorted out a bit more cabling mess in the lower helm, organised nav lights into the BMS and redesigned the dash with the various toggles. Decided to embed the bowthruster joystick in there as well. So, dismantled it from it's nice 50X50 plate (anyone wants a brand new unused QL plate just shout!) and use one of the sturdy 35yo pull toggle switches for turning the thruster on/off, instead of it's plastic fantastic small rubber covered push button.
On Friday will have a session with a colleague in Athens regarding the redesign of the faceplate with laser cutter etching on 3mm vinyl (most likely) or pvc, glued on top of the 3mm aluminum original plate. Got to redesign the lettering or better find suitable legible signs for main nav lights/anchor light, dial/compass light, etc. May even use one of these toggles to operate uwls

Only bit of cabling work missing at helm is to sort out the 3cables sending the signal to the windlass and route new supply cable for the inverter from the e/r. The last one doesn't count atm as it's part of a serious bending session in the e/r to sort out the mess there and rebuilt the battery tray that has partially collapsed.

Even had sometime to test the RS8100 Shipmate VHF with a new antenna. Made a silly mistake and bought a cable 25cm too short to fit the VHF where I wanted (under the helm seat) so got to improvise yet again.

Doubt I'll have time for an update tomorrow, so next installment will be on Sat

cheers

V.

 

[newWave]

Setting up the bed was a major task since as I've mentioned before the yard didn't manage to level the boat properly so I have to use a spirit level AND remember how much it's off in both axes...

Would it be possible to make 2 wedges to create an offset for your leveler ? That way you only need to remember to use the correct wedge for the correct axis.

 

[vas]

Would it be possible to make 2 wedges to create an offset for your leveler ? That way you only need to remember to use the correct wedge for the correct axis.

yes I could, but wont be extremely easy unless I find a way to attach the wedges to the spirit level else I need a few more hands to hold the level/wedge against an also moving piece of timber I want to level...

ah, should be alright at the end, after all when in the water you cannot really use a spirit level and all shapes are approximate

some more progress following my trip to Athens to pick up the watermaker and buy a grey water tank, marelon skin fittings and a few more jobs. BTW, failed to complete half of them since many of the items I wanted weren't in stock in many cases weren't even planning to reimport them

Anyway, got to find a decent dealer to order all my Marelon skin fittings (2x1.25, 3X3/4 and a 1/2 all with seacocks)
Guidi strainers were the only ones I could buy but half of them were of the wrong type (side inlet whereas I want bottom in, side out)

So, to sum it all up, looking to order via the web, preferably from UK or DE, any pointers welcomed!

Relative success in the grey water tank, the Whale one suggested in the other thread, was in stock, and finally opted for the 16lt one as the 8lt looked too small to me tbh.
Looks like a v. sturdy construction, cover screws on with a rubber seal as I wanted it The sensor is a two stage one with no moving bits secured on the lid.
No gulper 320 24V though so on the web also for that...

On Thu, I thought I'd remove a trim tab just to see if I can find spare seals (one is leaking)
A couple of hours later I had the one ram dismantled. Looks like dead easy to replace seals, so going to get seals on Monday and rebuilt (well rather refit them...)
sorry for the carpy pics

On the bow cabin most of the bed frame is secured in place. Spend over an hour today, just looking at the space left after the bed will be in place to figure out how I'm going to built the cabinets around there. Plenty of odd space that will have to be utilised up there.

Started marking the cut for the bowthruster as I managed to find someone selling decent quality/thickness tunnels down here so a 5mm thick, 185mm intdia, 750mm long tunnel is in order. Not sure it makes sense to mark from inside, so will do the marking from outside and cut with my dremmel most likely.

more on Mon, rest day tomorrow

V.

 

[vas]

keep on working on the chaotic style I like; work on 3-4 different things at the same time and keep the whole boat and house in a apparent mess...

So today managed to cut the hull for the bow thruster. Had already done a single 10mm through hole I was happy with.
Passed through it a 10mm ss pipe that a M8 (I think) goes nicely through it. Then threaded the two plywood disks I'd cut for test fitting the thruster frame position and used a thin strip of straight timber to level against the two and mark the hull:

Started cutting but with the sprayrail and internal iroko stringer (or whatever you call them...) there was no way I could do it with a dremmel. I'd be still now there working on it
So removed the bottom plate of my good old reciprocative saw and tried to align the blade to the through ss pipe and cut around leaving around 7-12mm to spare.
That "to spare" may be actually a great pain to trim as I'm still thinking how I'm going to grind that. I'm not aware of any barel shaped 24-30grit paper I could use, so may resort to some metal tools I've inherited from my father (30+ yo tools...)

the plug that came of the stbrd side [fcked up the port side with testing tools...]:

the hole:

and the inside vew:

I'm planning to fill at least 200mm on each side with timber shaped properly around the tunnel and epoxied down to the hull and adjucent frames. That'll be this weeks work for me (ahem together with teaching, participating in a workshop, taxiing the kids around (wife's away till Fri) and general other jobs...)

Talking about inside, random progress by George and myself means that we now have in place and glued properly the bulkhead between bow cabin and its heads.
Also most of the bed framework is in place and epoxied (as can be seen in the bottom of next pic) the bit not finished is to leave space to work on the bowthruster.

At the same time in the evenings I work on various other small jobs. Yesterday's one was fitting the 30V ->5V DC solid state transformers that JTRB suggested in another thread months ago. They are attached to some nice VIMAR IDEA USB ports so that I can charge all types of cameras/phones/mp3/4s/etc without having to carry and keep all sorts of odd chargers around. So these take 24V from the socket next to them and drop it down to 5V. After the initial swearing and messing about with lighting, presviopia glasses (that I'm not that good with still), magnifying lenses et al, managed to do the first three assemblies and wrap them up with thermosilicon. Happy to report that they do work just fine and today I charged my mobile while at the boat with that, well pleased
Another 8 to go

Finally I've been slowly rewiring the cabins with sensors, switches and led lights. That's going to be a low priority job done mainly when too knackered to do serious work or when too bloody hot. Lower helm temps today where around 30, hopefully cabins and saloon were much cooler. Got to find a way to extract air from this area as it's unbearable. More to that later.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Ummmm, your thruster tunnel is going to be challenging. I would have used a cutter with the right diameter, going through the horizontal plane. This only works of course if you have the right tools. Too late now though . I can't think of any simple way to machine out the holes now, sorry!!

Can you send over some of your heat please? Its still firkin chilly here, although the forecast is predicting a heatwave next week............18C

 

[vas]

Ummmm, your thruster tunnel is going to be challenging. I would have used a cutter with the right diameter, going through the horizontal plane. This only works of course if you have the right tools. Too late now though . I can't think of any simple way to machine out the holes now, sorry!!

tunnel should be okay raf, not going to be passing the grp tube end to end to the hull, the tube will stay two ply thickness inside the hull (so that I can chamfer the hole the way I'd like and still have a few doughnuts of ply around it. All that mess nicely mated, screwed and epoxied together.
Spend a couple of hours yesterday on the tunnel edges and with a 20mm dia 40mm long rasp like tip on a powerdrill worked slowly to a decent shape.
Will use a foam filled 3mm carton wrapped around the two ply hole mocks in order to get the hull to tube shape exactly right before chopping the tunnel. May have some pics tomorrow as I've got a massive list of things to do and not sure what I'll end up doing...

right, progress on various fronts:

stripped a bit more on the stbrd side and now only got 1.5m to the stern! on port side i've only got 1m left. I recon three straight days of work, but not yet.

Took me a morning to rip the whole galley apart, get the two cabinets down to the ground (that turns out to be an issue from that height, and not at all keen at getting the same way the refurbed/laquered cabinets back inside!), and even removed the galley floor to be repaired and relayed with new 12mm ply. Remember that the PO had done another botch job at creating a crypt under the galley floor but half the supports failed in the process and floor was rather wobbly

old fridge out. It's a 220V/24V Vertifrigo one, works fine is rather small so it's moving to a custom slot in the salon cabinet (after some mods that'll explain in another post). Check the state of the radiator fins! A much newer waeco 70lt job sourced s/h last month will JUST fit under the worksurface.

corner cabinet out of the way. Have the useable space (already small!) in it were wasted by some aircon piping. Exceptionally silly layout, all to be reorganised now.

Nice edging out of polyester filler (by the looks of it) on the prep surface. fugly!

the main cabinet complete with cooker sink et al. Note the splash surface which is actually a clever three piece that folds over the whole lot making for a nice and clean surface. Doubt it's ever going to be used and still not decided if I'm going to refit that lot or go for one piece formica clad surface.

ss top removed just plain cabinet. It's in surpisingly good condition consider the leaks from under the taps and drain...

Cabinet is a tight fit between the bulkheads. Half a dozen bronze screws and off it goes.

Leak, what leak? the bottom of the cabinet will be replaced as well as a small part of the stern side upright.

Removing this part was a bit tricky as we had to lift it over the saloon bulkhead, turn it 90degrees and over the two steps to the salon. Would like to have a third set of hands on refit

messy floor. Actually only a quarter of it was delaminated from the sink. Er, and another quarter was chopped by po...

Clean! 3 1/2 frames missing. Redone today by George, will test fit the floor tomorrow.

All this galley removal meant that lots of bits and bobs (tools, el bits, items to be fitted, screws, et al) had to be shifted to other places. Guess where they all went

Yes, I know, got to tidy up, but I'm still removing stuff at an alarming rate, I wonder when I'll finish with that!

I promised a plan of the current layout for the cabins, managed to photo one I'm working on, so here it is:

Port cabin floor refit has started. Decided to fit two rather massive iroko beams and support them every two frames. Then will screw/glue two 15mm ply plates to the stringers reaching leveling to the beams. Then, the floor will be bolted/glued down so that I'll only have flooring where I want to, i.e. between the beds and entrance and NOT under the beds! This way it's much easier to see what's happening, plus I get a massive space under the corridor side bed to put a large black water tank and whatever else I feel
There'll be a large hatch between the beds for extra storage and (MAINLY) inspection. Yeah, I know I'm maybe organising the refit based on hull access for inspection and remedy actions, but that's piece of mind for me.

Will be again away in Athens for a few days, George got enough work to do at his workshop repairing cabinets and doing the prep work for the final laquer to be applied end of next week.

cheers

V.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Vas I really do take my hat off to you. There is no way in a million years that I would attempt what you're doing, and I bet most people would take years and years rather than a year and a bit to get to where you are now. Very much looking forward to seeing the end results. Still anticipate it being mid summer?