Another week where I got little done, I had a trip to Melbourne on Monday, and meetings in Sydney all day Thursday, and another body part starting to show wear and tear. I must have slept in a strange position on Monday night, exhausted after a really long day in Melbourne, a 9am meeting meant I was up at 3am and when I woke Tuesday I had a sore neck. I thought nothing of it expecting it would go away after a couple of days. But on Thursday not only did I have the sore neck but now I had pain running down my arm and numbness in my arm and tingling in my thumb. I saw a physio on Friday who told me the inflammation in my neck was likely pinching a nerve causing the numbness and tingling and it could take another week or so to to away. So not much done during the week, the most I got done was to have all of the glass tapes cut to size for the bedroom wall tapes, and to strip off some peel ply.
Today I coved and taped the 2 bedroom walls. I had already cut the tapes so I started with the coving. I coved all 4 sides before starting on the taping, that way they will have had a chance to go off a little before going back to the first one and taping it. I moved the resin and hardener to the boat to save having to constantly climb up and down off the boat. I wet out the tapes on a length of ply on the foredeck that has about 20 layers of resin on it as it is my usual wet out table. Once each sides tapes were on I put peel ply on to finish them. It took me half the day to do the 24 tapes (4 panel side, 3 edges, 2 tapes each). I used to attempt one long tape around the 90 degree corners, now I use 3 tapes instead. Much easier, same amount of glass and resin and just as effective. Once done I stopped for lunch.
After lunch I started work on the port side deck. I marked the position of bulkhead 6 and after measuring the distance from hull centreline to dagger case centreline I was able to mark the dagger case centreline on the side deck (very easy as the edge of the sidedeck is the hull centreline). From that centreline I was able to draw the dagger case outline in the correct place on the deck. I then cut it out with a jigsaw. I wont know for sure that it is exactly right until I put the side deck back onto the boat over the dagger case but I am confident it is right. I checked the piece I cut out against the dagger case and it is the correct size so it is just a matter of the cut-out being in the correct place and the sidedeck should slide over the protruding case and against the bulkheads in exactly the right position. Next I sanded the inside of the entire side deck. Once back on the boat it needs to be keyed so that the glass to each bulkhead and to the hull panels along the edge will adhere properly. There are also a number of bubbles under the glass on the port side as I had trouble lifting the panel back onto the boat to set when the inside glass was wet and it flexed causing a number of bubbles. I ground the raised glass off the top of the bubbles and will now need to glass over them again. I will use tapes, the whole surface does not need to be re-glassed just where the glass is ground away. I am not concerned about the raised glass of the tape as I wont be fairing inside the sidedeck, it will be covered with foam backed vinyl lining everywhere except in the bathroom.
The sanding took most of the rest of the day. With the little time that was left I lifted the dash panels into place to get a rough idea of how they will fit and how the space through the cabin side wrap around will allow me to have some of the wrap around window through into the bedrooms, a result of the raised dash height. The front of the wrap around in the bedrooms now has room for a full size hatch through to the deck and the wrap around window can go past the dashboard so as to cover both the saloon and the bedroom. The dash wont get glued on until after the saloon wrap around is on as the raised dash changes the shape of the dash so it will need to be trimmed to the correct shape once the saloon wrap around is on. I will probably make a cardboard template from the inside shape and then transfer that to the dash and cut it.
The reason I put the dash on was to ensure the side decks are in the correct place and prepare to glue them on. It also creates another great work space. With the side decks in place and the dash sitting in place, the size of the bunks starts to fully emerge, headroom also.
Tomorrow I will continue with a variety of smaller jobs. I was not able to work as fast as usual today due to the numbness in my thumb and I am sure tomorrow will be similar. Not to worry, any progress is better than none, hopefully my body wont completely fall apart until I finish!
