Because I knew I would not get any work done on the boat for the next couple of days I decided to get the last shelf glassed into the main galley cabinet which only leaves the top to make. Yesterday I glassed the conduits onto the deck (under the bottom shelf) and glassed the left section of the bottom shelf into the cupboard, the right one was already in and the middle section is removable. There are 4 services required in this cupboard. Both hot and cold water in and the waste out take up the 2 main conduits. There will also need to be 12v in to power the starters on the hob and 240 volts in to power the convection microwave and to a double power points I will put above the bench top. There are a multitude of kitchen appliances that may need power not least of which might be a bread maker. I am told they dont use much power and there might be times that there is no other way to get fresh bread than to make it ourselves.
First step today was to decore the hole I drilled through the bulkhead to take the conduit that will be for the copper gas pipe. The reason for the decore is that the bulkhead is too important to risk getting any moisture into the core and even though there will be a plastic conduit glued into the hole and the hole is inside the boat, it is so easy to decore and back fill and too big a risk not to. The structural integrity of the boat depends on the 4 cross boat bulkheads. My method of decore is an allen key in a drill and let it rotate into the soft balsa core reaming out the wood. You can pull the allen key against the inside of the skin to remove the balsa to get a glass to glass seal of glue. Then over fill the void with glue, insert the piece of conduit and clean up the excess glue. Done. The whole job takes less than 10 minutes.
Then having already dry fit the middle shelf to mark its position I repositioned it and coved and glassed it in. This took a while longer because of the difficulty in glassing the underside in 30 degree heat in the tight space between the 2 shelves. I am considering wearing a headband to stop the sweat that drips into my eyes. Anyway, perhaps I make it sound harder than it was but I decided to get the harder part done first then it was a very simple matter to cove the top of the shelf to the bulkhead and cupboard walls.
We have had a change of mind since our last entry. We had decided on a combination sink and hob but unfortunately they only come with the the hob to the left and sink to the right but we want our sink on the left and hob to the right. There are 2 brands, Dometic and Smev and both have them the same way and dont make them the other way. So we will fit a separate sink to the left and hob to the right. The sink is one we bought at Ikea ages ago. A round, stainless steel one and it only cost $49. It is sitting under the middle shelf in the middle pic above.
That pretty much finishes the construction on the galley cupboard. Still a drawer to hang above the oven but I will do that once the oven is fitted and of course I still have a big job in making the slide out pantry. Then the top and fitting of the sink and hob and the tapware. But I need some more material for these jobs so they will wait until next month. In the next week between xmas and New Year I will start to tie up some loose ends and finish off some of the furniture jobs around the boat I have left undone.
Happy Christmas. Hopefully the last one building the boat.
