The saloon seat top is finished but not yet glassed onto the lounge. There is still some work to do inside each space that is better done before the lid goes on. Such things as pvc pipes need to be glassed into places to house wiring that will cross the boat from the battery chamber that takes the middle compartment to where the main panel and inverter will be in the port hull and across to the main points where a lot of the power will go, the nav cupboard behind (or in front of depending on your aspect) the helm on the other side of the bulkhead, and of course the kitchen.
The top took me pretty much all day to create. Cutting ply plates including corners and gluing them on to each ply cutout out and at the same time joining all of the parts that make up the top took that long. Once the glue sets (it is held in place until then with screws) I will glass the bottom of the top. Then once the top is glued on I will glass the top. And then give it a coat of white epoxy to finish it. I also still have to cut the lids, I have cut one of them and you can see how neatly it looks with the base on holding it in place, all that is visible is the thin line that is the 2 edges, the seat top and the lid.
After the lid is glassed on (or perhaps before it doesn’t matter) will be to build the island end on the port side to complete the lounge. And on to the rest of the cupboards in the main cabin. Now that the side decks are on 2 of the cupboards form bulkheads with doors for the aft cabin on the starboard side and the bathroom on the port side so these too can be made and fitted, only this time I will do the doorway decore and uni rope fill off the boat. In order to bring light and air back into the boat now that both the side decks are on, I have also cut out the starboard side main window at the helm. Another reason to remove this window is that the helm protrusion up into the window space is a good point to anchor a ratchet strap to pull down the side deck to glue and glass it on. I did this on the port side before cutting that protrusion off, as there will be no helm wheel on that side of the boat. I am considering an emergency helm point on the port side, as I will have hydraulic steering it is just a matter of putting another servo on the port side with a method of steering, in my case I am going to put a female of the winch handle so that a winch handle can be used as an emergency wheel should I ever need to steer into a pen or marina needing to be on the port side.
So with a couple of hours till in the day I decided to get a start on the tough work involved in glassing the side decks on, sanding down the glued join inside and out. I have not yet glued the top join yet and it is the inside of this join that is the hardest work sanding smooth but the grinder still feels like 20kgs after just a few minutes on the lower join parallel to the body but the overhead work is truly brutal, not looking forward to it.. So with the outside ground smooth and the series of shorter inside runs also smooth I can glass them. I wont glass the outside until I have the top join ready for glass also as there is no point setting up the wombat twice. The process of taping with the wombat is so efficient I can get both tapes on in less than an hour, alone once the joins are ready to be taped, so glued, ground smooth and cleaned.
During the week I will start work on the next piece of furniture and tape the shorter inside tapes between each bulkhead on the hull to side deck join. And with any luck I will get the top join glued. It is a bit more difficult as the gap is a bit bigger (not as big as the one on the port side but big enough for gravity to cause the glue to sag) and gravity is not your friend. I think the gap is narrow enough that thick glue will stay in place long enough to set but first I have to get the 2 edges pulled into each other flush. I will do that tomorrow evening.
