Author: Mark Austen

Today is the day I start to cut out and construct the starboard side of the centerplate case. So, bright and early I hied me down to the workshop to make a start, only to realise that before I can cut a single piece of marine plywood, I have to clear up.

A lot !

This is the state of the work table and what you can’t see under that lot is the router and I’ll need that soon. That looks like chaos but it isn’t as random as it may seem.

This is the plywood cutting table and you can see the mess that has on it at the top of the photo. Again, if looks chaotic but there is some organisation in the mess. Still, it all has to be removed from the table for two reasons. Firstly, the marine plywood is under the shuttering ply that you can see on the top and secondly, I need at least 6′ of cleared space to cut the pieces and the entire table is just 8′ long.

So I spent the rest of the morning doing a massive cleanup of those two tables. The junk, rubbish and such like got binned, some wooden scraps were put on the fire. That was a mistake since they were damp and the workshop filled with smoke. I had to open all three doors to allow the very light breeze to blow that away.

Then the remainder was sorted into boat bits, non-boat bit and tools. Then, starting with the tools, a home as found for all of them except the thirty or so T-bar hex keys I have. those were put out of the way for now, I’ll have to make some sort of rack for those. Mind you, I’ve been saying that for the last two years.

The non-boat bits were found a home and the boat bits were divided into Shoal Waters’ bits, Naiad’s bits and other and then sorted out. I also went through the pile of wood removed from Shoal Waters and put the usable chunks somewhere as I will be wanting to use those for making other parts for the boat later on.

And here is the result. A fairly clean and uncluttered table, you can even see the router.

And the plywood cutting table, also clean and uncluttered with a piece of 6 mm marine plywood on top, ready to go.

However, by this point my throat was dry and dusty from sweeping up the dust and sawdust, so…

Time for a cup of tea.

Some time later…

Having taken a break and had some lunch, it was time to start cutting the inner and outer sides for the centerplate case.

I arranged the two templates on the marine ply making sure that they didn’t take up more than half the width of the sheet. I drilled the locating holes in the marine ply so that I can locate the two pieces later on. Then I drew around each template.

This is the result. I used a utility knife to score along the pencil lines where the lines cross the grain to prevent tear out.

The pieces were cut out using a jigsaw and I tried to keep just on the outside of the pencil lines. The two pieces came out quite well. I used 120 grit sandpaper to tidy up the edges.

Once that was done I put the templates onto the marine ply using the locating holes to get them in the correct position.

You can see the the marine plywood protrudes a little past the template. I used a splodge of hot glue at either end to ensure that the pieces stayed together and then it was over to the router.

I used a top following trim router bit to cut the marine ply to the exact size of the templates. An easy job now that the work table is cleared.

Another view of the template on top of the marine ply after being trimmed.

I didn’t use much hot glue deliberately so the pieces came apart easily without destroying the expensive marine ply nor the cheap template.

It Is quite satisfying to peel the hot glue off the wood in one piece.

So, there we are. The inner and outer case laminates for the starboard side of the centerplate case ready to be epoxied together.

I put the two pieces together using the locating holes to get them in the correct position and put the top runner in place, just to see what it looked like.

What is quite amazing is that the time from laying the templates on the marine plywood to taking this photo of the two completed laminates is just one hour, and the result is pretty much perfect. I don’t need to offer these up to the boat to know that they will fit. I will, but I don’t need to. The templates fitted and so will these.

The other nice thing about making templates is that you know that the templates are temporary and made of cheap plywood, so if you make a mistake, no big deal. You patch it and carry on. And when it comes time to make the other side, well the templates are ready to be used for that as well.

The next step in the process is to epoxy these two pieces together and for that I’ll be working in the house where the temperature is more suited to epoxy work.

Here are most of the pieces for the vacuum bagging. Vacuum pump, epoxy and pumps, hose and fittings, vacuum gauge, butyl tape, teflon tape, heavy duty plastic sheet and Wonder Wipes. I still have to find suitable netting for the breather layer and a sturdy flat piece of wood that is flat, long enough and wide enough on which to place the laminates, but for today, I’m done.

Time for a cup of tea.

Even though the temperature is several degrees warmer than yesterday, I didn’t make an early start because, well, it’s Sunday.

The first task of the day is to complete the outer plywood template and to that end I took the top runner and the template, that had been curing and drying indoors, down to the workshop.

The top runner was clamped to the inner template in the correct position such that the outer template can be adjusted to fit between the runner and the block.

This is the result after several adjustments using the belt sander being careful only to take off small increments at a time. I discovered that contrary to my previous thought that the bottom of the top runner is not straight but curves down slightly at either end. By slightly I mean about 1 mm at the front and 3 mm at the back. Still, this is 6 mm cheap plywood and it doesn’t take much work with the belt sander to remove the excess.

The aft end of the outer template will probably need to be adjusted since I gauged the correct line by eye at this point as the bottom runner hasn’t been made yet.

As you can see here, the outer template looks as though it meets the correct line but I won’t know for sure until the bottom runner is in place.

With the two templates clamped together it was an easy job to slide the case side into place and I was able to see how it looks. It was a trifle awkward with all the cramps hanging off the side, but once inside the cabin the side fitted well into the space.

The very front end will need a little more work at the bottom, but I think I’ll not worry about that for the template and cut the real pieces oversize at that end and then adjust the real plywood to make a tight fit.

I did add a small extension to the front end of the outer template and I’ll cut that back to match the inner template once the glue has fully cured. Cyanoacrylate glue (or CA glue also known as SuperGlue) this time, so it didn’t take long.

This is the result of a little more work with the belt sander and this completes the outer template.

Time to move onto the next part, but first…

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task on the list is to make the bottom runner. This is 25 mm wide, 30 mm high and about 1.6m long. It will be screwed and glued to the outside of the case and screwed down against the keel. When it is fitted it will have adhesive on the bottom so as to make a good waterproof seal with the keel.

I bought a plank of Sapele that is 2500mm long, 150 mm wide and 38 mm thick and the bottom runners for both sides will be cut from this.

The cutting of the runners was straightforward, but both ends needed to be cut at an angle to match the runners already in place.

I cut a plywood template first and the used the mitre saw to cut the runner. all easy stuff. This is the aft end and the first end cut.

The forward end was a little more complicated to cut since the keel has a curve in and I had to kneel on the runner to press it to the keel in order to get the correct angle. Once again it was a case of little by little until the fit was as good as I was going to get.

I clamped the runner to the keel with an F-cramp to check the fit.

And all seemed to be well. You can see that there is a slight gap between the runner and the keel here but it was a little too difficult to get another cramp in here, so I didn’t bother.

So, after some time of destruction and template making, the construction of the centerplate case replacement sides has begun. I had a very late lunch at this point and decided that this was a good plate to stop the case work for today. The next part is cutting out the side pieces from the marine plywood and I want to be awake and rested for that.

But if I can find a couple of small jobs to do then I might do those this afternoon, but don’t bank on it !

Time for a cup of tea.

The evening was cold and condensation was forming over just about everything and I remembered that I had left the main hatch on Shoal Waters and Naiad open as well as leaving Naiad’s cockpit cover off to dry. So, I went down to the boats and closed hatches and took the now sodden cover into the workshop.

Whilst I was there I thought that I would get thing ready for tomorrow and glue a small piece of plywood to the piece from which I was going to cut the outer template, it being about 100 mm too short. This would mean that I had a long enough piece of plywood from which to cut the template tomorrow.

Now, the top edge of the cardboard template is straight so it made sense to put this edge on the straight edge of the plywood and cut a piece wide enough to shape the piece tomorrow. So I drew along the curved edge, positioned the plywood and set to with the jigsaw and just cut out the curved bit anyway.

Then I measured up the piece to glue on, glued it on and put two pieces of gash plywood over the butt joint to hold it, took it indoors and propped it up against the Rayburn to warm up.

I hadn’t intended to cut this piece out, but I did it anyway.

Here’s the outer plywood template warming up.

And a close up of the but joint with the two pieces of plywood nailed over the joint to hold it in position whilst the glue dries. The plastic film is to prevent the gash pieces from being glued to the template.

Took all of 30 minutes !

Time for a cup of tea.

The aim of the work on Shoal Waters today is to get as much of the plywood template for the centerplate case side finished. It was a cold morning today, so I delayed getting started until about 09:30, not because it warmed up any but rather because I hate working in the cold!

First on the list was the shaping of the top runner extension and as you can see from the above photo, it came out quite well. I could have used a small hand plane for this, but I’m not that good with a plane so I used the belt sander to do the work. Much less chance of me messing it up that way.

However, as I was sanding the new piece I noticed that the old piece had some rot. You can see it here. It’s not that deep and seems to be where the wood has not been painted or varnished so the water has been allowed to penetrate and stay. This is the bottom of the runner.

There are several other spots along the underside of the runner showing signs of rot so once I have completed the tasks that require the runner I’ll take in indoors and soak the rotten parts with the Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer, or CPES, that was formulated specifically for this kind of situation. I took the tins of the epoxy inside straight away as the temperature need to be higher than 10 Celsius, even for the cold weather formula, and it’s a lot lower than that outside today.

The template was put into position with some block on the inside of the slot to stop the template from falling down and the top runner clamped into position. You can see the extension looking out from the inside.

From the outside and above you can see that it extends just a little past the end of the aft block giving me a little wiggle room. This will be shaped to the original form once the case is ready to be installed.

Notice that there is a gap between the template and the block of about 2mm. The original plywood seems to have been 8mm thick and although I could have bought that for the replacement, the inside of the case will be coated with neat epoxy, then a layer of 300g glass mat, then another layer of epoxy and finally a layer of epoxy containing graphite powder. All this is likely to be around 2mm thick so that gap should disappear with the finished case side.

The inside blocks served their purpose well but I did find that the sides of the slot are not parallel and it is wider at the center than at the ends. Not a problem, just that when I cut the blocks to wedge the case side in place after gluing, I need to remember that the slot width varies and cut the blocks accordingly.

With the top runner now clamped in the correct position I was able to mark the top and bottom of the runner into the template. The template will be cut back to the top line and the bottom line will be used for making the outer template.

The two lines can be seen here with the “real” top line being the left line close to the top, not the right hand one.

Several small blocks were cut to match the width and height of the bottom runner, the dimensions of which I took from the runner in Naiad. One block was used to pencil in the line that will be the bottom of the outer template by putting the pencil on the top of the block, both against the plywood and running the block along the keel timber.

The blocks were subsequently fixed to the template with hot glue. Glue was applied to the correct face of the block, the block was placed on the keel and the glued face pressed against the template.

No errors so far and a good place to stop for lunch.

After lunch and a cup of tea, and since I was inside in the warm, I decided that they next task would be the rot in the top runner.

I use two syringes to measure small quantities of the epoxy components and you can see that I’ve labelled them to avoid having the syringes epoxied shut by getting them the wrong way around.

I mixed up 20 ml of CPES, more than enough for this job, but better too much than too little, and flooded the rotted wood with the mixture. Once the rotten areas stopped absorbing the epoxy I applied the remainder to any bare wood so as not to waste the epoxy. this stuff isn’t cheap. The runner was carefully placed on the Rayburn. At this temperature the epoxy should be tacky in an hour and cured in 24.

Now for the cardboard template for the outer layer of the centerplate side. That’s a mouthful !

I drew straight lines on the plywood template at each block up to the line that marked the bottom of the top runner, measured the distance from the block to that line and write the value on the block.

I reused the cardboard inner template since it already has the bottom curve and I’m not going to need it for anything else. Having clamped this into position I drew straight lines from the blocks, measured up the values marked on the block and made a mark on the cardboard. Repeat for all the blocks.

Join up the marks and cut along the line.

So far so good. No mistakes yet.

Now offer it up to the plywood template and check that the top edge matches the line drawn on the plywood. It did, so press on.

Now I need an extension cardboard piece to match the aft block. First cut this to the line of the keel.

Then use the bottom runner blocks to mark where the bottom should be and cut away the excess and glue it to the rest of the outer template.

Still no mistakes.

Now for the other end.This just needed a piece to fill in as shown above, nothing difficult about this part.

Still no mistakes. I’m beginning to get that “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling.

While the plywood template is clamped in position I pushed a pencil through the pivot bolt hole in the other case side to mark the correct position on the starboard side and drilled a 10 mm hole in the template. Having done this there is no reason to leave the port side of the case in place and I can remove it in due course.

Not really looking forward to it, well not the tricky end bits, but there’s nothing to stop me from doing this task now.

Finally, for this sprint, I cut the top of the plywood template off to the marked line.

Still no errors but I cannot do any more on this as the next bit needs the top runner and the epoxy on that isn’t cured yet.

so…

Time for a cup of tea.

The main task for today is to cut out the plywood template for the inner case side. All but the bottom of the template are straight lines and are thus easy to deal with but the curved bottom is a little more difficult to cut. I cut all the easy straight edges which then left me with a fairly long piece of plywood that I cut on the bandsaw.

This is the result. But this is not the finish of the plywood template, just the first stage of a number of stages.

I’ve cut the top edge about 10mm too large since I’m not entirely sure where the top will be and won’t know until the top runner has been extended replacing the part that had to be cut off as it was screwed to the aft block from the inside the case and thus inaccessible. Once the extension of the top batten is done I’ll be able to clamp the runner in the correct place for and aft and that will give me the top line on the template and I’ll be able to mark and cut the template to the correct shape.

Then it was a case to offer up the template, see where it doesn’t fit, mark the adjustments, take the template back into the workshop, make the adjustments, rinse and repeat until the template fits.

This is made more difficult as the template is a little floppy and keeps on falling off the keel slot lip. Still, only the front end of the template needed to be adjusted due to my not being able to get a clean edge with a chisel because of the access restrictions.

Time for a cup of tea.

Some time later…

The edges of the top runner on each side of the case are not parallel, so my next task was to find a piece of old Shoal Waters Mahogany from which to cut the piece that will extend the top runner back to its original length. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds as most of the offcuts had saw cut, nails, old screws and splits and sometimes all at once.

After about an hour of careful measurement, marking, cutting and shaping I had a suitably shaped piece for the extension.

This is where it needs to go and once I have glued the pieces together I’ll round over the corners on the outside of the extended bit to match the old part.

The pieces, glue and cramps were brought inside as it is now late afternoon and the temperature is dropping now that the sun is setting.

In order to give the glue the best change to cure the higher temperature indoors is needed. Here you can see that I have applied the glue to ends but not yet put them together. This is because the parts of the piece to be glued are end grain and if you just glue them together directly, the joint is not very good as the grain wicks away the glue. The recommended procedure is to apply a thin layer of glue to each surface and then wait 10-15 minutes for the glue to be absorbed into the grain. Then apply some more glue to each surface and clamp the two surfaces together firmly.

Fifteen minutes or so later the joint has been assembled and clamped. There is a straight edge clamped to one side of the joint to hold the pieces in the correct position and baking paper used to stop the glue from sticking the straight edge to the work piece.

I’ll leave this for a few hours, remove the cramps and then move the workpiece close to the Rayburn for the night.

The old case side came out in pieces, so it is very interesting to see just how big the side of the centerplate case is when it is in one piece. This is not the end of the story as the outer layer of the case side extends further aft by about 200mm, so the complete side will be quite long. This is not that surprising when you consider that Shoal Waters’ centerplate is 5′ long or 1,524mm. Naiad’s plate is longer still.

Shoal Waters’ plate compared to the template I made of Naiad’s plate. Not sure why they are different. I wonder if Shoal Waters’ plate was cut down or originally that size?

Putting Naiad’s plate onto the case template in approximately the correct position shows that the case is only just large enough for the plate.

The next tasks on the list to complete the plywood templates are:

• Shape the extension of the top runner and use it to mark the correct top edge of the inner template.
• Make some spacers and hot glue them to the template such that they are inside the slot.
• Clamp the template in place.
• Cut some short pieces the same width and height as the bottom runner and fix to inner template (hot glue then screw).
• Mark the location of the pivot bolt hole.
• Drill the pivot bolt hole and check that the hole is correct.
• Cut a cardboard template for the outer piece of the case side.
• Cut a plywood template from the cardboard template.
• Clamp the inner template in position and adjust the outer template to fit.
• Drill the pivot bolt hole through the outer template.

Sounds like quite a lot, but , if nothing goes wrong, I should be able to complete that lot in a day. We will see.

Time for a cup of tea.

It is a dreary, wet and slightly cold day today, not at all conducive to doing anything outside. On the good side, there is no wind ! Still, I dragged myself out to the boat during a tea break and carried out a couple of quick tasks. The first was to cut out a new cardboard template piece and glue it to the bigger template.

Here is the result and as you can see, the template now ends in the expected point.

The second task was to select a chunk of removed Mahogany to use to “repair” the top batten that had to be cut short in order to remove it. This chunk will be used for both sides of the new case.

To be fair, this was not a task that I expected to do today, although it is on my list of tasks, but I tripped over the block of wood during today’s first task which reminded me that it needed to be done.

The third task was to slip a piece of 6mm marine plywood into the slot in the keel and see how much of the bottom lip protrudes. The lip seems to be about 7mm, although it is not easy to measure and thus it does stick out past the 6mm plywood. However, this is good news as I intend to coat the inside of the case with neat epoxy, then 300g biaxial fibreglass cloth, then another layer of neat epoxy and finally a layer of epoxy mixed with graphite powder. I may even apply a coat or two of antifoul after that, I’m not sure about that yet.

All this extra coating on the inside of the case will probably pad it out so that the lip no longer protrudes. This is good news since it means that I do not have to worry about the case sides being too thick, which would be the case if the lip were just 6mm wide.

Time for a cup of tea.

I gave myself an easy day yesterday as I find that working over the weekend without a break seems to make me more tired during the week. That isn’t to say that I did nothing on the Shoal Waters project, just no physical work.

But, I resolved to get the part of the template task that is bugging me fixed.

It’s this part. The bit at the bottom corner of the template really should be pointed, but it’s that shape now as I’ve not been able to get the last pieces of the original plywood out. It’s in an awkward position and one in which the rest of the boat restricts how far I can use a chisel. The only direction that I can get a blade in further than I have now is from the front of the pointed end but kneeling on the cockpit trying to work under the bridge deck.

In the end I just gritted my teeth and just scraped away at the last bit of glue and plywood until I got it all out. Took about an hour and frankly, this was the hardest part of the work I’ve done so far. Of course, keeping my right leg far enough away from the business end of the sharp chisel doesn’t make it any easier, but I have no wish to stab myself in the thigh with a sharp pointy thing.

And here’s the result. You can see the lip at the bottom of the slot and the aft block and the 1/4″ groove in the keel and the block.

Here is is from a slightly different angle.

And finally a close up of the pointed bit, albeit a little out of focus.

I’ll still need to tidy that up a bit with sandpaper but now that the old plywood has been removed that will not be quite so difficult. I’ll wrap a strip of sandpaper around a 6mm piece of plywood and run it into the slot a few times. It doesn’t have to be perfect as it’s going to be slathered in a marine adhesive, but it needs to be better than it is now.

Oddly, the other side should be a little easier since the other side of the case will have been removed by then, so the access will be a little easier. that and the fact that I know where the end of the pointy bit is, so I won’t be guessing how far in the slot reaches.

The last last if the tea break was to measure the pivot bolt as that needs to be replaced. This measured at 3/8″ in diameter and 4″ in length.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next part of the repairs requires me to construct a template for the sides of the centreplate case case, which sounds easy enough but is a little more complex that you would think.

There are two templates to be made, one for the inner layer and another for the outer. Because the keel timber is curved, the templates must first be made from cardboard and checked before being used to create plywood templates from cheap 6mm plywood. These are then used to check the fit and to make any adjustment required. Once those are correct they may be used to cut out the marine plywood sides.

So, to start with, the template for the inner layer as the one for the outer layer cannot be done until the cheap plywood template is completed for the inner. Now, there are two tricky bits for the inner template, the ends since they recess into the fore and aft blocks.

I won’t bore you with the details for making these, suffice it to say that since it was nearly impossible to measure the required shape, I have to use trial and error until I had two pieces that gave me the correct shape for the ends. Lots of trial and error, I suppose it took around eight attempts to get a good fit.

When the marine plywood arrived from Robbins Timber, it was covered with two pieces of cardboard, each the size of a full sheet of ply. I kept these for making templates. A piece that was too large was cut out, seen above.

This had recesses cut out to fit over the supports on the outside of the keel and then clamped into place.

The recesses were cut so that a significant portion of the cardboard protruded through the hull as you can see above. I drew a line with a black marker pen against the bottom of the keel.

And removed the cardboard from the boat. Not very elegant but good enough.

I used some panel pins and a batten to give me a fair curve and drew that.

Like this. All I had to do now was to cut along this line which I did using a good pair of scissors.

That’s the bottom of the template done. Now for the top. The cardboard was clamped back in the slot but with the bottom curve resting on the lip of the keel slot. The top edge was then drawn with the marker and the whole thing returned to the workshop for cutting out.

The top batten is quite beaten up in places, so the line is a bit wonky, but it is supposed to be three straight lines and that was easy to cut, this time using a suitable straight edge and a utility knife.

Looks good. So far nothing has gone wrong, so I decided it was time to take a break before getting the ends fixed to the centre part.

All this climbing in and out of the boat gets tiring.

Time for a cup of tea.

Some time later…

Having had a break, I found that I was beginning to lose the light, so I decided that once I had the ends fitted to the template, I’d call it a day for this part of the template task.

This is the first attempt. I’d put all three parts into position and c;amped them where I could, then marked where each one fitted. Then it was out with the hot glue gun and fix them all together.

What would be do without Hot Glue?

Once the glue had set I took the template back into the boat and dry fitted it.

It didn’t quite fit, but here I had the first mistake of the day and cut the wrong bits off!

The fix for the front end.

And the fix for the aft end.

At this point the template fitted, or as well as a floppy piece of cardboard can but I was starting to make mistakes. So, despite being still light enough to do more, I called it a day.

The cutting and fitting of the plywood template can wait.

Time for a cup of tea.

One of the good points about the way in which Charles Stock build the interior of Shoal Waters is that he slapped Mendix (or Mendex) over just about everything. That would be the equivalent of using thickened epoxy today with the exception that the stuff he used doesn’t appear to be susceptible to heat, unlike epoxy. So, unlike epoxy, you can’t make this stuff soft with a heat gun and scrape it off.

One of the bad things about the way in which Charles Stock build the interior of Shoal Waters is that he slapped Mendix (or Mendex) over just about everything. The only way to dismantle things done this way is to cut them out.

So far, the removal of starboard side of the centreplate case has removed parts that needed to be removed anyway, but has meant cutting through something that I would have preferred to not cut.

That’s the bulkhead that is shown here in the righthand side of the case.

This is what it looks like now. I’ve kept the piece that has been removed and I’ll epoxy it back in place when the new case has been installed. Although I may put in a new one that is the same as the height of the one on the port side. This bulkhead it supposed to stop the case from moving under the stress of the plate when sailing. The plate is 1.2m long outside the hull when lowered and that produces a lot of sideways force on the case due to leverage and I’m not sure that the small bulkhead Charles used is really enough.

The fairly careful removal is about to end. The aft end of the centreplate case protrudes into the cockpit and the woodwork around the case has to be cut out and removed. I have already made a start with a single “incision” to show the limit of the cut but now it is time to finish the job.

No finesse in this part of the removal, there are too many hidden screws to make this an easy job, so I just went at it regardless. Mind you, I didn’t cut of huge pieces at once, preferring to cut things away small chunks at a time.

First break, make the replacement portlights.

I remove one of the old lights, scraped away the old sealant, drilled bolts holes through the old screw holes and put one of the replacement lights in place. I don’t have the correct bolts for this job, they are on order, so I just used some bolts that are too long to check how it looks.

The USB charging ports of the charge controller only supply 500mA total and if you try to take more than that, it takes away power from the controller itself and that stops working. So I bought some blanking plugs.

I’ll probably fix these in using some hot glue the they don’t fall out. There’s no reason to use these sockets as I’ve wired in eight others that will supply s good amount of power.

Back to the cantreplate case. I cut away the top cover to reveal the top of the aft end of the case. It came away quite cleanly and you can see the soft plywood of the case where it is inset into the aft block.

Then it was more work on the sides. This lump is the plywood added by Charles and has to come off.

A while later and that was removed and I could see the glue line where the plywood of the side is glued to the aft block. I’ll need to tidy this up and there’s still a lot of the plywood left and my chisel work is not that good, so I’ll resort to using a sander for that bit. But this does show clearly where the plywood ends.

Finally, for today, I remove the supporting battens back to the keel. Well, almost. The one added by Charles is okay, but the original one is very wet. Not rotten, just soaked up a lot of water. I’ll let that dry for a bit and then sand the rest of this and the paint back to the top of the keel. I’ll probably need to take this away completely as I don’t know how far the wet wood goes.

This is the other end of the battens, so not a lot to remove and since the wood is very wet, it is probably a good idea to remove it and replace it with new wood. It will be interesting to see how the keel is under the batten. It has been glued in place so the water that was soaked up by the batten probably hasn’t affected the keel…I hope!

That’s the end of the centreplate case work for today, although not the end of the tasks for the day. There’s not going to be enough light to continue the case removal after I finish work but enough to do a few more port lights.

So, here’s the process. Select the light to be replaced.

Remove the screws. Notice that the old light doesn’t fall down as there is some sealant between the perspex and the cabin side.

Pretty good stuff, but it has to be scraped off.

Interestingly, once the sealant has been removed you can see that this light has already been replaced three times before. There are the screw holes for the light just removed, two sets of screw holes that have been filled in and the remains of some screws that have been sanded down flush with the wood. So that means that this new light is the fifth one !

Then it’s drill the holes and put the light in with temporary bolts.

I managed to get two more done but the light was fading fast and so was the temperature. Clear sky, Winter and once the sun sets the temperature plummets.

Still, a fair bit done during coffee and lunch breaks.

Time for a cup of tea.