Please don't mind me interrupting the discussion of the boat name - I really like that you guys get it!! Press on to your hearts content, I'll add to the discussion at times as well. But for tonight's addition:
Stanchions and cool tools:
I'm kinda bouncing around the boat for a few days, tidying up and finishing up some projects in progress. One is remounting the stanchions and replacing the lifelines. I had two broken stanchions that I had to replace and took the opportunity to upgrade to the gate-style since the boat, though it had gates on both sides, never had the reinforced stanchions. I got these mounted and reshuffled the other good ones to the open locations. However, the impact from the other boat had compromised the mounts in a few locations, so I had to check the bolt holes for integrity. After running a tap through all the holes I found 5 that needed some work. Three of the holes just needed to be enlarged from 1/4" screws to 5/16" screws but for one stanchion location both mounting holes were essentially destroyed. I ground those out and filled with epoxy/cabosil and will redrill and tap those holes. The rest of the stanchion locations are ready to go, but there is one thing about the way the factory did things that I never liked and now is the time to rectify that:
As you can see, the stanchion feet sit directly on the corners of the non-skid. I think this is sloppy, so I decided to sand the non-skid back and paint the areas under the feet. As I continue re-doing the non-skid I'll mask so the corners are beveled. So, non-skid removed and ready for paint:
I got one coat of paint on yesterday and the second on this afternoon. Should be ready to remount the stanchions tomorrow. After that I can measure for new lifelines.
Another project that has been percolating is some design ideas for the interior. One of the things I want to incorporate for the cabinet corners is a large radius cornerpiece. I do not like sharp corners in boat interiors! Previously I had just used 1/2" quarter-rounds or 3/4" half-rounds, but I want something - for lack of a better term - "softer". So I started looking for large diameter router bits and came up with these:
One is a 1" radius, the other is a 1 1/4" radius. That's a quarter in the pic for reference. They're pretty big!
Turns out they are a little too big to fit in my table:
I don't have a proper router table, that's just an addition for my table saw, but for now it will do the job. I grabbed a chunk of 2x4 from the wood pile and started experimenting:
Then I cut version 1 of the corner piece:
And screwed some scrap 3/4" ply to simulate a corner:
This is the 1" bit. I'm going to work on a better mounting system (version 2) and crank out a corner with the 1 1/4" bit and compare the two. I need to decide on this before I get the trim wood - the overall corner radius will determine what size lumber to start with.
Why worry about this now? Well, after climbing up and down the companionway for the last year on a collapsible ladder, I'm thinking that building the doghouse and companionway steps should be the first piece to go in!
Cheers,
Mark