A few pics this morning. Not many, it was Homecoming for OK State, and we were busy with gameday festivities Saturday.
Attached are a few pics of the "mini-tiller" I made from the tired old tiller from the boat. The boat came with both a brand-new laminated tiller and the tired old one. I wanted to have a small tiller handle for light wind days, for days when I am using the tiller pilot a large amount, or for days when we are entertaining a larger number of poeple in the cockpit. A big long tiller whacking unsuspecting guests aboard is often not fun.
Also, coat 4 on the companionway hatch boards. You see a little dust in there, but I have one more build coat, (coat 5) after which I will do one more knock-down 320 grit sanding. Then I will move to a properly set up clean room for the final coat, with hopefully no junk to mar the oterwise glass-smooth finsh.
Finally a few pics of my efforts at the wet bar area. I have some 13-ply birch plywood I am using for the surface. It will be sealed in a layer of resin and then covered with white Formica. I had to further modify the old galley base to work with the dimensions I had laid out; specifically I have to remove the drawer guides and slides, moving that step recess back about 3 inches. Put another way, I left the drawer in the "corner" defined by the fiberglass cabin liner, and brought the rest of the cabinet base and the birch ply counter top out 3 inches. The galley base, in it original weathered faded scratched and dinged condition is not that attractive. I am looking at maybe trying a wood faux finish under varnish, but am skeptical. I will probably wrap the base in Formica matching the top. I carefully removed the old fiddle railing from the original galley, and will probably use that as a contrasting natural wood accent to bring the wood look back to the area.
For all of this, I am finding that even cutting oversized and slowly creeping up on final dimensions may still leave you needing to make another part. I should have considered some sort of cheap pattern material, but as I type this I realize cheap plywood would be warped and cardboard would not be stiff enough, so I may be on the right path anyway. If you look closely at the vertical back on top of the bar countertop, you will see that in my desired final location there is an open gap to the top. I need to use this piece as a pattern, and make another part that goes higher, fully behind the fiberglass headliner skirt. I also need to go to the aft port corner of the countertop and figure out a suitable method of supporting it. In the pics that back corner is unsupported, as was found with the stock counterop. That is not proper carpentry in my opinion.
Finally, I am also learning that even surfaces that you might be trying to use as a "horizontal reference" often aren't. I am going to play around with the trailer and supports and see if I can get the boat sitting level in a horizontal plane with respect to the "natural" waterline, ( the slight stain line on the boat from when she was last in the water). Doing so will make a carpenter's level relevant. Right now it is worthless.