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Project Log:  Saturday, February 12, 2011

To continue my piecemeal approach to the engine room bulkheads and, ultimately, the pilothouse sole, I installed hardwood cleats on the inboard edge of the new transverse bulkheads I installed yesterday; these cleats would provide a bearing surface for and accept screws from the new sections of longitudinal bulkhead that would bring the height up above sole level.  I secured the cleats with bronze screws and epoxy adhesive for additional strength.

    

I reinforced the new  bulkheads by adding epoxy fillets where they met the hull, which I covered with 6" biaxial tabbing.  I also tabbed over the seam between the bulkhead and the section beneath.

    

    

Next, I completed some additional layout and confirmed some of the measurements I'd taken earlier, then prepared two sections of plywood of appropriate dimension to bring the bulkheads up to my desired layout lines (i.e. roughly 48" from the top of the existing transverse forward engine room bulkhead).

While checking the fit, I made additional level layout lines for the pilothouse sole supports.  Because there was no access to the back side of the bulkhead once installed, I elected to build and install the longitudinal sole support cleats first.  Normally, I would have build these from hardwood, but since I didn't have material of the appropriate size and type on hand, I built the cleats in place from two layers of 18mm Meranti plywood, which I laminated to each other (and to the bulkhead) with epoxy and bronze screws before adding four through bolts to finalize the installation.

    

With the cleats installed, I secured the new bulkheads in place with epoxy adhesive and more bronze screws into the various cleats already in position, then reinforced the seam with 6" biaxial tabbing.  There was a slight bow to the port bulkhead (the lower section), so I added the brace seen in these photos to hold it in the proper alignment while the epoxy and tabbing cured overnight.

    

    

Total Time Today: 5.25 hours

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