Weekend Progress

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This weekend we got some little details added. Kim found some old style wooden thread spools and painted them teal to use for the decorative rail above the cabinets in the galley. I ripped some thin strips of wood on the evil table saw (as Kim calls it) to make the top and bottom rails. 
We also installed the painted wooden knobs to the galley cabinet doors and a painted edge band to hide the end grain on the countertop boards. 

Wednesday after work I filled the 178 screw holes with wood filler. I wanted to get back Thursday evening to sand it all smooth in preparation for the fiberglass cloth and epoxy but didn't feel good enough and went to bed early. 

Saturday morning we were up with the sun and back at it. Kim worked on the galley rail while I sanded all the wood filler smooth. 
This is the seam in the plywood on the roof. The sheets are 5 foot square which is perfect as the outside measurement is a hair under 60 inches. One full sheet and about 30 inches of the second covered the roof.  We weren't aware of it until we layed down the fiberglass cloth and started coating with epoxy that the two plywood sheets are slightly different and one is a bit darker. 

 All sanded and ready for cloth and epoxy. 

Kim layed out the fiberglass cloth to make sure we had enough. It came with the project that we started with so we hoped Larry, the guy who started this years ago had purchaed enough. Turns out we have plenty so we moved on the getting it layed on top and smoothed out. 

 Squeegiing, is that even a word?, On the epoxy. We had quite a time when we got to the front as we had to slit holes in the cloth and feed all the wiring through. Being that the cloth is barely wider than the plywood, it was a team effort to keep from shifting the cloth too far to one side as I applied the epoxy. It came out really good for the first coat. Several more to follow with some sanding between coats. 

A second coat of epoxy today is looking good. After that we started figuring out the rails that form the supports for the galley hatch. We have a good posterboard template now to trace onto a template that will be used to make four support rails. That will be the last big building project to complete. We also layed our original side profile template onto a sheet of birch plywood and traced out the profile that will become the woody trim on the sides. Moving right along!! 
Maybe we'll make it for a Columbus Weekend campout in my backyard.  

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