Today started with some cleanup. The sawdust piled up on the floor was getting out of hand, so I swept some areas clean, moved stuff into the swept areas, and swept the rest. I hauled the scrap pieces of lumber, my box of little scraps, two other boxes and some other stuff out to the truck and down to the beach for another bonfire. Then it was back to work.
First up was getting the final pieces on the roof of the cuddy. I trimmed the tops of the ribs level with each other with the planer and sanded them smooth. 1/4" plywood was cut to size, scarfed, everything epoxied and then screwed down with washers.
Next were the cabin upper side panels. They were trimmed in length with the forward angle cut to match the rear angle, and the upper edge cut at ten degrees to match the slope of the roof as it comes off the upper arches. The windows were very carefully measured and cut out. I left two inches along the upper edge and along the back cabin wall, one inch along the bottom edge as it will have a lot of support from the angle it makes with the lower side panel, four inches between the two windows, and about three and a half inches on the forward edge. I would have liked that smaller, but with the forward arch box beam width that just wasn't possible.
I screwed the arch box beam into place on the upper side panels and once again, when one side is perfectly vertical, so is the other! The forward end of the panels will get locked in place when I installed the forward window panels.
On the port side I epoxied both the upper and lower panels at their joint as well as back at the rear cabin wall and put in the peanut butter, then set the upper panel in place and screwed it to the rear cabin wall and the forward support. Inside the cabin I backed the joint up with blue painters tape to keep it lined up then went outside and finished filling the joint with peanut butter. The outside of the joint was then covered with a strip of fiberglass for strength.
On both upper panels, on the four inch support between the windows, I put in a strip of 10oz glass for rigidity.
Things are pretty fragile in that area right now, so I decided to call it a night to let it set up. Here's a whole passel of pictures of the boat from tonight.
The cuddy roof.
The joint between panels.
The four inch support between windows.
From inside. And, yes, the windows are huge!
And finally from outside.
Tomorrow I'll clean up the inside of the joint and get the starboard side done. I have to pull all the screws and washers from the cuddy roof, sand the scarf joint smooth, fill any low spots and clean up the edges. I'm still deciding on how to support the roof in the cabin while I build it, but I have a couple ideas there. It's going to be a pain to build the roof, but having done it once on the cuddy I think it will go well.
10 Hours