Creating the front cockpit doorway was today’s milestone. I must be one of the laziest people around, as I was really looking forward to no more long journeys to the foredeck. Even in the benign environment of our boat shed, I prefer not climbing up the rear cockpit seats, ducking under the roof, and walking along the side decks when transiting from the cabin to the foredeck, or vice-versa.
We used the same method to reinforce the edges as we have for all other self-made doors and hatches, however this was the first time it was performed on a vertical surface, and in-situ. Tom created a plywood template to act as a guide for routing out the first trench. For consistency and aesthetics, we used the same corner radius as the hatches/windows (51mm) in the bridge-deck cabin. Once backfilled with glass and glue, this would become the edge of the door.
To give us more working time, I decided to mix all glue and wet out all glass tapes inside the air-conditioned cabin (approximately 25°C was the coolest the air-conditioner could manage). The uni-directional tapes, which were rolled into ropes, were four metres long, so took up most of the cabin width in the process. Working at this temperature was a dream.
We filled the trench with two uni ropes and very thick glue. The cooler temperature meant no additional support was required whilst curing in the vertical position. The following two photos show the work repeated on the second trench. After the first lot of uni rope and glue had cured, Tom sanded it flush with the wall and used the original plywood template, plus a 22mm offset, to rout out this second trench, which would become the edge of the door frame.
After curing and sanding, the fun part began. Unfortunately due to a miscalculation, the thin strip of balsa between the two trenches ended up being 1mm wide, not 2mm as planned. This made cutting with both the multitool and jigsaw quite tedious.
But eventually, as darkness fell, we had a doorway. There is still much work before it is complete, as both the door and the wall it sits in will be doubled in thickness. This process will be repeated off the boat (and down-hand), to create a duplicate (slightly larger) door and wall, which will be glued, and taped, to the front of this existing structure.
The Scrumble Project 