Main hull bulkheads part 1

Started putting main hull bulkheads in this weekend. I spent the entire weekend sick (severe allergies or mild flu, not sure which) — Sunday was wasted as I slept until 6pm (ack!) but Saturday we got a good amount of work done on the boat. I’ll come back and edit this whenever I can fix the gallery integration, for now I’m just going to have to link to the pictures. My apologies.

Here are the two forward bunk bulkheads after being bogged in place, and now checking the fit of the forward beam bulkhead

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Tip: The book clearly shows doing the beam bulkheads first – we left that for later as the alignment was more precise and the other bulkheads are parallel to the form frames. That being said, it’s a major PAIN to tape the portion of the forward beam bulkhead that’s inches away from the forward bunk (aft) bulkhead. Do yourself a favor and spend the time to do the forward beam bulkhead first – your hands and frustration level will thank you 🙂

Taping the forward bunk bulkheads in place

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And covered with peel ply

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I took some hints from Jay’s site and drilled through the hull where it gets cut out anyway (later for fitting the beam mounts) in order to see the gunwale mark at the respective frames. I then improvised a jig-saw blade (had some tongue-depressors but they were warped from heat/age) at the gunwale line to measure the location for the beam bulkheads

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The bottom portion of the beam bulkhead was measured via straight-edge across the forms at the specified distance and dropping a plumb-bob to the hull for marking at the correct place. I forgot to take a picture of this, however.

Here’s the aft beam bulkhead bogged and ready for taping

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The stern deck was also positioned and bogged

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I did not get pictures from later in the evening where we taped the forward beam bulkhead (except the portion difficult to reach as I was sick and tired and dad was at a band practice), the stern deck, the transom, and the aft beam bulkhead.

This leaves for next time: finish the bottom portion of the forward beam bulkhead, tape the forward bunk in place (this finishes up the forward portion of the interior of this half), the main cabin bulkhead (which we have trimmed and placed but not installed since it makes it difficult to climb to the front of the boat), the settee bunk (which has not been made yet), the cockpit floor (which we have, again, already fit and tested), the aft bunk bulkhead, the aft bunk (how am I going to get those curves right?! I think I need to sit down with a REAL flexible plastic batten) and the forward aft cabin bulkhead – which it also turns out was not made… oops…

I was hoping that assuming we could work REAL hard next weekend that everything would be ready to de-mold this half the weekend after, but I think that might be a little too optimistic at this point. Right now, I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that we can de-mold this half the weekend of the 19th – will know more next time.

Time worked: 9 hours