Day 162
 Finished aft pilothouse roof! Aft pilothouse edge, coaltarring under fuel tanks
Somedays I have no idea what I want to do, until I get out there!
I started looking at the pilothouse roof plate hanging over and the mess it was, and decided to finish it.
At first I cut out a piece of split pipe and intended to insert it at the corner as I had with nearly every other edge on deck.

This idea quickly lost its feasablity because so much of the frame behind the plate would have to be removed, thus weakening the whole structure.

It turned out that between the thickness of the frame, and the way the aft bulkhead didn't quite make it to that height, I could just 45 the edge of the frame and fill the rest!

After a few hours, some grinding and smoothing, the thing looked great!

We're still not sure what we're going to to on the roof there but we do know there will be a handrail of sorts, and possibly a dodger mounting strip. Who knows!

  


What a mess!
The entry ways' size has still not been determined. The "garage" over it will be a flip up style made from the same material as the hatch lids. It will have lexan in it also like the hatches.

As I was doing the above, Gena was busy down below buffing steel and applying coal tar epoxy under where the fuel tanks will be.
The coaltar directly under the tanks will be covered over with spray foam insulation because once they're in, the area will be inaccessable.

The bulkhead forward is completely sealed by both light welds ( so as not to distort the hull plate ) and coaltar.

It sure is nice having a floor in there, but the drop from the cockpit is still a fair distance down to it. 3 steps will have to be used there.
We propose to have aluminum framing under the floor to hold in fireproof insulation via thin aluminum sheeting. This will all be a self contained unit that will open with the large access hatches.

I say fireproof because of the aluminum sheeting. The insulation itself cannot be fiberglass in a marine environment,not a good idea that! It will likely be foam or SM glued on.


Gena hard at work below

Day 162:
7 hours:
Finished pilothouse aft edge, cleaned bottom and coaltarred


To DAY 161
Sales, Service, Installation
To DAY 163