Day 351

Because the temperature has been so nasty and cold, averaging -20º lately, the portlights have taken somewhat a priority over everything else I had been planning to do these days, so I started first light at getting the aft 6 started and prepared enough that I could work on them during slow moments at work.

I have been saving 4 nice pieces of SS 1/8" plate for this occasion. 4 can be cut out and the leftovers used to make 2 more.

Using the frames of the portlights as a template didn't work out as well as expected because of the roughness of the Color your Hippo around the frames, not to mention they are set back by 1/2". I decided to mark where the frames should be centered, and measured a predefined rectangle, then used a masking tape roll to get the round edges.

After a test, this method looks really good! All of the portlights are pretty close so there shouldn't be any problems. The page top photo attests to this. These ones are above the forward berth, nice and shiny!

The photo to the left has a strange anomaly in it. I wanted to get a shot of the four aft frames cut out. Somehow the red and green light appeared on them, like port and starboard marker lights.

For the life of me I can't figure out how this happened as there are no lights near here. The car in the driveway has no green lights on it, so who knows. Maybe a plane flew over at the exact moment the photo was snapped. Perhaps it's a spectral thing, or maybe a sign from upstairs: Port and starboard, although it's not clear which ones are what here!

Day 351:
9 hours-Cut and welded aft P.L. frames, cut out mast plate, mounted port side portlight frames. All 8 done forward!

The photo above right shows how the 5th frame was welded together. The join isn't really a concern because these ones will be painted as were the galley/dining area frames were. The 2 best frames are reserved for the 2 in the head. Those are to be polished to a mirror finish with horizontal streaks.
	The Job-mate we have been using was supposed to go up into the boat for winter, but we keep finding uses for it down below. The aft portlights are a little larger that the ones in the cabin. This was done on purpose as it reduces the appearance of the size of the large aft coaming some.
Gena was in the boat drilling out the mast plate, a large heavy chunk of 5/8" steel, then brought it down for me to cut out armholes ( that's the true meaning of the word mom! ) so the plate below can be accessed if more lead needs to be placed in that area of the keel. The mast "foot" is a relatively thick chunk of aluminum that will bolt on to this plate for a keel stepped solution. We don't have that yet as we don't have the mast yet.
*Gena tries out the new fittings for the cockpit drain system*	I ended up grinding out my new frames for the aft portlights until I couldn't see anymore. (Below)