Teak Bi-fold Door.

I think that the green tape is bringing a lot to the overall look of this door.  With the door complete (except for some latching hardware) the tri-fold top needs to be built.  One more teak board from America's Wood Company in Washington ME and we shouldn't need any more teak to finish this boat.  The top will need to be able to be opened and closed from the top and bottom.  The ability to lock the door from the outside should also be a goal. 

Looking at this picture its tough to see the amount of work that has been dumped into it.  I've been on the door (on and off) for a few days and Jeff was able to get the outside frame finished today (glued, sanded, bunged, chiseled, sanded, and oiled).  Tomorrow will be the final day on the door project and we can move on to getting this boat out the door.

Dan Jr. prepared the floor inside the wheelhouse and helped mill up the teak trim for the "kick board" that is going to separate the gel from the paint.  All the final aluminum parts have been finished and are set to be sent to the powdercoater.  A name has been picked and fonts are being discussed.  The end is near............

And in non-companionway news we are building a 32' Osmond for a guy in Bermuda, and here it is.  If you want up to the minute blog updates click on the RSS stuff, I don't know how it works but it will tell you when I put new stuff up instantly.

One day closer to done.

Teaking OUT!!

Wouldn't it be great if I could just start talking about the boats at the beginning of these posts instead of writing something that is moderately interesting but totally unrelated to the projects that we are working on? So there no posts for a week.......we were sanding around the clock prepping the outside cockpit and inside the wheelhouse. I guess I could have taken a picture of a pile of dust or maybe a clean boat builder in the morning vs a powdered boat builder in the afternoon. Sanding can give a good idea of the actual size of a boat, this boat is huge (lots of corners and curves to hand sand). In the picture the wheelhouse has been primed out and the area around the windows has been painted. Today the rest of the wheelhouse was painted (not pictured). I think the color choice will work well with the teak, tough to show in a photo though. Once all the wheelhouse paint is completed the windows can be reinstalled and the headliner can go up.

The truckload of teak has been milled up into usable pieces. Care was taken to minimize waste and we tried to estimate how much of each style of board we were going to need for this boat. Once everything is cut to fit and drilled out all the teak will need to be sanded and oiled. Then reinstalled and probably sanded and oiled again. Jeff and I have been working together this week getting the teak cut for the overhead. Two sets of hands on this type of job is a necessity, lots of "you drill this one while I cut this one" type stuff. We're making good progress and Jeff has been jumping up to help Dan Jr. with the painting.

A more unimpressive photo you will not find. Thicker teak was cut to fit around the entire perimeter of the trunk top, then thinner 2" slats run athwart ship (new word just added to my vocab, spellcheck doesn't even know what it means). Teak circles are being milled out to mount the dome lights on. Head liner provided by Soundown will be glued to 1/8" plywood and held up by these pieces of teak. Fiddles and moldings are also being fit and drilled. It will be impressive when its finished but I won't be able to get far enough away with my camera to show you. Possible video 360??

So I head out to the shop Saturday morning to begin this teak cutting madness and decide that it would be a good plan to put a new blade on the chop saw. Disassemble, old blade off, new blade on, reassemble, pull trigger, notice wobbly blade, realize that the chop saw's inner working are bent, price out a new saw online, decide on the saw that's right for the shop, drive to Lowe's, get the more expensive saw (that has the sliding feature) because its on sale and not "that much" more than the one I was going to get. Not much teak got cut on Saturday but the shop has a fancy new saw and for the sake of the saw I'm not letting anyone use it (other than myself) until all the teak has been cut.

At nearly 30 dollars per board foot every scrap has been saved. Most of these small pieces can be cut into bungs or used as test pieces when fitting longer pieces. Anything left over will be sold as high end camp firewood for 65 dollars a box. I was thinking I could market it by saying that burning teak keeps away the mosquitoes. We could set up a stand at the end of the driveway with a coffee can for people to leave payment. "What that smell??" "Oh that's just my teak firewood, whenever I summer in Maine I only burn the best."

Enough of that, but there will be content added now that parts are being added to the boat and the sanding is completed. Check in tomorrow for the courtesy rope lighting that Dan Jr. installed underneath the side decks.......

38' Northern Bay (Thursday Post #1)

Front side of the 12 volt panel, 110 AC panel, and battery switches next to the back side of the 12 volt panel, 110 AC panel, and battery switches. Not finished and not as neat as it is going to be but I think you are starting to get the picture. This is much easier than it looks just cut the wire to length crimp an end on and connect. Do that 300 to 400 times and BOOM, completed electrical system. Things I fail to mention in my explanation: correct wire sizes, correct fuse sizes, maximizing limited space, back lit panels, shunts used to measure 12 volt amperage being used, 110 AC outlets getting power from an inverter or through an inverter (from a generator or shore power).

The overhead in the forward cabin is set for head liner. Wherever the is plywood now there will be teak in the future. Gaps will be filled with wires for lights and a fan. Headliner will be glued to 1/8" plywood and will be installed in panels with all the seams hidden by 2" pieces of teak. While I'm talking about the forward cabin Jeff, Dan Jr., and I spent all day yesterday sanding everything that needed to be prepared for paint. Once smooth everything will be primed then painted with a Hatteras Off-White flattened to a semi-gloss finish.

Deck hatches have been glassed in and all the covers have been built. There is a starboard shelf that you can barely see in the cabinet on the right. I was going to say the starboard shelf in the starboard cabinet but it did not read well. You see, the starboard side of the boat is the right side (when looking forward) and starboard is a brand of plastic used on boats. I could have capitalized the S in starboard (plastic) but that could have been misleading and surely it wouldn't have gotten the point across that there were two different usages of the same word in the same sentence. I was unsure how I was going to fill the space to the left of this picture........crisis avoided.

Head and shower area primed and painted. Digital photography with flash makes telling that this color is anything but white difficult. And the reflection of the flash is making it look like the paint is super shiny when it isn't. The color will look better once the teak (in the back of the truck) has been installed. For those of you that don't know, teak is really expensive. In fact the teak in the bed of this truck is worth more than the truck.

Organization is the key to success. Now that the systems are being punched out, getting my hands on the right manual in a timely fashion is very important. We've been collecting instruction manuals for a while and the old filing system (piles of paper) had ceased working. This will also make thing easier for the owner once the boat is in the water.