Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[ebb]

OK Tony, you pushed and I ordered the Engel. Parts of it are arriving, the blanket and the mounting plate in separate cartons look like they came round the horn.
So I haven't got the fridge here yet....to see what alterations could be done to the lid.
I will also have to do something - my install has even less top opening than you have.
First, immediate solution is to remove the hinges.
But accessing that way means dealing with a big chunk of hard slippery plastic.

So: instead of a hard top, why not consider a soft top? One that replaces in form the supplied lid.
There is an expensive but very nice looking/feeling polyethylene CLOSED CELL foam called Minicel. No smell. Non toxic (no cfc or hydrocarbon blowing agents) - impervious to mold and bacteria - and can be found in 'skinned' versions. This is the foam used in athletic equipment, knee pads, seats. Kyackers use it and expertise and ideas to be found on their DIY sites.

Could do a slicedbread design with separate pieces side by side and contact cement or MarineGoop webbing material OR vinyl upholstery material, OR Sunbrella, on top that will stiffen/unitize the pieces into a bendy substitute lid. Also keep water from entering.

In bun form Minicel foam can be shaped - so if there is a rabbet jog needed around the edge, that can be done.
Different densities make for stiffer foam that can span the fridge opening without sag. Research.

OR the foam lid can just be a single piece of whatever thickness required. Could even be a little thicker I'd guess. You know, so the champagne cork will be accommodated in a dimple with the lid shut. Would be easy to remove, and a nicer thing to have floating around the cabin.

California is beginning its winter rain season with near freezing temps at night. They say global warming will bring on a new ice age. Has to do with ocean currents changing their customary routes!

[Tony G]

That's thinking outside the box, Ebb. So you're talking about mixing a roll-top desk, Roman shade and a roll-up garage door? Why the heck not?! It surely will be as insulated as the original hinged hatch is and far more "Ebb friendly" for your install. It's not like you're going to be standing there with the lid rolled open staring into the fridge wondering how old that slice of cheescake is. Go for it, man!

I just spent the morning cutting out our galley and salon. Carried a lot of weight off the boat again...reminiscent of a couple of years ago when I cleaned out the forward compartment. Looking forward to redesigning it and putting it back together(again). The shining star was the ocillating multi-tool. Virtually no dust or odor at all. If I had hooked up the shop-vac I would have been spoiled rotten!

[Tony G]

Spent the day in Southern MN at a meeting grinding out details of the upcoming season with 9 other people. Got home and could not wait for the therapeutic release of clearing out the rest of the salon pieces. I don't have my small scale anymore but I think I will haul this to work this weekend to weigh it.

[Tony G]

Once again I was tickled with the ocillating multi-tool's ability to cut through tabbing without kicking up a cloud of dust or choking fumes.

I had used hot glue to tack some things in place before fixing them "permanently" with epoxy and cloth. After cutting the tabbing and extracting the baltic birch plywood, I switched to a scraping blade and removed nearly all of the hot glue reminants left behind. I say nearly all because there is undoubtedly some hot glue left in the deep weave "imprints" of the roving. How am I going to remove that if need be? Heat gun and brass brush? We'll have plenty of time to figure that one out. It is going to be way too cold to epoxy anything back in for about 6 months. This will give me some time to play around with cardboard models and mock-ups.

Gotta do this over only miniaturized this time

[Tony G]

And speaking of models. Here's my old friend "Bud". Get it? Bud? Oh, well...

Leaning towards a u-shaped galley again if we keep it an aft galley. Otherwise we'd go for a port side galley. The reason being, and I just read this the other night, if you go below to fix a quick bite you can heave-to on a starboard tack making you the "stand on" boat and your galley will be down hill from you giving you another inch of safety.

This spot for the refer will give plenty of room for another 2"+ of surrounding insulation and a good 2"-3" thick top yet still have enough clearance to open it.

[Commander 147]

Tony

You are a better man than me. After going through the work to rebuild my interior I don't think I would have it in me to tear it all out and start over again. Now I have redone my design drawings several times and made individual pieces multiple times to get them right, but to do the extensive rebuild you are doing is more than I would be able to talk myself into.

That being said it looks like that is a really good location for the refer. I hope it all comes together exactly like you want it to this time.

[Commander227]

I agree with Jerry. Wow that must have stung to pull all that out. Once I make a decision to do something a certain way it stubbornly remains the absolute best or only way...forever! (I also never had the patience for "test fitting" and dry layups)
Beat it fo fit and paint it to match is my motto. You just have to discipline yourself to never look back. It also helps if you can refrain from looking too far forward as well.
I don't know maybe with enough head scratching you'll figure out the Tardis puzzle (Dr. Who reference. You know... Bigger on the inside than the outside). Keep the progress rolling Tony, Soon you'll be throwing a dart at a map.
Mike

[ebb]

Replacement HINGES AVAILABLE.
The two lid hinges on the 27 are ALREADY 'take-apart' because one leaf attaches to the box and its one leaf buddy attaches to the lid.
The pin is loose in one and attacht to the other. They are handed left and right so the lid is not removable. Engel has the pintel leafs screwed to the lid.
A couple of gudgeons & pintels.
Assume that similar hinges are available for the 35.
Called up ENGEL in Florida (1-561-743-7419) and Nancy set me up with a spare set.
Will change-out the hinges and make both left/left so when the lid is lifted just a bit the lid will shift left and come free.
Of course the hinges can be reattached so the lid slides off right.

Thing is, this alteration isn't a one way street - can always go back to what it was.

Could just reverse 180 one of the hinges,
but having anextra set, they can be swapped around so that both pintel leafs attach to the box,
The lid can have the gudgeons and be right or left side removable. How easy is that?
Can't be the first fool that has wanted to do something like this - Engel makes it too easy.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____________
later EDIT: Hinge arrives. Assumed I paid for a pair, but only one in the pkg. One was enough!
Took 6 minutes to change-out and turn around leafs. Leafs are interchangable. This fridge will be mounted athwartship under the counter, in front of and next to the batteries which are under the cockpit. Looking down on plan view it would show the fridge under the bridgedeck.
Facing the cockpit the lid will open on the left side - when lifted will slide forward. Not sure what final access there will be directly thru the top.
BUT the lid has to be tilted up barely two inches to slide off the pins which are on the case. And slid back home the catch snaps the lid down for an original tight seal.
yessireebob!

[Tony G]

Started putzing around with some ideas and cardboard models. To make better use of the bilge and to get rid of the ridiculously heavy 3/4" thick sub sole we had to begin with a little destruction. If you're only destroyin things you made yourself the whole karma balance should be unaffected, right? So this is what I accomplished. We cut through the 5200 with, what else but the OMT. Wasn't easy as pie (or pi) and involved using a mallet and beefy screw driver and a good deal of prying-Tenacious...

If I was a better man I think I would have done it right the first time

I will use 1/2" baltic birch for a sub sole this time around. Those support timbers are going to come out and a new set will be made. We're going to drop the works 3/4", not that it will give me standing head room but it will be a full inch lower than where we were headed. I'm going to widen the access to the bilge too. There is just too much storage potential there to ignore, or, not give due consideration to.

[Tony G]

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. Today we got big, BIG, wet snow flakes that turned everything outside white in about 10 minutes. Having said that, here are the actions shots I hoped I would not have to post for some time yet...



I think tiki's face says it all-disgusted.

[Tony G]

Last time around we went with some curvey furniture. The jig we made back then (was really crude) used a 4" PVC pipe as the mold to form the radius. Four inch pipe has an outside diameter of 4 1/2" and we wrapped 1/2" of wood around it so we ended up with a pretty fat corner. Nice on the knees but I felt it was a bit too much for a small boat.

I liked the feel and the looks of a 2" radius bend. To get that we switched to a 3" PVC pipe which has the outside diameter of 3 1/2". Being I've dropped back on the thickness of the plywood I'm using from 1/2" to 1/4" baltic birch, we end up with the 2" radius I desired.

I still got to use the 4" PVC. I just built a little jig that allowed me to run it over the table saw and cut out 1/4th of the wall lengthwise. The black UHMW stock I had lying around just happened to be 1/4" thick same as the PVC pipe wall so it transitioned perfectly.

With the old jig the 3mm plys were allowed to run wild when I glued them up with the intention of trimming everything "square" based on the radiused corner. That ended up being a giant PIA. So this time around I added a lengthwise guide along the bottom edge and some alignment tabs on the end.

[Tony G]

What's the most important tool in the shop? DeWalt? Craftsman? Freud? Nope Black and Decker...steam iron. Yeah. Tool of the hour tonight.

Multiple individual plys in a laminated curve add stability. Even though there are 3 plys in the 3mm plywood we are using there are actually only two indiviual plys in our new curves. While it seems it would spring back less because it required less force to pull the wood into the form it will actually end up being a less stable laminated piece. So I decided to pre-bend the plywood before gluing them together. That should remove much, if not all of the springback.

I don't have a steam box. Fortunately a rag, a little water and the added persuation of a steam iron soften the resistance of the plywood to being pulled into the form.

[larry]

Love the bright work!

[Commander 147]

Tony

I'm not sure I'm following you so let me see if I have this right.... you are prebending 2 pieces of 1/4" baltic birch plywood prior to gluing the two pieces together which is the 2 plys you are talking about. Is that correct? And that will give you a little under 1/2" thick corner piece for the furniture (plywood being under nominal thickness like it is).

BTW sweet jig you built for the bending process.

[ebb]

Need a metal brake to bend 1/4" Baltic.
But why birch?