Commander 147

[Commander 147]

Here are the drawings I gave him.

I also gave him a full scale profile of the mast section so he could tell how to bend the plates that hold the assembly in the mast. My drawing does not show it but I had him drill and tap for the 6 screws where the two loose plates that lock it into the mast attach to the welded stainless assembly. Tapping the stainless is a lot easier when someone else does it.

BTW I ended up going to a larger diameter sheeve than the Harken one I first bought. I ended up using the Ronstan RF1767 sheeve that has just shy of 2" diameter.

The fabricator I used was a company called Day Metal Products and I dealt with the owner who's name is Bobby Day. The Company is located in Brooksville, FL and the phone number is 352-799-9258.

Tell Bobby that if he does not have enough information in his file to build yours that he can call me and I will bring my parts back to him to use as a sample.

Also one thing I would do differantly if doing it over the plate on the aft side of the mast that locks the assembly into the mast should have longer legs on it to get the screws further away from the slot in the mast. On mine they bottomed out on the welded assembly so I had to add some washers to pull everything tight.

[Commander 147]

But I do have to admit I have not been around here for some time.

Fall has finally come to Florida and the weather is much better for working on Destiny. When the summer temperatures were 95 degrees every day with 95% humidity (the normal Florida summer weather for about 5 months straight) I have a hard time forcing myself out in the heat to work. And my epoxy allergy forces me to cover up which makes the heat even less inviting. But I have 4 or 5 months of good temperatures ahead of me now so it's back to work.

I have made progress on several fronts since I last posted. The deck recore is completely done now (I'll show some pics of that job in a future post) and I have finished something that was a bit of a challenge to my skills (which means I really enjoyed doing it) Destiny's forward hatch. I wanted to build a frame around the hatch to have something to attach the hardware to and to make it look better.

As I started looking at what I would have to do to make the frame I realized all 4 sides of the opening were different. And the only way I could come up with to make the frame fit the ceiling correctly was to make some 1/4" thick strips and spread glue between them in groups of three and clamp them to the bottom side of the deck around the opening. First I did the 2 sides and after taking them down I did the forward and aft sides of the opening.

Now I had the 4 pieces that would make up the frame in a very rough form. I shaped them enough so I could cut mortises where the frame parts came together and used loose tenons to join the 4 pieces together. At this point I had a very rough frame that all 4 sides curved at a different radius. The center of the frame was smaller than the opening in the deck for the hatch which was by design.

I shaped the outside edges of the frame and did some preliminary sanding. Then I glued the frame to the bottom side of the deck with thickened epoxy. After the epoxy dried and I could remove the clamps I ground the inside of the frame flush with the vertical lip of the hatch opening. Because the fiberglass was curved as it transitioned to the vertical lip there was a V shaped area that I had to fill with thickened epoxy. After that dried and I could sand it smooth I glassed in the inside perimeter of the deck opening from the top of the lip to the bottom of the wood. This strengthened the lip area and finished everything off.

Here are a couple of pictures of the completed project.

[Ariel 109]

Hi Jerry, nice to see the progress on Destiny, as always beautiful! Please more pictures.

Ben

[Tony G]

Good to see you back on the boards, Jerry. Once again your eye for fit and fourm is spot on and I don't believe for a second it was a "challange for your skills". The transition from trim to outside looks like it should be, simple and smooth. I too await more pictures of Destiny.

[mbd]

Ditto that. Good to hear from you Jerry.

[Commander 147]

Thanks Ben, Tony and Mike

I have some serious catching up to do here since I have not even peeked in for a while.

The deck recore on the starboard side was simialr in scope to the port side but differant in location. On the bow I had a section on the starboard side that was mush. The side decks were not as bad however so the amount of work was similar. A few pictures below.

[Commander 147]

I've been enjoying the cooler temps lately and getting a little more work done on Destiny. I finally got around to making the new coaming boards for Destiny and the very complicated to construct transition pieces that tie the coaming boards into the cabin sides. I still have some rounding over of edges and fine tuning to do but I want to take them off again before I do that and before I take them off I need to modify the winch stands so they fit perfectly where I want them.

I had so many parts and pieces in the shop the place was getting cluttered so I started installing some to get them out of the way. I have blue painter's tape covering the light gray countertops to protect them from scratches I would have to sand out.

[Commander227]

Looking awesome Jerry. I love your galley set, is the area aft of it to remain as berths?

[Tony G]

I totally agree with Mike, Jerry. That is one beautiful galley. It follows suit along with the other work you have done on her-clean and purposeful. BTW, we have been having cooler weather here too, around zero, I hate it...

[ebb]

Beautiful work, Jerry!
Sweet use of space and pull-outs.
Especially the see-thru drawer!
There's a lot of unseen work doing that.
And your glowing art-deco stack bracing the bulkheading is a great touch!

The blue counter top looks cool - could be formica, looks right.

Looking at those fancy brand new COAMINGS:
Happen to be watching daytime TV, Woodwrights Shop, I think.
Saw a neat tip there on a good way to pare down plugs in screw holes with your low angle plane.
Something I tried years ago with total disaster.
[Now, I knock the tall stuff of the plug off with a sharp chisel, high enough so that the slant of the break shows which way the grain goes.
Then pare the stub down flush with the chisel from the short side of the break which is always an angle - still sometimes gouging the work.]

I think he used a plug saw of some sort - that doesn't mark the work - to cut the plug short but still above the surface of the work.

The tip is to stick blue tape about 1/2" in on the bottom along both sides of the mouth on the low angle plane.
He showed pieces maybe about 2 1/2" long.
Thereby raising the plane the thickness of the tape off the work, so that only the plug is engaged when moving the plane over the work.
The tape also covers the corners of the blade in the mouth so that if you press down unevenly, the corners won't gouge the surface.
Of course the woodwright's iron was obviously sharp and he had a lite touch.

.....You know this trick, but maybe someone else didn't

[Commander 147]

Mike

Yes the plan is to leave the area aft of the galley as berths. I will likely sleep on one of the quarter berths when I'm on the boat overnight. They are longer than the v-berth.

Tony

I have always been a function first and then make the form as good as you can after function sort of guy. So I take your comment of "clean and purposeful" as a complement that I have acheived my goal.

Ebb

The blue countertops are actually gray countertops covered in blue painter's tape to protect them during construction. The tops are 1/4" thick corian.

I've been doing some plugging on the port coaming board already. I searched through close to 1000 B.F. of lumber to find the two pieces I used for the coamings and one of these had some worm holes so I had to make them disappear. When I take the boards back off and into the shop I will plug the screw holes and do the rest of the sanding etc. before I start applying finish.

[Commander 147]

Before I took off the coaming boards to finish up the work on them and put finish on them I wanted to make sure my winch risers would work correctly at the location I wanted to put them. Back when Pearson installed them originally (at a differant location than I chose) they cut the top of the coaming to be flush with the top of the riser and there were these long curves in the top of the coaming which I did not like.

I was quite suprised when the first riser landed perfectly on the side deck as you can see in the first picture below.

No such luck on the second riser though, when I installed it I had a 1/8" gap under the forward end and 3/8" gap under the aft end of it per the second picture below.

So I cut up 13 pieces of 1708 biax and alternated full length pieces with progressively shorter pieces as I laid it up on top of some visqueen on the deck. Then I bolted the riser to the coaming board which pressed it down into the glass and resin so it could cure. When it is hard I will grind the glass flush with the original base, do any fairing needed and they will both then fit perfectly after painting.

[Commander 147]

I still need to do a little fairing compound on the edge to make the seam completely disappear but I wanted to show how nice the glass took care of the gap.

I also need to do a repair to the right side on the top of the base that was broke prior to me buying Destiny. But the rest of the repairs can wait until I start mixing epoxy for something a little bigger than this work.

[Commander 147]

about quarter sawn mahogany is the ribbon stripped apearance.

[Lucky Dawg]

Beautiful!