Central seating and Keel work

The logical thing to do next was to take on the Keel since it is critical to the mobility of the boat.  (duh!)

To get the keel's crank in shape, I have to first rebuild the rear seat which functions as a support for the keel winch.  Here is an ugly before pic of the untreated wood pannel.  I could punch through it with my fingers, it was so rotten.  Note the bottom hole.  I'll get back to that again.

Here is an after pic of the new pannel in place.  It is made from some old Cypress I got from my father-in-law camp which he is rebuilding. ~40 year old Cypress.  It still sands up nice, but it has a tendancy to stain a little to dark for my tastes.

Getting the pannel to fit precisely was nearly impossible.  there are almost no right angles to measure from.  The crank hole had to be precisely placed and shallow enough to allow the winch to protude.  This required unplanned for routing to reduce the pannel thickness without compromising its loadbearing capacity. The inside, since I'll never know if water were to get between the pannel and the the keel housing, I coated with =epoxy.

I want to point out that getting the cable guide was crucial.  I replaced the bent and pacially cut 3/8" pin with a 1/2" one. I also crawled under the boat and fastend a tube around the pin to act as a rudimentary bearing.  I also inserted two latex washers on either side of the tube so that there was no way it could ever act as a saw and cut into the keel housing.  It is not what I wanted, but I could not see how I could fabricate a proper pully mechanism which won't eventually jump its track and negate my work.

As for planning ahead, I did cut a small hole from my new pannel to allow me to take this bolt out again should something go wrong with my engineering effort.  ...may as well plan for the worst, right?

To avoide water intrusion, I put a barrier in place to move water than came up through the cable housing, and force it to the Port where will be able to get to the sump.  I understand this is a necessary evil with a swing keel.

I first cut and placed dry fiberglass into the space, being careful to cut a piece large enough to allow water to freely flow to the Port.

Using gratuitous amounts of colored epoxy, I saturated the fiberglass in place and let it dry.  I came back with a 2nd coat later to get the pin holes.  I'll inspect it again and probably go for a third coat, just to be sure.

The forward seating shows my frame-work for the storage and flotation compartment.  Everything is covered in epoxy and then screwed/epoxied into place.  Like the orignal configuration, my intent is to save this space for storage.  Did I mention I'm using galvanized deck screws?  I think it important that nothing be able to rust/corrode even if it is encased in epoxy.  Water ALWAYS finds a way.  I would have used brass screws, but they usually strip out when I'm screwing them in.

Once the foam has been crammed into the enclosed space, I smeared Epoxy around the top edge and dropped the top pannel into place.  I then screwed it down to get a good seal.  In this pic, I've cleaned up the edge gaps with lightweight filler and cut the fiberglass strips to fit in preparation for the epoxy.

Here is the semi-final view of the forward seat.  All seams are filled and sealed.  I also came back with a sander at the base of the forward bert wall.  I had managed to spatter material all over the wall in the construction of the seat that I now needed to clean off.  Prior to the final coat of epoxy, I taped an edge along the base of the forward berth wall parrallel to the seat with masking tape.  This gave me a clean line.  The Blue on the support post is all that remains of the the tape after I had taken the majority of it off.

To get a feel for where I was before, here is an old pic of the rear cabin seat as I was taking it out.  Epoxy was flaking off.  I also found critters in the wood.  Not many, but once they begin to make a meal of plywood, there was no saving it.

This is an after pic.  The wood within the holding compart will be painted.  It is covered in epoxy, like everything else. 

Just so there are no high expectations, finish problems I scratching my head over include clean-up of the various lines and bumps associated with applying fabric.  Here you can see the line that is created when you place saturated fiberglass sheeting along the edges.  I'm going to have to come back to every seam, wrinkle and bump, sand it down, and clean it all up with lightweight filler for a professional look.  I am NOT looking forward to that phase of the project.  On the plus side, I am planning on installing high-end wood sheeting on my vertical surfaces to improve its looks.  Making stencils will be a snap after all that I have gone through to get to this point.

I imagine an investment in a nice filtering mask will be something I should think about.....