Cockpit Deck Installed

Very glad to be at this point. I’ve had my fill of working in the lower levels of the boat. Plus, this is a refreshing visual change. Even though lots of small tasks have been happening, the boat has generally looked the same for a while.

Since the last post I’ve done some paint touch ups in the stern stowage area and installed the remaining cleats that will help support the deck. I applied masking tape to all the places where the deck will join and laid down plastic and drop cloths to protect flooring and such. I kept my tape about an eighth of an inch from the actual joint in order to create a tiny fillet with the squeeze out.

In the photo above you can barely see one of the deck pieces on sawhorses to the left. It is bottom side up and you can see I did not mask this off. I wish I had as it would have sped up the cleanup process.

Installing these two deck pieces took a lot longer than I anticipated and I even had an assistant. Though, much of this time was spent cleaning up the squeeze out. Also…I laid out the epoxy for both deck pieces at once and it would have been much less hectic if I had done one at a time.

My advice…if you’re doing this singlehanded, don’t do both pieces at once.

The two pieces went down pretty smoothly. It took a ton of thickened epoxy, so there were several batches made. This of course reduces the time you have to clean up before it starts to set. I wish I had made larger batches.

Here are the ‘after’ pics…

It’s fun to see these shots up under the deck because everything under here is completely finished. It will still look like this on the day I launch.

Clean Up

Warning, this is a real chore. I made it a little more difficult by creating tiny fillets at all the joints, but still. It is cramped space and messy. By the time I finished, the thickened epoxy was nearly set to the point it was unworkable. Again, you might consider once deck plate at a time.

Incident : very near the end of the job, I spilled a fair amount of denatured alcohol in one of my eyes. I had some in a small cup for smoothing my fillets. I had safety glasses on but in all the twisting around I tipped the cup just enough with my head at just the right angle that the stuff went right past the glasses into my eye. I got out of there fast as I could and to a sink. I washed my eye for a minute or so and then got back in there to finish as the epoxy was setting fast and I only had a smidge left to go. Five minutes later I was out and spent another 10 minutes rinsing my eye. It felt fine but I went to the emergency eye clinic anyway just in case. Fortunately it checked out fine and I left with nothing more than an antibiotic ointment to apply for several days.

Next

Time to work on sealing up the bow. This means doing as much as I can on the backside of the electronics panel while still easily accessible.