Day 154

After a brief look at what should be next, and the possibilty of rain tomorrow, we decided to weld down the poop deck. This involved levelling out rizes and dips in the deck that have been bothering us for quite a while! For the most part, the deck was pretty close, but to stop "flopping" of the plate when stood on, intercoastals were installed to fill in the 2' and wider spaces. We realise that we should have ironed this all out before we continued to build up on the decks and side decks as this likely would have stopped the lifting before it started. It comes slowly as welds cool, and curved plate is layed etc, we either didn't notice or we forgot about it.

Gena inspecting my cuts on the hatch cover, hmmm

It wasn't a lot of work, only a few hours, but my weight plus several bricks of lead had to be used to push it down in places. Wow what a difference! Even though the warps weren't easily seen, the feet notice as they walk over something not perfectly even.

I really wanted to cut out the aft stateroom hatch in the coaming today, and I did! ( photo above )
The stainless frame was the result of practicing with a different roller size and much scrap flatbar hehe. The clamp is on the join. This frame will be sunk into the cutout with some left above ( 1 1/4" or so ) to allow for the hatch gasket, thickness of deck coat, and curve.

The hatch will be a really cool addition to the aft stateroom as it will be high above the ceiling and give a "loft" feel to the place!
I'm happy it's there, last year I had to fight for it!

While Gena welded up the intercostals, I ventured into cutting the first hatch frame out of the custom bent bars of stainless steel plate. In the photo above, layed together, it takes on a "window" frame look. I find this a little undesirable. It's hard to imagine how it will look with the tinted "glass" in it though. An alternate design would be to trim off the corners and put in a small triangle at 22º more vertically.
This may improve the look.

A funny though just came to mind: When we build something with so much effort and time, we don't want it to scream " home-made" or "amateur!!", yet, we all like to take credit where credit is due. It's the degree of balance that is the key.

Day 154:
7 hours - straightened out the coaming and cut out hatch opening. Waiting for the welder to hold stainless wire again!