Portuguese bridge door and cap

I've completed some more finish work, mainly the Portuguese  bridge passage door and the wooden cap for the Portuguese bridge.

The Portuguese bridge door provides easy access to the fore deck while securing the bridge from any rough weather and  helping keep our feet dry. Because this door could see some green water, I thought it important to have a jamb the door will be in full contact with once it's closed. Making the jamb out of wood seemed to be the easiest way to go for me.  I wanted the door to be able to handle any green water it might see without getting twisted, torn off, or damaged. I tend to make things up as I go along, and with no real plan, I'm happy with how the door  turned out. I turned the door handle out of some 3/4" stainless round stock, and used a round over bit in the lathe to finish the ends. I also turned a stud with threads on the end to hold the handle in place, and make a pivot to engage the handle. Basically, the handle will dog down against the jamb, pulling the door tight and holding things fast. A nylock nut and washer holds the handle to the stud. To  make the keeper, I mortised out the wooden door jamb, then fabricated a stainless steel keeper for the handle to dog against. I gave the keeper a slight taper to help lock the handle in place. The more you engage the handle, the tighter it dogs the door down. As things wear and tolerance's get looser, I have plenty of areas to adjust ( without much difficulty) to keep the door locking tightly. When we're on passage, the door will be dogged shut. When we're lounging on the fore deck, or working up there, the door will be opened and resting against the Portuguese bridge. I need to find a rubber bumper to hold the door off of the PB, and also to prevent paint from chipping if the door gets slammed open.


The other item I finished was adding a wooden cap to the Portuguese bridge. A lot of you are probably thinking that I'm an idiot for adding some bright work, and I hear you, so let me spout off my justification. I like the look of bright work, and I don't mind the maintenance as long as it's easy. The height of the wood cap and the fact that there are no rails or fixtures to work around will make this an easy area to maintain. Scuffing this cap with some 300 grit and apply some varnish, will be fast and easy with NO BENDING OVER on captain Conall's part. I'm liking this part, and if I was on face book, I'd give her a thumbs up. Because the Portuguese bridge area is going to be a pretty social spot, I wanted the wood cap to make things more comfortable, and give all a comfy  place to lean on and rest a beer. The wood cap feels and looks nice, and hopefully will eliminate bangs to any revelers funny bones.

I had to use the last of my wide boards to form the cap. I used the band saw and a belt sander to form the curves. I then used a 3/8" round over bit in my router to ease the edge of the cap. I ran out of wide boards so I ended up edge gluing some stock together to finish the job. I used a combination of traditional scarf joints reinforced with biscuits, and floating tenons to reinforce all the joints. Just before where the wheel house meets the salon, the Portuguese bridge terminates with a sever angle down to the deck. This leaves about thirty inches between the Portuguese bridge and the wall of the salon.  I treated this area of the cap by laying the cap over  the top of the cap headed down to the deck. I could have used a miter joint in this area, but I was afraid the joint would open up, and I like the way the eased edge of the top cap feels and looks. This is also the area where the spring line will be secured, and also where the shore power cords will pass through. There will be a two bar stainless steel rail bolted to the down cap and welded to the salon in this area, but that can't happen until the salon is in place.

  I bolted the cap down to the PB using 1/4" x 1 1/4" stainless screws and nylock nuts. I counter sunk and bunged the screw bore so no fasteners can be seen from the top of the cap. I had a few bad spots in the wood ( primarily a few dead branch knots) that I treated the same way I do all bad knots on my wood work. My preferred method of dealing with dead branch knots is to rout the bad wood away, and install a Dutchman patch. I use an inlay tool in my router to make these patches. The Dutchman patch is a legitimate repair used for century's, and give the work that "homegrown', folk art character that I like. The cap will get four coats of urethane, then I will caulk the underside joint where the wood meets the metal. Once the caulk is laid down, this job will be off of the list.

There is really not much left to do to the fore deck and Portuguese bridge until the boat gets TO THE LAUNCH SITE , so I'm going to scratch this area off of the list I keep meaning to write. I'm kind of glad I'm finished working up here,  as I'm getting tired of ducking under the barn truss's . I'll vacuum and clean this area this week when I finish, and hang some tarps over it to keep the dust off and forget about it until she's out of the barn.   

Foredeck finish work

Now that I have finish paint on the fore deck, I had a few bits I could wrap up and get them off of ye ole list.

The first item to wrap up was the door on the pulpit. This is one of those items I have to give an old WTF was I thinking when I designed this. The door part is OK as this will make a nice place to store anchor lines, dock lines and even a shore power cord. The WTF thing comes for why I put all those bolt holes in the door. All I needed was one bolt that I could use a large wing type bolt to hold the door fast. I'm thinking I was planning on storing air in this locker, and maybe I was afraid the air thieves were going to stop by and get some of the old O2 I was keeping safely behind door number one. ??? I also had someone ask about the notch in the side of the pulpit for my air hose connection and my wash down hose connection. Here's a better picture of the notch I created in the side of the pulpit. I need to find nice looking flush, black plastic caps I can silicone in to fill all those bolt holes. The pulpit is framed out of 1 1/2" stainless pipe, and stainless plate was used for sheathing. Everything on the pulpit is stainless steel, so when I don't have to worry about rust from chipping paint while we handle the anchoring gear. I notched the bottom of the frame so I could easily hose out under the pulpit and make it easy to maintain. I had originally set this up for a chain windlass and I was afraid that water could get down into the pulpit via the chain hawser. The handle for the door is 1" stainless bar that I bent, and also doubles the step to get up on the pulpit. The door is hinged with fixed pins that I fabricated on the lathe so the door opens 180 degrees. I might need to add some gasket material to the door in case it vibrates or rattles... we'll see about that. I wrapped the handrail around the pulpit to help keep anyone on board when the need arises to to climb out on the pulpit and deal with something.

The other item I was able to finish was installing the guest cabin hatch. Early in the build, I had planned on making my own hatch. After I had the wood work finished in the guest cabin, I decided to use a commercially made hatch. Instead of re doing the hatch coaming, I modified it a bit and bought a Lewmar Ocean Hatch. I like the hatch, and it seems to be well made and robust enough for what I intend to do. There's really not much I don't like about the hatch. It dogs down tight and compresses the gasket, it has adjustable tension on the hinges to hold it open in any position one would want, it's lockable, and it opens from the outside as long as it is not locked. I'm glad I did not try to fabricate this hatch.

The third item I have completed are the vents for the guest cabin. These vents are what I would call a dorade style vent. Because of the Portuguese bridge, and the high bulwarks, it made no sense to have the vents on the deck. To get the vents up where the air is going to be moving, I welded six inch pipes to allow the vents to be higher. The dorade end of this contraption is some boxes I fabricated out of stainless, and that I can bolt to the pipe/bracket/pad I welded to the deck and Portuguese bridge. The basic layout of this box is that the air enters the vent, and goes travels down the six inch pipe into the cabin. I welded a bulkhead in the frame to stop water from getting down the six inch pipe. I also held the pipe proud high of the frame as another damn to discourage water from getting in the boat. If things get real ugly, the cowl vents can be quickly unscrewed from the box and water tight deck plates then screw in. On the bottom of the box, below the cowl vent intake, I drilled a one inch hole in the bottom of the bracket. This hole is to allow water to drain out. To stop wasps from nesting in the box, I glued a piece of screen over the hole using some clear silicone caulk. Another reason I held the pipe proud high of the bracket, was so that I could use some hose clamps to secure more screen over the pipes to keep the bugs out of the cabin. I want to make sure that I can keep air flowing in and out of the boat while we are away from it while keeping it secure and weather tight. It also goes without saying that the more passive ventilation there is on board, will make the boat a happy place to be. When we're under way, the Lewmar hatch will be closed and the Dorade vents will be supplying air to the guest cabin. I'm not a 100% happy with the way I came up with ventilating the boat in this particular area, and I wish the designer would have offered a design for this. I think it's good that the cowls are up high where the air can actually get to them, but I'm not 100% keen on how I did it. I think in terms of being hatefull to look at , the pipes are not too hatefull, but it could have been better. I was going to make the intakes integral with the Portuguese bridge, but this conflicted with the interior layout of the guest cabin. An integral intake would have also been difficult to fabricate, and would have been more difficult to paint. The Dorade boxes are held in place with four bolts, and are very easy to remove for future maintenance. The dorade boxes are also maid of stainless steel. All in all, I think the pipes work good, but I'm just "OK" with how they look. One thing I can say is this design is extremely robust, and in a worse case scenario, I have another place to tie the boat off from. I'm thinking after I launch, the pipes might be a good location to weld a bit too, and hang dock lines off of. I had a fan blowing on me while I was working on the installing the cowl vents. Once I was finished, I left the fan blowing, and went in to the cabin to see how much air was making it in. I was pleasantly surprised by how much flow was entering the cabin. It looks like the design will work. I think I'm going to re paint the cowls, and make the inside the same green as the hull. I took a picture of the cowls looking at them from the wheel house so you could see a little more clear how I wanted them above the structures to get air flowing.

I'm going to keep working aft, and knocking off these easy to complete finishing jobs. This work probably goes five times as quick while the boat is in the barn and all the comfort tools are handy. All this work needs to be done anyway to have her weather tight for THE TRIP TO THE LAUNCH SITE. Next item to finish is the Portuguese bridge wooden cap, hang the Portuguese bridge door, and install the waster fill ports, and the gray water pump out port.

Cheers

Portuguese bridge is painted

I took half a day off yesterday and finished the painting the Portuguese bridge. Before I put all the paint gear away, I think I'll paint the aft deck bulwark and the two door jambs in that area. This way, all the off white painting will be finished until I have her at the launch site and install the wheel house and salon. I'll be able to get a good leg up on some detail work while she's in the barn and all the good tools are close at hand.

I had blasted and primed the Portuguese bridge, then faired grinder marks, the deck:PB joint, and seam sealed the frame to sheathing joint. Once I was happy with how the fairing looked, I spot primed those areas with two coats of primer to seal the porous fairing compound, which will help the top coat look more even. If I didn't seal the fairing compound, it would suck up the top coat paint, and make a pretty decent looking job look like crap.

Because of other things I had going on, I had to wait more than 72 hours to top coat the PB. If you wait longer than 72 hours, a chemical bond between the top coat and the primer will not happen, so you have to scuff the primer to get the top coat to bond to it. I use the red 3M scuff pads for this job, and they are made for just this application. I have a hook and loop dual action air sander, and I cut the scuff pads into a six inch diameter circles, they will now hook on to the sander and make quick work of a tedious job. Once the scuffing is completed, I blow the work off with my air compressor then tape and paper the area I don't want paint. I bought a tape/paper applicator at Lowes the other week, and I have to say that while the tool was fairly inexpensive, it did a nice job. It did such a nice job and made taping so much quicker, I have to recommend it as a tool one might want to consider purchasing for any paint work. That $17.00 tool paid for itself in no time on what I had just done.

The scribe line marking the wheel house layout was starting to get a little faint, so I decide to paint the wheelhouse deck using the wheel house scribe line as my layout. You can now see how the wheel house will fit in the scheme of things. The wheel house floor is going to be cork, so I'll use some less expensive metal primer and paint, and apply that will a roller. I'll glue down 1/4" plywood as a substrate, and apply the cork to that. Spraying the cheaper paints is not such a good idea as the paint tends to stay wet while it's floating around the shop. Whatever it lands on it sticks to it. Because of the quick evaporating reducers I'm using with the high dollar paint, the over spray acts like heavy dust when it lands in the barn. I still protect my new shiny paint from over spray, and if I do get some on a good finish, a little rubbing compound will take it quickly off. Not so with paint such as Rustoleum.

Now that this painting is finished, I'm going to spend the rest of April getting some detail work completed. I have a some sand blasting guys stopping over so I can get an idea of what the cost of blasting below the water line will be. The sooner I get the bottom blasted the sooner I can barrier finish painting the hull. Getting the boat on a dolly is a big deal for me and I want it done well in advance of moving her to the launch site. You'll probably start to notice a consistent theme in my future posts, and that theme is going to be " getting her to the launch site".

One thing I'm starting to realize is that this is a big boat. On deck she's 44', and over all she is 48'. The living spaces and machinery spaces seem to go on forever, and the wheel house is huge. Once the wheel house and salon are in place, the displacement will begin to be felt. With the hydraulic bow thruster, I feel she'll be able to be single handed, but I do feel she's close to needing an admiral.

So, here's to getting her to the launch site and seeing more shiny paint.

Some painting complete

I have finished painting the foredeck, the anchor pulpit, the handrails, the foredeck side of the Portuguese bridge, and the bulwarks. Pretty much, all of the fore deck is finished with paint. I did this on Friday, and due to some family things I have to do this weekend, I won't be able to finish the wheel house side of the Portuguese bridge and the outer deck of the wheelhouse until sometime this week. The weather forecast for this week is on the stormy side, so I'll be able to take off work the 1/2 day I need to finish painting what I did not get finished on Friday.

The fore deck was a lot of work to paint, and used about a gallon of paint. The paint mix is 5:1, so in terms of product used, I sprayed about 1.25 gallons. That might not seem like a lot of paint, but it is a fair amount given the paint type. The fore deck and handrails is a really cut up area to paint, and was a pretty physical day for me. At the end of the day, I was feeling the workout. This is one of those deals that you can't stop once you get started, so no matter how worn out you get, it's best if you suck it up and finish.

Because I decided to paint the hand rails, I had to scaffold the outside. I have a rolling scaffold I used, but that required many trips up and down the scaffold as I moved around the boat. The rolling scaffold does not fit between the boat and the barn wall, so I had to set up a 16' walk board and a ladder to do that area. Slow, thoughtful movements are the key when working 12' off of the ground lugging around a full paint pot, air hoses and safety clothing. My basic paint plan was the same as all the other painting I did which involved getting a decent first layer of paint on the surfaces, letting it tack up a bit, then come back and apply a second and third coat. With the handrails, the exposed frames of the bulwark, the bulwark cap and underside, the anchor pulpit, hatch, and cabin ventilation tubes, there was a lot of trimming in that had to be done. All of the fixtures that I just mentioned not only required trimming, they also added some square footage. Most of this area was painted at odd angles, on my hands and knees, bent over while avoiding the roof truss's. I now have a better understanding on why certain boats are more expensive to build than others, and why items such as handrails, bulwarks, and the Portuguese bridge add costs to a job. I'm so glad this job is completed.

You'll notice a cubby hole on the port side of the anchor pulpit. That recess is for my wash down hose connection and a connection for an air hose. I'll explain the air hose connection at some other time, but I felt like I wanted an air hose on the bow of the boat for maintenance.

The handrail is made of 1 1/2" stainless steel with 1" stanchions welded to the bulwark cap. I had intended to hand polish this rail and leave it as shiny stainless. Like I said in earlier post, I had serious doubt about being able to get the polishing job done well enough where the handrail would not be a constant battle with rust. I think I made the right choice in painting it. I'm also happy knowing that when the rail gets chipped, it will not rust quickly due to the stainless.

The paint scheme I'm doing on the boat is pretty similar to the picture at the top of the blog. Because of the Portuguese bridge's white color, I carried that paint line around the outside of the hull. It's nice seeing some more shiny paint on the hull as I look up at it from the shop floor.

Like I said above, I'll finish inside the Portuguese bridge this week. Now that all this paint work is completed, I can get some more finish work done while the boat is in the barn. I'll be able to install the hatch, install the dorade boxes, install the Portuguese bridge door leading to the foredeck, and install the wood cap on the Portuguese bridge. I'll also be able to install the deck plates for the two water fills, and the gray water pump out station for the 50 gallon tank located in the guest cabin. I will install the bulkhead fittings for the anchor winch and the door on the pulpit.

I'm not to happy about the quality of the finish on the deck. There was a fair amount of grit on the deck from the other painting, so I'll have to take a close look at a re paint. My goal was to get the deck protected with that tough paint I'm using, and that's what I did. I plan on doing a non skid deck treatment, but that will not happen until launch time. Given the additional coatings I will be doing on the deck, I think I'll let it go until launch now that it has two coats of acrylic urethane and it can now handle weather and finish work.

More painting

I've been busy with life here at home and have been away from things boat building for a few weeks. I have been making some headway on getting a some paint work done so I'll update on that.

I want to get the fore deck and Portuguese bridge finish painted. I need the fore deck painted to install the forward hatch, and I just want to get things off of the list. Like all things boat building, the fore deck paint turned into more than I had figured. I don't know if projects are turning into more than I figured for, or if I just gave up getting in a hurry. I had sand blasted, primed and scuffed the fore deck last year so a large part of the prep work was completed. I decided to paint the stainless steel 1 1/2" hand rails vs polishing them, so I sand blasted the rails to give the primer something to grab on to. The Portuguese bridge was a mess and had to be sand blasted. I did not have to take the whole thing down to white metal, but at least 1/3 of that area did go to white metal.

Since I gave up getting in a hurry, I decided to fair some of the fore deck and Portuguese bridge. I ran an epoxy fillet between the bulwark and deck area, and the Portuguese bridge and deck area. I faired away the all the grinder marks and a some a few areas where you could see plate joints. I also faired the large deck joints. I faired the hawse openings on the fore deck where the dock lines will pass through, and the whole pulpit area. All the areas with fairing compound on them will have to get two more coats of primer before I spray top coat paint. I had thought about using high build prime, and blocking the fore deck and portuguese bridge back down, but that's a lot of work, and I don't think a mirror yacht finish is that important for these areas.

The frames that are welded to the decks and bulwarks or Portuguese bridge will be treated a little differently. No matter how careful I try to get that joint painted I don't think my efforts will be good enough. So for these areas, I'm going to use and automotive paint product called seam sealer. Seam sealer is basically a caulk that will remain flexible, but will allow the top coat paint to stick to it. If you look inside your car trunk or under the hood, you will probably see where the manufacturer used seam sealer. I've seen boats that are framed like mine, and most of them seem to have rust stains coming from joints like this. I'm hoping this little bit of work and money will solve that problem.

After I finish sanding the faired areas, I'm going to scuff all the paint with some 3m pads. I have a hook and loop DA air sander, and if I cut round shape on the 3m pads, I can hook the pads to the DA and save on some elbow grease. Once everything is scuffed, I'll apply the seam sealer then prime the seam sealed joints and all the un primed fairing compound. Once the primer is on, I'll have 72 hours to get the top coat paint on or I'll have to re scuff the newly primed areas.

My goals and schedule of work for the next five months is to finish the fore deck and Portuguese bridge paint, and install the forward hatch. I've made arrangements for a sand blaster to blast below the water line so I can get the below the water line area barrier coated. Once that part of the hull is painted, I'm going to scuff the hull and top coat paint it. At that point, the hull will be ready to leave the shop, so I'll be working on getting it on a dolly for the trip to the launch site.

If I want to get her in the water next season ( 2013) I really need her at the launch site by early October. October is the driest month of the year around hear, with that dryness carrying on in to November. October will be an excellent month to weld the wheel house and salon to the hull and have her dried in for the Winter. If I can meet that schedule, I will have the Winter and Spring to trim out the Salon and Wheel house and a 2013 launch will be doable.

I really love the fore deck and Portuguese bridge. The foredeck is large and uncluttered, and the railing is of a good height and stoutness. The Portuguese bridge is of a height that will make all on board feel secure as the boat is on passage. As I stand at the Portuguese bridge while the boat is in the barn, and dream of the future, I can almost see how the sea will look as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. The only problem I'm having with these two areas is that they are a pain in the ass to paint. The barn has 16' ceilings, and these two areas are in the truss's, so one has to sort of stoop/walk to navigate this area. If you were to find yourself working on my build and on this part of the boat, I can almost guarantee you would crack your head numerous times on the truss's. Another week or so of sticking to this less than ideal job, and I'll be able to scratch this project off of the list I have been meaning to write.

Anchor roller

From the start of the boat build, I had intended on handling the anchor with a vertical windlass. Specifically, chain on one side of the windlass, and rope on the other side. For that purpose, I fabricated two anchor rollers welded to my pulpit. After that fact, I came across a good deal on a commercial deck winch which caused me a basic change in how the anchors would be retrieved. I want to center the winch on the pulpit which meant the off centered rollers for the windlass possibly could be less than ideal for how the winch was going to work.

Because I had enough room between the two existing anchor rollers, I decide to cut in a third anchor roller more in line with the position of the new anchor winch. My reasons for centering the anchor roller was to allow the rode ( either rope or galvanized cable) to be square with the winch drum. I'm not familiar with how a winch will work, but it seemed to me that having the rode square with the drum was a good thing. I also did not want to scrap the windlass purpose rollers I had fabricated in case I wanted to go back to the hydraulic windlass set up. The new center anchor roller is more self launching than the first two I fabricated so that is one plus I got out of this little bit of re work I just finished.

I used 1/4" 316 SS plate to fabricate the new roller frame. The frame is pretty robust as it is not a stand alone deal, rather it is welded in to the pulpit so it's supported and reinforced by the pulpit. I added some 1/2" round stock to the area where the anchor flukes will jamb against the roller frame. The actual roller is a composite material turning on a 1/2" SS pin, and is tucked up out of harms way in the frame. I plan on snubbing off the anchor to bits, so these rollers, while fairly stout, will not be taking the loads of anchoring.

I had a large Danforth type anchor in the shop, and that is actually going to be one of my back up anchors. I used the Danforth for a test run on how the geometry of the rollers worked, and I was pleased on how the anchor landed in the roller frame. I will need to add some SS round stock to the under side of the two side roller frames as the center anchor is going to beat these up as it is locked home. It's hard to tell scale from these pictures, but that Danforth is a pretty large anchor. I'd guess the weight of the anchor at 60 lbs with the overall length of the being more than 3'. My buddy Andy Moran gave me the anchor as a boat warming present.

I've had good luck using Danforths to anchor in the river, and I intend on having two aboard. I think my primary anchor is going to be a Manson, and that will reside in the center roller. The large Danforth will reside in the starboard roller, and the port roller will be empty. I will also have an aft anchor which will be another Danforth.

I getting a little tired of re work, but I do think I'm at the end of having to fix changes of design. Re doing this part of the pulpit was not a huge job, but it was a pain. All the metal work is completed on the fore deck, and I can now proceed with getting that area prepped for paint. I have to do some body work on some seams, and a little bit of fairing, but not a huge amount of work. I have decide to paint my 1 1/2" SS rails I welded to the bulwark cap vs polishing them, so that will require a little bit of sand blasting. Polishing the SS pipe rails would probably work for life on the Ohio River, but since I intend on ocean cruising, I fear my polishing skills will leave my rails rusting in the salt water environment.

Paint issue resolved

The biggest issue my last post dealt with was the paint catastrophe I had going on. I'm glad to report that I've figured out the problem, and I can move forward with getting items checked off of the list.

The paint problem I was having is resolved, and I'm happy to report that it was all operator error. The problem I was having with my white paint was that the paint was not atomizing correctly. In a nut shell, the paint particles were too large when they were sprayed on to the metal giving the finish a texture. The problems I was having were a direct result of the following: I was using the wrong reducer. I should have been using MEK, and I was using lacquer thinner. The MEK evaporates more quickly than the lacquer thinner so I can build the film more evenly. My air hose to my paint pot had too small of an ID, so I increased the hose form 1/4" to 1/2" . The friction loss of air in the smaller ID hose caused me to loose volume and pressure in the pot and effected atomization. The hose ID had never been an issue with all the other paints I've applied, but this particular species of white was just a little different animal. The shop temperature was just a little too cold, and required more attention to how I was reducing the paint, and what I was reducing with.

So, I'm going with a dark green on the hull, and an off white on the super structure and decks. The green looks darker in these pictures, and the white looks whiter in these pictures.

Like I said in my last post, this paint is shiny, very tough, and is able to be polished and buffed if I ever have to make repairs on it.

Now that the paint issue is no longer an issue I can move forward. I want to finish the fore deck and get that final painted. To finish the fore deck I need to mount the deck winch and fabricate the dorade box's for the guest/kids cabin. Mounting the deck winch is more of a project than I had figured since I might have to re configure the anchor rollers. I'll have more on that job later as I get some things figured out.

In case no one has noticed, I added a music player to my hipster blog gadgets. A fellow builder I'm friends with has a blog where you can check out his fine work @

http://www.odysseyyachts.com/Odyssey_Yachts/Odyssey.html

The song, "Home At Last" on this playlist, is a more modern interpretation of Brian's boats name, but you'll have to visit his blog to know what I mean. I"m now looking for a song geared towards Hawaiian ducks that are prone to wandering for another builder I follow.

Of course a song for Shannon is on board for all to guess, and one she is sure of.

Turn up the volume on your computer to follow along.