The 1st thing I did was to put up the panels I had already finished. It is a 100 times easier now that they have been cut down into manageable sizes. Once all of these were up and had a couple screws to hold them, I sent out to make the final templates. I took a straight edge and set it into the grooves on the panels that were already up and scribed the line onto the paper patterns with a Shapie. If I skipped this step, the chance of making the lines all match up would be pretty slim. Even still I was relying on a bit of luck.
The patterns were moved outside, in the sun no less and cut out. Originally I had planned to make the one in front of the head in one piece, but I wanted to use the material I had on hand (and not spend and more $ than I needed too) so I ended up making that one in two pieces. I think this worked out best anyways. They are much easier to put up and take down.
I packed it in for the night.
The next morning I set on fitting the last 3 panels. They only required minimal trimming to fit nicely, better to cut them too big and trim than try to add material....
After 30 minutes or so, all three panels were up! I still needed to sand and paint them but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A bit to my surprise, the panels all lined up. Well with in a 1/8th inch anyways. The forward birth overhead and the main cabin are almost seamless. This makes me very happy.
The panels were then sanded and painted and later this week I'll epoxy the backsides. An update on that. I had been sanding by hand, but I am now using my random orbital. I guess I was a little afraid of taking off too much, but as long as the material is mostly flat, it works well, and is many times faster. Faster is better!
Between coats of paint I started stripping the forward bulkhead in the v birth. Winterhawk has a lot of wood inside compared to the Westerly. I’ve never stripped varnish before. Now I know why people grumble over it. Using a heat gun and scraper is hard work. There were some areas where the varnish was thinner and these were actually harder to strip. The spots with nice varnish melted right off, but the light areas required a bit of muscle. This is also a very time consuming task!
By the end of the weekend the forward half of the forward bulkhead was stripped. I still need to do the door, but that is something I split over a night or two this week.
I’ve been going over decorating styles. Basically I’m thinking light wood and dark fabric, or dark wood and light fabric. I’m going to investigate the varnish options I’d like to keep the wood as light as possible so I’ll try using a clear varnish and see what it looks like. I’m also looking into the possibility of lightening the wood, but I don’t want to loose that nice wood look. We’ll see.
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