Today I installed windows onto the boat. It is the first copy and will probably stay as is. Not totally plug and play, needs some tweaking before it can be epoxied onto the bulkhead. Some supports here and there. This interface will be good to look trough when sailing in a storm, shielding the sailor from the wind and water.
Installed windows.
Well, not actually, but rather a long dance around getting to building the lap joint rig and actually completing a joint. Here we go, a long gallery describing how we arrived at our first lap joint:
Today we more or less finished the reinforcements on the first bulkhead – B#1. Made out of 15-mm plywood and reinforced with 9-mm ply, it serves as a separator between the cabin area and the bow locker.
This is the first bulkhead - B#1. There is an opening for a watertight hatch that'll open to a supply cabinet in the bow.
We considered different options for the hatch and finally decided to do it the easiest way – the hatch will be fastened to the bow stem using a strong elastic band which will pull the hatch against the edges of the hole, creating a simple, yet functional fit. We’ll probably coat the edges of the hatch hole with silicone to create a seal.
Here we've glued the reinforcements to the bulkhead.
Now only the central bulkhead remains – this will probably be the trickiest since it has the most unconstrained parameters and it will define the cabin area.
Also we tested a system to cut lap joint using a top-down cutter and some ingenuity. So far it worked pretty well, we’ll be making the cabin windows out of several pieces of ply extended lengthwise using this method. Later we’ll have to do the planking that way so we’d better be good at it then. Pictures of the lap joint thingy will follow a bit later.
This is the front bulkhead with the hatch closed. This is how it'll look like from the inside, looking to the bow.
