Lining the sides and locker lids...

Its Friday today and the weather was lovely. Even better was that fact I had the day off, so as usual, I went down the boat. When I got there, I decided I would try and cut the first piece of carpet to line the cabin sides. I measured up and used a steel builders level as an edge and using a piece of scrap plywood and a Stanley knife managed to cut the carpet reasonably straight. I used a tape measure and a permanent marker to mark off the measurements at certain intervals and the just joined the dots together.

Before I could think about trying to stick the carpet down, there was the problem of removing a support that was in the way. The support looks like a handrail, but I believe it helps support the rigging by moving some of the load to the cabin side below it. Here it is before I removed it:

So once I had unscrewed the nuts and unscrewed the bolts on the outside (which is attached to one of the rigging stays) I then had to scrape the old carpet behind it. This left a load of old glue, so I had to hoover it all up. When the area was clean again, I taped up the window using masking tape, as I will the need to cut the window shape out of the van lining carpet.

Then I decided to have a bash at sticking the carpet down. I have never done this before so was a little bit nervous as to how fast the glue set. As it turned out I needn't have worried as you seem to have plenty of time to align and stretch the carpet across. I just took my time and was quite pleased with the end result:

Obviously I still  have to cut the window piece out, but thought I would leave it to dry fully before doing this. The ceiling panels and other trim will cover the edges too.

I still had a bit of time on my hands so I removed the wooden cockpit locker lids. The lockers are always full of water and the wooden lids are always soaking. I removed them and taped bin bags across them and put the lids in the workshop to dry out or a couple of days. My plan is to sand them back to (hopefully) sound wood and then fill any gaps with epoxy and paint them with epoxy. They will then be given a couple of coats of light blue Interdeck paint. I will take some pics of these tomorrow.

Lastly, I scraped and prepped the other side of the cabin. This will need cleaning with water and floor cleaner, but once dried will be ready to have the carpet stuck to it.

See you all tomorrow.....