Forepeak shelf refit -Teria

Re-fitted the portside shelf box stowage in Teria's forepeak. It had been removed before i bought the boat, but the owner had kept the parts in his shed they came with the sale. The starboard shelf box proved very useful, the openings a bit wider than the main cabin shelves, so to double this stowage seemed good.

Investigators seem to have slightly different interior (and rigging) details and this cabinet work may have been either an optional extra for a new boat or. added by an early owner.

First up was to belt sand and coat the wood with varnish and decking oil while it was apart. It was a nice fine-grained lightweight wood (cedar or oregon?)  Loosely fitted the shelf box, then i noticed that the top of the vertical face board was about 1" below the deck, this was because the top 1" had been broken off by a sudden removal and was missing (perhaps someone grabbed it like a handrail in rough seas, it's certainly not designed to take this - the grain is longitudinal and the tops only 40-50mm wide)  ((If building a shelf-box from scratch i would use 6-8mm plywood and make wider top attachments about 100mm long, then it might stand up to handrail type use at times))

Made  4 extensions were needed. I had spare plywood so put the shelf box face back in place and measured the extensions heights, by holding them against deck-head and pencil marking each one.  then cut and planed them to fit in the gaps. Everything was removed from the boat back to the workshop and the extensions butt joins were glued on with "epiglue" a 2 part epoxy, which makes a very strong join (analagous to welding two bits of steel together) A surform and sanding block shaped them and a coat of deck oil sealed them.

Plywood extensions to the front face

Extension sanded down - epoxy glue fills wide gaps

Some 30mm aluminium angle tags were made up to help fasten it to the deck head. The front face basically hangs down from the deck head and holds the outer edge of the shelf box up.

On any boat cabinetwork should be easily removable, so all the hull is accessible. It takes a bit of pre-planning/design and the shelf was reassembled with this in mind. A look at the starboard one showed that this was not the case there and is probably the reason the port one was broken out.

I loosely fitted the shelf and front face, holding them together with light nails half in, and propped up with some items aboard. The position of angles and the shelf was marked with pencil on the deck head and bulkhead. (the inner side already had a glassed in cedar strip to hold it up)

Propped up while fitting the tags

The forepeak is regaining its symmetry!

With all removed the aluminium angle tags were drilled and stainless screws to fasten. The shelf-bow was refitted and fastened to the tags by drilling through and fastening with thin stainless bolts. Then the inner side held with 2 galv nails. Added a pair of angle tags stainless screwed under the front of both shelves at the front bulkhead to hold that up better.

Tag to hold shelf box up at anchor locker bulkhead. A glassed in batten holds the inner edge up.

Tags to hold the front face of shelf box to deck-head

My screw driver was a very short one with multiple head choices ($6 at bunnings). The short length makes all the difference on a small boat for cabinet work etc. easy to get it into the tight "corners" (and they are never square or straight ones either) ..A power drill driver could only be used occasionally. (A battery powered drill/driver is on the wish list.)

noticed the other shelf was not fastened on its inner edge, so a couple of galv nails fixed that. (I left the heads out by 1-2mm so they can be pulled out for quick disassembly.)

Shelf box finished , the GPS bag fits in nicely.

new tools for this work. The light enabled longer working hours into the night or just to see into dark corners.

240v flouro worklight with switch, clamp, hang hook and reflector cowl. $22

 The short driver was the only one i had which could get into the shelf box to fix the tags to the deck.

Short handled ratchet screwdriver set with many tip inserts. $7

 This solder iron fixed old connections in the wiring, (some of these were very small and you cant buy them nowdays)

240v soldering iron for wiring work with self fluxing wire