The goal in the week was to complete the brightwork and prep for the dry-fitting of the toe and rub rails prior to finish paint. I had been working on remaking the aft cockpit trim piece - the trim piece running athwartship between the two coming boards at the aft end of the cockpit - completing this "off the clock" as I decided to improve upon my initial effort. The original trim piece served as a template and therefore transferred some irregularities in the upper arc of the piece, which was the result of years of pulling down on the mainsheet to lock it in to the cam cleat. Anyway, unhappy, I decided to completely start fresh on this piece and under my own time. I started Saturday with the templating of the taffrail - the furthermost piece of deck trim, also running athwartship between the two toe rails. I spread a piece of clear plastic across the poop deck, taping as I went, and transferred the stern sheer line onto it. I took this template back to the shop and reinforced it with tape on the back side, and then removed the unwanted periphery of the template. I removed the arc from the template and transferred that onto a fresh piece of mahogany stock recently planed to thickness. I then used a compass to replicate the same arc, roughly 3.5" in width. With a jigsaw, small diameter belt sander, and hand work, I brought the taffrail to more or less finished dimensions. The test fit on the poop desk offered great results, so I weighted the rail and left for further processing, The weight would help encourage the rail to bend to the convex surface of the deck, aiding in further installation.

I then moved to complete the aft cockpit trim piece, through an iterative process of test-fitting and material removal until I had achieved the final fit. I finished by rounding over the forward edge with a 1/4" router bit, as well as the lowered forward and upper rear edges with a 1/8" router bit. I hand sanded with 240-grit and then applied a first 50% thinned sealer coat of varnish. Again, this work is off the clock.

I moved on to drill out the toe and rub rails, pre-drilling for #10 screws. The rails are now prepped for a dry-fit installation. The mast was next, and received a final coat of finish paint after a sanding with 600-grit paper.

Fabrication of the coaming board return blocks were next, so I selected a couple mahogany slabs and prepped them for gluing up with epoxy: sanding and an acetone wash. I mixed up a small pot of epoxy resin to first wet out the wood surfaces, and with the remaining epoxy, I thickened it with a combination of West Systems' 406 colloidal silica and 404 high-density fillers. I stacked the boards and weighted them to achieve good surface adhesion. These new blanks will serve to produce the new return blocks for the forward end of the coaming boards.

Finally, I began creating bungs for the rail - roughly 120 needed for the finishing of the rub and tow rails. I got about half-way to the end zone when the bench top drill press finally gave up the ghost. I'll pick this effort up on the next session. Coming along nicely.

Total Hrs: 4.25