Over the Monday and Tuesday evenings, working in the Milbs Mobile Marine shop, I moved the anchor locker shelf closer to its installation. The work on Monday was focused on the fabrication and mounting of cleats to support the smaller panel of the two piece locker shelf. I grabbed some mahogany from the surplus bin and ripped a couple lengths to serve as cleats, or supports, for the smaller panel. After laying out the cleats on the underside of the larger panel, I marked and drilled for three bronze fasteners per cleat - I also countersunk for the fastener heads.

I transferred the fastener holes to the panel using an awl so that I could pre-drill the panels for the fasteners. With that done, I turned to the cleats to router the edges to provide a pleasing surface when touched, and as the arms reach deep into the bow. I also sanded the surfaces of the cleats to ready them for epoxy. After thoroughly cleaning the cleats and panel with acetone, I mixed a small pot of West System epoxy to wet the surfaces of the cleats to be glued, as well as prepping the panel itself. With the balance of epoxy, I mixed in some West System 406 colloidal silica to create a thickened glue. I worked the fasteners into the cleats so that their points were extending roughly 1/8" inch and then applied the thickened epoxy, and then placed the cleats into position on the underside of the panel. Orienting the fasteners to their pre-drilled holes, I securely screwed in the fasteners, thereby screwing and glueing the cleats to the larger anchor locker panel. I set the panel to the side to allow for cure time.

On Tuesday evening, I water-washed the fillets and cleats to clear amine blush off the cured epoxy. I then sanded the cleats and fillets to soften the surfaces. there was a bit of play or unevenness between the panels, so I turned my attention to resolving that. I cleaned the smaller panel with acetone and applied packing tape to the edges and surfaces that would come into contact with the larger panel's cleats. I then wet-out the larger panels cleats and applied some additional thickened epoxy on the exposed top surface of the cleats, pressed the smaller panel into position until the surfaces were in plane and allowed to cure.

Before heading out, I culled a piece of teak from my surplus to fabricate the hull-mounted cleats. these hull-mounted cleats will support the two piece anchor locker shelf to the desired height within the anchor locker itself. I ripped varying lengths of 1/4" teak and laid out where on the anchor locker shelf they would come into contact. These cleats will be permanently attached to the hull and will receive a removable fastener, thereby allowing the two piece anchor locker shelf to be removable. On a previous work session on Somerledi, I found the angle of the hull against the leveled shelf at several points. The highest angle being 74.5 degrees. I decided to rip this angle on all cleats, and plan to remove a small amount of material from cleats that require it in the final fit process. More to come.

Total Hrs: 2.75