Finishing up deck hardware

A couple weeks ago I tore up my knee pretty bad and I’ve been limping around trying to get stuff done before winter sets in.  I wish I could say I was doing something manly when I hurt it, such as playing ice hockey or rugby, but unfortunately not.  Climbing ladders is pretty manly, right?

Anyway, the plan for finishing up the interior is to get the Formica headliner cut and installed, get the laminated battens and trim put back up, and hang the overhead cabinet back above the sink (Jeni wants that cabinet up, like yesterday).  In order to save me having to take it all down again in the future, and because we [she] doesn’t like the look of backing plates and bolts sticking through the new headliner I needed to get the winches, cleats, and pad eyes reinstalled in their previous locations.

I had already over-drilled and potted all the old bolt holes with thickened epoxy earlier this spring and took care of some core damage around the hatch turtle.  Ta Yang used teak blocks between the stainless hardware and the fiberglass deck and these were looking pretty rough after 36 years.  I wasn’t real keen on having to maintain the varnish on all these little blocks, and definitely wasn’t thrilled with the idea of all the extra joints to fill with bedding compound (11 blocks, 32 bolt holes, and unlimited potential for deck leaks).

The block for the mushroom vent over the galley was cracked in two and in need of some serious repair, so I figured I’d just epoxy coat all 11 of them, glue them to the deck with thickened epoxy, and paint them white with some of the AwlGrip (2-part polyurethane) that I had leftover from the frige interior.  I also had to cut and re-thread 30-something bolts to conceal them above the headliner before re-bedding all the hardware with butyl tape.  They turned out pretty sweet, and it’ll get us through many rainy seasons without all those annoying drips that destroyed the original headliner.

The gel coat liner inside the companionway hatch was also in bad shape and didn’t slide very well after all these years.  I picked up some self adhesive UHMW tape from Woodcraft that is meant to reduce friction between wood and metal on table saw and router table fences.  I installed it on the stainless tracks that the hatch rides on, and now that 40 pound hunk of teak and plywood slides like butter.