I have taken a gamble with the weather conditions and made progress on the exterior of our Didi 40 Cr. The raised sitting area behind the coamings at the transom has been completed to match the gas locker lid appearance. The transom has had a light layer of epoxy glass applied and the coamings have been saturated with epoxy.
While the glass on the transom was curing I started shaping the surrounds for the hatches on the coachroof. Dudley suggested gluing the plywood to the deck and planing the ply flat to match the hatch. I preferred to make up the surrounds on the workshop floor where I could keep the inside edges of the ply layers vertical and then shape the underside of the cured assembly to match the curve of the deck. I needed quite a few trial fits to get the curve matching the deck but the layers of plywood provide very good guides for keeping the underside consistent. In the workshop I found it easier to shape the edges of the assembly than it would be once attached to the deck.
The rain did arrive just as I was cleaning up the excess thickened epoxy from around the joins but I did enough for a neat job.
It was sunny this morning and good conditions for finishing the clean up of the hatch surrounds and taking a few photos. Everything seems to fit well. Elaine gave her seal of approval and helped me put all the hatches and portlights away until the painting is finished.
The rest if the day was consumed with the companionway hatch surrounds. I wanted a bevel on the edge of the hatch edge runners so that meant a thicker piece of timber and some tricky angles to saw and plane. That and making up spacers to keep the runners parallel took up most of the afternoon and I never got around to cutting up the toe rails.
Good new is the edge runners are glued and screwed to the cabin top and tomorrow I will be able to remove the spacers and install the bottom runners for the hatch. On the outside of the hull that will leave just the toe rails to cut and install and it would be nice to have someone hold the toe rails while they are bent into position.
Trial fit of the first cabin top hatch surround on our Didi 40 Cr showing the sloping edges.
Completed cabin top hatch surrounds on our Didi 40 Cr
Front view of the hatches and portlights in our Didi 40 Cr
The house is in the way of a good shot of the port side and portlights.