2011 building logs

May AND June 2011 Main Bathroom, Shower and Laundry

Well what can I say in my defence? Not much really, I have been getting the boat work done but not logging it as often as I should be and I would be surprised if most readers are bothering with me anymore. But let me assure you readers that are hanging in there with me, eventually I will finish both the boat and this website. Start to finish will all be logged. Sooner or as is usually the case, later. This past 6 weeks I have been working at the rear of the port hull, getting the plumbing in and the furniture around it for the main bathroom, shower and laundry. Once finished there will only be some loose ends to finish (bedrooms which are waiting on the mast posts) before I move back outside to start on the mechanicals of steering and motor propulsion before the last step in this horrendously long build, the final finishing.

May 8 Black tank glassed in.

Where I left off I had just cut and dry fit the shower wall that sits at the inboard side of the hull and covers over the black holding tank. I have allowed for some plumbing to go behind the black tank, the gas line from the bottle well that sits in the duckboard and is vented overboard, to the underside of the kitchen bench where the hotplate hob will be fitted. The hydraulic steering lines for the port rudder will also run through a conduit glassed in behind where the tank will be glassed. With them set I fixed the black tank in place and glassed it in. Its a 125 litre holding tank so full the weight is 125kgs so I wanted to be very sure that it is securely glassed in.

I am also acutely aware that maintenance or just as importantly access for maintenance is a critical factor in deciding how and where things are installed. And one area that may need regular corrective maintenance is toilet pipe plumbing. If a pipe gets blocked I need to be able to get to it to unblock it. And as all of the journey from toilet to tank occurs in pipes deliberately hidden from view I need to install access points along the way. Not just hidden from view but glassed under or behind walls or floors. To remedy this possibly bothersome problem I have installed points along the way that can be "opened" so that the longest travel between these points is less than a meter. From these access points I can insert pipe cleaning tools to unblock any blockage without too much disruption. I will even have one at what I consider to be the most likely point where a blockage could occur, the S bend at the top of the holding tank. I have included an access point just 100mm below the bend and close enough that I can wiggle an unblocker around and into the tank. In a pinch even a straightened coat hanger would work but I intend having one of those unblocking snakes for this function.

The shower wall is still awaiting installation of copper pipes that will run behind it, just under the chamfer panel chine, that will house the halyards in their run along the inside of each hull from the mast post that is in the bedrooms, through the various rooms to the rear bulkhead (in the aft bunk in the starboard hull, in the laundry in the port hull) and through it to the outboard wells then up to the deck, through to it and forward through the cam cleats to the winch. All hidden from view and more importantly not on the deck to trip over. But more on that later when the mast posts are installed.

May 15 Laundry floor down

In the meantime, with the shower pretty much finished except for glassing that last panel in, then the fairing and painting of it, and of course the fitting of the shower rose and mixer tap, I moved onto the laundry floor. I was originally going to leave this section without a floor but the narrowing of the hull meant I needed some elevation to get the width back for the washing machine base to sit on. So I put a floor in. Again I was going to take the easy route and put a single ply sheet in with some webs under to support it and then thought, no, why give up the head room un-necessarily when a change in the height of the webs and cutting the ply sole in half and I could keep the headroom and elevate for the washing machine, so we now boast a split level laundry, 70's style! I intend to build a small cabinet to hide all of the wiring and plumbing that will eventually cross this little room, and because there is now room, I will put a laundry basin in too. But wont come back to that until all of the wiring and plumbing is in.

So with the shower floor in and the laundry floor in, the only section of the boat left with a floor not glassed down is the bathroom. (There is only one section of the boat that has no sole that is open and that is under the aft bunk in the starboard hull, there are other sections that dont have soles, but they are not accessible inside buoyancy areas.) But the bathroom floor is one very busy section. I have decided that the port sump ought to have the through hulls inside it, so that should they ever leak, they are easily accessible and more importantly they are inside a watertight compartment with a bilge pump constantly active, so if the leak is slow, the pump would handle it and expel the water, via the holding tank, back overboard. So there are a lot of pipes coming and going. And just to complicate matters further, the toilet is on the opposite side of the hull to the passing power, water and holding tank so all of this has to cross the floor, under it because I want it hidden, but able to be accessed should it ever need to be replaced. It took a lot of thought but it all came together.

The first pipe into the sump was the shower and laundry drain. These went in when the shower floor want down. Then I drilled the various through hulls. There are 3. One is the waste water (both black and grey exit through the same through hull via a T join above the through hull) one is salt water in, again I have split it with a T join over the through hull, one side goes to the toilet intake, the other side goes to the watermaker and deck wash which would be on the rear steps so running past the watermaker. I intend to run the toilet with fresh water but I will have a Y tap and allow the toilet access to salt water in case at any time we are running short of fresh water. Its a contingency and probably wont ever be used but its better to have the option than not. The third through hull is the transducer for the depth sounder and speed and temp log. This had to go in the middle of the hull. The reason I covered earlier. The speed log wheel needs regular cleaning and the method is to unscrew it, pull it up into the boat which instantly starts sinking your boat, you then put a plug into the hole while you clean the wheel of growth and weed, then you reverse the process. In order for this to be as smooth an operation as possible I wanted the transducer in the middle of the sump lid opening. Ideally you want your waste out and salt water in as far apart as possible but because I want both in the same sump I put them as far apart as I could, but putting the waste out on the angled chine, and the fresh in on the keel board. I will have a strict rule that you must close the waste seacock before operating the watermaker, that way if anyone uses the toilet the waste is held until after watermaking is completed.

One other problem I had was that I might want to close off the black water but the grey is fine to keep going overboard (in some places grey water can still go directly overboard and only black must have holding tanks) so for this reason I did not put a single stop cock directly on the through hull. In retrospect I wish I had an additional tap directly on the through hull as an additional back up but its done now and its not a critical mistake. I have pipes running off the through hulls, under the floor to the outboard side where the grey holding tank is (behind the daggercase) and the pipes under the sole is below the waterline, so because there is no separate stop cock on the through hull these pipes will always be flooded. And these pipe are running through the sump wall into the next chamber which is sealed for buoyancy. The pipes are pvc. I am not happy with pvc pipes being permanently open to the ocean and running through a dry section but pvc is the only material you can glass to. Epoxy wont stick to either poly pipe which is semi flexible and does not crack when it moves but epoxy wont stick to it so as it goes through the watertight sump walls the seal through the bulkhead has no integrity. The same is the case with any of the metals. Epoxy will not stick to it well enough to ensure that it wont lose its seal through the wall, so if the boat flexes at all the seal breaks and your sump is no longer watertight and worse, the place the water goes is glassed under the floor and there is no access. Unless I have access ports on them and I dont want to do that. So PVC is the only solution.

The runs are very short, no longer than 400mm before the next point they run through another wall and are glassed in so to be absolutely sure of extra strength and watertightness I double piped them all and glassed the outer pipe. So the actual pipe the water runs through is inside another pipe so it has movement and the outer pvc pipe is glassed along its entire length. I cant imagine this could ever leak unless something enters that cavity from outside the hull, and if that happens then I have a hole in the boat anyway and the pipes wont be my major concern! Still I probably should have fitted a stop cock on the through hull. I figure a leak if it occurs is happening inside a cavity I cannot see (I will see water in the cavities themselves should a pipe ever leak because I have left inspection holes to each side but cannot see the actual pipework but with the inspection openings on each side I will also be able to insert a bilge pump hose and pump water out of the cavities) and that being the case, if you cannot see the leak and have a stop cock on you would have it open anyway, the point where the stop cock becomes handy is if you discover the leak and want to repair it, but that would involve ripping the floor up and if it ever happens then that will be the point where I have to dry dock, pull the through hull out and replace all the pipes, and at that point I will add a stop cock at the through hull.

With so many pipes going through this section in front of the sump it became easier to glass some of the pipes to the underside of the floor before the floor is glassed down. This ensures they sit exactly where I want them. One such pipe is the first section of toilet waste from the toilet across the floor and emerging inside the vanity cabinet. I have made the underfloor section as short as possible so that should it ever block I can reach from one side to the other with a pipe unblocker. The next section that attaches to the underfloor I have made so it can be unscrewed to give access to that one underfloor section easily. From the top of the pipe that can be unscrewed will be attached a removable hose for a meter, then through the bulkhead by pvc pipe again (pvc and glass layers) then up another meter to the U turn at the top of the tank. Each section is less than 1 meter and can be unblocked along the way. The total travel of the toilet waste is about 3.5 meters, of which about half is up (1.6 meters from under the toilet to top of the tank and I am assured the pump can lift that far and that high). The final pipe into the sump is the bathroom vanity waste and the kitchen waste joins it. But I want the kitchen waste to go directly overboard wherever this is permitted. In other words I only ever want to send the kitchen waste through the sump when I am in an area that strictly forbids any discharge (nil discharge such as Great Barrier Reef Marine park) because kitchen waste often contains scraps of food or food particles that rot and smell when trapped in the sump. As it is I am putting stockings as filters over the exit pipes into the sump to catch body hair so as to minimise maintenance of the sump pumps and sump cleaning but food particles add another dimension if it is not compulsory to trap it. So the kitchen (and dishwasher) waste will pass through a Y valve, one way through will direct it straight overboard via a through hull above the waterline on the chamfer panel, and if I must trap it, the other side of the Y goes into the sump waste pipe and below the Y valve the bathroom vanity sink waste pipe joins the pipe on its way into the sump.

From the sump up to the grey holding tank is a flexible hose attached to the pump, then through a through bulkhead fitting, then another section of the flexible hose connects the other side of the through bulkhead fitting to the top of the holding tank. I had to use hose rather than pipe because I fitted the hose after the daggercases were in so I could not get into the space to glass pvc in, and this way the hose can be removed and refitted if need be.

May 22 Bathroom floor down (finally)

With the bathroom floor finally glassed down and the sump lid on I finally have the last sole glassed into the boat. I have been stepping gingerly over the dry fit bathroom floor and it squeaked and groaned as it moved around because it was not glassed down. Visitors who have stepped on it and thought they broke it will know what I am talking about. But its finally down. Very satisfying. It also means I can finally get started on making the bathroom furniture. In keeping with the theme of the rest of the boat furniture, of course these cabinets will be curved. (I wish I had thought of this when I set out the sump position because now it is off centre of the realigned walkway into the shower but so is the shower door and the sump is going to be under a floor covering of some kind so its no big deal). The idea of the particular curves came about because I have the need for depth in the cabinets on opposite sides of the bathroom at opposite ends of it and deep cabinets rob the room of size and makes the room feel too small, so the solution was no cupboard depth where I didnt need it and the way to take it out was to curve the cupboards in exactly mirror image of each other.

The best way to start any idea like this is with cardboard cut outs. The starting point is the kickboard. Everything is based on the kickboards. Cupboards rise at right angles to the floor directly over the kickboard. Remember the walls are not plumb they are the angles of the hull, but the cupboards must be. So the cardboard cutouts are often deceptive, the depth of the cupboards at the kickboards is often near nothing but as the cupboard rises they become a quite usable depth. My goal is to maximise floor space and get the cupboard depth I need, where I need it. I need depth on the aft end of the inboard side for all of the various pipes and cocks through the cupboard including the vanity sink S bend, the faucet supply of hot and cold water and all of the other water and power that travels through the cupboard. And I need depth of cupboard at the forward end of the outboard side to house the toilet and its associated plumbing including a cistern to supply the toilet with fresh water (and a Y valve to change it to salt water if needed). Another idea has come to mind courtesy of Tom on Scrumble and one that is being adopted by other builders I know, and that is to divert the grey water through the cistern for use in the toilet. I like the idea and am looking into ways to use this idea. I will need to ensure the cistern can overflow back into the path it was taking on its way overboard through the through hull in the sump, because I have a number of waste water sources being collected in the sump so may overfill a cistern, and because the cistern is very near the waterline I will need to ensure it cannot siphon back and flood the boat, and also the reverse may be true, I may need to still supply the cistern in case there isnt enough waste water going through the gray tank to supply enough flushing water. When I figure these out I will build the cistern and report on that later.

May 29 Making the bathroom vanity cupboards

With the shape of the cupboards decided on I made an mdf mold from the cardboard template. 4 mdf panels cut to shape make up the mold and because both sides are identical but mirror image, the one mold will make both sides. Thats the beauty of non glassed polycore. Cold molding and glassing. And just because I am a glutton for punishment, both sides will not only be curved but be at different heights, not just to each other but 2 different heights within each side, so 4 different heights. More on that as they construction and shape reveals itself, but long story short, the toilet is going to be set at 400mm off the floor (as most toilets are) and the vanity cupboard needs to be 850mm high at the vanity basin end but only 600mm high at the other end because this is where the escape hatch will be housed. So I am starting with 2 panels 600mm high each, then one will be added to, and one will be cut down. The one that is cut down will have 2 x 100mm kickboards cut from it, pre-curved to suit each side.

Once the panels come off the mold they need to be bogged for fairing. Whilst making curved panels is not difficult, making fair curved panels straight off a mold like this is. I could make proper molds but for 2 pieces thats hours and hours of work and just not worth it. Its easier to bog and fair. Once both sides are glassed and set the panel will hold its shape but to get the closest to fair you do need to pull the panel tightly into the mold and to do this you need to screw it down, which means you cant bog until you remove the screws unless you are OK with pulling the screws through the panel and because I dont yet know which one will be for which side, so in other words which will be the face and which the inside, I cant do that. So I let the glass go off enough that the panel held its shape but not enough that it was not still green enough to get a chemical bond to the bog, then removed the screws and decided which side of each panel needed the least bog to get fair. (less bog means less weight). Then once the bog set, and in winter we are talking a few days, I started fairing them. As with any fairing, it is unlikely you will get a fair surface from one bog wipe. Thats because I favor the method of applying a thin bog layer then sanding it down then applying another bog layer in what is called a tight wipe second and sometimes third wipe. It takes a little longer because of the wait between the bog wipes setting but it is much less work because you are not sanding off as much bog to get the fair surface and you end up with a much thinner bog layer, in fact in places you should have no bog at all.

Once fair, the best panel was chosen as the bathroom vanity and the other as the toilet cabinet. During fairing I used a straight edge across the panel (90 degrees to the length) to ensure it was flat. Of course it curves along its length but you want it flat up and down. What tends to happen when you bend such a panel is that it turns up at the edges. I know this going in and intended that I would fill the middle to meet the egdes and one of them would have 100mm cut off each edge to become the kickboards for each side which further reduce the curling and therefore the need for bog. So I faired them knowing that one panel was to have the kickboards cut off and didnt worry too much about the extra height on its edges. Anyway, having decided which panel was which I cut the kickboards and made a bottom shelf from flat glassed polycore to complete the kickboards. In order to dry fit them though, I needed to cut out all of the holes for all the various pipes through each. Besides all the of the pipes through there is a conduit for the transducer cable and power for the sump pump through the floor into the sump, and up high enough so that it emerges above the water line, so that should that sump ever flood, it wont overflow through the power conduit. I will seal the top with silicone just to be safe but it should not be necessary. There is also a conduit made from 40mm fuel hose, for feeding the water and power to the toilet. It is gently curved and smooth inside, so power and water can be fitted or removed at anytime for maintenance (The black hose visible in the pics) It travels under the bathroom floor but not through the sump. Once that was all done I could dry fit it and get a real feel for how it would all look. Of course my impatience got the better of me so I was dry fitting before the final fairing.

I even cut cardboard shapes to show where the toilet would protrude into the walk space. The toilet needs to be set on an angle so as to maintain sufficient space to get passed it. This contributed to the idea of the curves to help facilitate this space compromise. Once I was satisfied with the dry fit I glassed the kickboard on the vanity side in. This included glassing all of the pipes up through it in to seal them. This provides a second layer of seal as they are all also sealed through the sole. This seal is more so any spills or leaks inside the vanity cabinet dont leak into the space under the kickboard.

June 05 Creating the double curved vanity

Once the kickboard was glassed in, and having dry fit the fronts, glassing the vanity side front on was an easy task. I wont be glassing the toilet side until the toilet arrives, as it will need to be cut into the front before it gets glassed in, and probably some form of base made for the toilet to sit on. For now, the toilet side kickboard and front is just dry fit and sitting in place. Its a relatively quick job to glass them in notwithstanding the job of fitting the toilet. So with the vanity side front glassed in, next job is the double curve. Thats right, you heard me, the double curve. Like I said, as if having a curved front isnt enough, and different heights on each side still isnt enough, and different heights within each cabinet still doesnt do it, the vanity needs a double curve, that is, the front goes into an S curve on the bottom half but at the point where the vanity cupboard must end to make way for the escape hatch void, I need to curve the front at 90 degrees to form the vanity cupboard side wall. I toyed with the idea of molding this as one panel but it all got too hard to figure and I decided that I could much more easily glue and glass a different piece to the top of half of the already made S bend part. And it also became apparent that making the top part from a flat kerfed panel would be much easier than trying to mold it.

And this part was made oversize so that it could be trimmed to level. Its easier to worry about that later as there are enough angles and joins to worry about without having to ensure its all level too. You can see the level line in the pictures. A really easy task to trim it to level later. Then once it all dry fit to shape, next job was to glass the 2 parts to each other and fair out the glass line and curve. To ensure the join was tight and flush I pulled it together with clear plastic taped tabs and screws and as I did with the bogging of the fronts I took them out when the glass was 3/4 set and bogged the front (The inside does not need bog, it just needs to not have sharp edges to catch fingers on). And once the bog set I faired it and dry fit it again to be sure, before marking out the door position, cutting it out, de-coring both edges (the doorway and the door) and back filling them. This meant another days wait before I could sand the edges smooth and finally glassing the vanity front into the boat.

 

While I had the last dry fit to set the 2 panel halves to each other I had the opportunity to measure for the top. I always make them a little oversize so I can trim back, but they dont usually have 2 face edges. I can still trim along 2 sides so I made up the top. I make all the tops to be double thickness, or 30mm. Mdf or chipboard (usually melamine coated) that house kitchens are made from is 16mm, then they make tops out of a 16mm sheet and along the edges they glue another thickness. This is even true of granite bench tops. It saves on material, weight and also adds a little interior volume. You dont need a full double thickness top so this is how they are made. I do the same but I have to de=core the double thickness front and back fill. So with double curve front done. Door cut in. Top made. The moment of truth. The dry fit where I finally get to see (and show) what has been in my mind for well over a year. And I couldn't be happier. Every now and then you finish something you just stare at for a while and feel a sense of satisfaction that what you have done is beautiful. But before we get to that, I made one slight measure mistake when setting the through bathroom floor pipes, and one of them came through (salt water in for watermaker) too far foward and smack through the kickboard. It is only visible as a bump in the corner of the kickboard and no big deal, but its there, and it annoys the hell out of me. But its too much work to fix.

I really like the way this cupboard has worked. And it will look all the better when the other side is also all in place. But for now I am admiring what I have been able to achieve. This material is really such a joy to work with. I am nowhere near a skilled as the finished product allows me to pretend I am. I have included the finish of the curved port stairwell cupboard. It was finished in late April and got missed from that blog, but I include it here to show another curved panel that I was able to produce with my limited skill to show what is possible with a little care and effort. The top is not glassed on that cupboard, it will be hinged because the stop cock for the grey holding tank is inside it and needs access. In the end there was not enough room inside the toilet cabinet, where the stopcock was going to be so luckily I had not glassed the top on (I had previously decided that having access to the hose going to the tank might be a good idea in case it ever needs replacing, doubt it ever will but in the end it worked out).

The smaller top will eventually be upholstered and that will form a seat for sitting on, or kneeling on to look through the escape hatch. The top of the opposite cupboard will also be removable but will be a bench top and not also a padded seat, although I had considered it. But I think Jo might like to have some decorative features such as a soap bowl or candles or other feminine touches. Hopefully I will have the toilet side done before the end of the month.

June 12 Initial nose shaping.

Whilst all this was going on, Dean started some rough work (I dont mean rough as in quality, I mean rough as in initial) work on the shaping of the bows.

In the next week the rudders and the glass toilet that Mike in Perth (also building a bi-rig cat and doing a great job, we are in a race to launch and I am losing!) had made for me. He is using the same and also the mast posts and masts. But we have quite different layouts so its interesting seeing the different approaches we are taking to the same design. But the toilet is needed to finish this bathroom and the rudders are needed for the next stage, finally finishing the rear steps and getting them into the boat. Once in with the noses shaped and glassed and the rear steps in, the boat is ready for a massive coat of bog, just so nearly all of it can be sanded off again. But man, will it change in appearance once faired.