Job #4 - Cabin lights - completed..

So over the winter I bought four of these :

For less than a tenner (twelve dollars in old money ) from a very helpful eBay'er in China - seriously - all four cost less than £7 delivered - from China - how on earth do they do it???! Either way I figured that for some cheap lighting these were second to none - they were bright and very easy to string together..

Sunday I fitted them - I'm using them as downlighters under the shelves that run down the sides of the cabin...

First pair rought fitted - once they were proved good I taped the the electric joins with amalgamating tape, and then secured the wires more neatly with some cable clips..

I used spade terminals for connections because I can't help thinking that at the price I paid I need a solution where I can easily disconnect to replace - but time will tell...

Spot soldered additional connection cables to the far end of the one on the right above, and then fed the wires through to the fore cabin where I daisy chained a third above the door...

Fourth one (a single) went in under the shelf on the starboard side - the shelf is shorter on that side to take account of the galley...

All wired in to the switch panel and joins all taped for damp proofing...  the positives are separate for port and starboard side, but I used one of these to be able to attach both sides to the single switch on the panel

Female Spade Terminal with Piggy Back Male...  apparently...  

All wires tidied with cable clips - jobs a good'un...

By way of a temporary fix I then put some butyl tape round the base of some of the screws holding down the handrails on the cabin roof - these are dripping, so clearly the old sealant is failing - if it works - and I think it should do - I'll do the rest (now added to the list but I suspect it's going to have to wait)..  simple fix - undo the screws from inside - lift the rail - thin rolled out tube of butyl tape  wrapped round the screw base, same on the inside, screw down and watch it squish out and seal as it does...

First cockpit hatch is done (epoxy'wise) - second hatch underway - at the end i'm going to mix a small batch up with microballons to make a thick paste which I can then use to fill any voids left on the edges..  I almost sound like I know what I'm on about.. Thinking of using car paint sprays to paint.... quick and should be tough...

The forecast this coming weekend is atrocious, just when I was planning to do the antifoul, and I go in the water a week after that..  forecast looks good Wednesday so I've put in for a day off - I'll do the antifoul and exterior paint/varnish all in the one day - wish me luck.. 

Job #12 - Cockpit hatches....

Progress at last...   I've prevaricated long enough over this one!

First cover almost done...  look at the shine on that...

Not without it's worries - the epoxy kit I'm using is a couple of years old (with a use by date on the pack of April 2015 ) and at some point in time or another, even though I've kept it in doors, it must have laid on its side as most of the hardener had disappeared into the bag.... either way, progress, the plan is to do one side at a time, but I do the edges each time, so the board above has one coat on each surface, two on all the edges....   it hardened - success!

I've now run out of hardener and I'm planning to try some stuff I had in the garage left over from a repair on Papillon in 2011 [clicky].. I'll try a test batch on a spare piece of ply first...  but for the record, and in case anyone has a similar job to do and is interested..

1.  I used West System Epoxy - 205 hardener (the quicker one) and 105 resin
2. Mixed 5:1 as recommended, I find it easier to do this by weight than using syringes and the like -  I used 10g of hardener, 50g of resin for a total of about 60g - that was enough for a coat on one side, and the edges..
3. Gloves I already had
4. Brushes I find it easier to use once and chuck - Toolstation sell 2" disposables for 20 or 30p each..  you get a few discarded bristles but they're easy enough to get rid of..

I'll do another coat on each side and move to the next one....

3 weeks to launch and not a lot of action..

I blame the weather, but nonetheless there still hasn't been a lot of action.. 😏

I can tell you that the outboard (job #19) is in for a service, and it should be back a week on Saturday or slightly earlier..

I can tell you that Sparrow's lift in is April 2nd which means I can also tell you that I will have to do antifoul no later than weekend of March 25/26th to allow it to dry before lift in...

I've put in an order (collecting on the way home) for disposable paint brushes - I have the epoxy and gloves already - and tonight I hope to put the first coat on the cut and fitted new hatch covers (#12)..

On the same order as the paintbrushes I also have cable clips for tidying the wiring for the lighting (#4), and I also have a new soldering iron to allow me to finish the wiring... I plan to fit the lighting this weekend, and will do it even if the weather is rubbish as I have run out of time...  battery is holding well over winter (13.7v when I checked last night)

I think I'm going to badger one of the daughters boyfriends to give me a hand with the tender on to the top of the car this weekend so I can bring it home and get on with the jobs I have in mind (#7, #9 and #15), in my own time, and under cover....

Other than that - the other job for this weekend is to bodge, errr, figure out, a fitting to attach the binocular holders (now built - #14) to the shelf...  I can then get on with coating/painting it.

I need warmer weather to do the fixed VHF (#4) as I need to epoxy a batten to the bulkhead to attach it to, I need the same weather to do the external brightwork.. In the same period I also want to attach boarding ladder and new Windex..  though in the case of the later Heaven only knows why, as they never last longer than a week!

If we get some decent weather I may take a day off work...