Head Refit: Woodglue

Woodworking in a shower requires the use of some very strong waterproof woodglue! This is why I use Titebond III. 

I used this woodglue to build my first wooden dinghy (Tooth II) and while the dinghy itself was far from a success, the parts that I glued were. The transom of the dinghy was made out of edge glued Douglas Fir that was glued together with this very woodglue. While most of the boat leaked, that transom was watertight and solid as a rock!

 

I have had the misfortune of needing to separate pieces of wood that I erroneously glued, and I can tell you, the glue line did not fail, but instead one of the pieces of wood tore out of the plank! This glue is waterproof and permanent! But, while it is still wet, you can wipe up drips with paper towel and water. The glue is also not toxic to your skin and has no respiratory warnings (unlike other waterproof woodglue).  

If you ever need to glue something out of wood that will live above or below the waterline, this is the woodglue to use! 

Primer on the Deck

If you read the instructions on your paint tins, Interlux recommends painting white primer if you are going to paint white for the final color; grey primer if you are going to paint any darker color. 

Five years ago, when I painted the deck, I followed the instructions and had the hardest time telling where I had painted and where I hadn’t yet. This time around, I’m making my life easier and breaking the instructional rules! 

GREY PRIMER!! 

I painted the whole deck with a 2 inch chip brush that I bought in a value pack at Home Depot while were still in the states. I started using it for edging and then began filling in the areas between the edges. In no time, I was painting the whole thing with this tiny brush.

The dark grey paint really does pick up the heat. In no time the inside of our home went from rather cool to very warm. I can only imagine what it’s like to have a dark deck on a tropical summer day! 

Deckwork Begins

The head has been consuming my life for the past few months. I feel like a prisoner in an old timey movie where I’m locked in the dungeon with only a tiny window way up high that lets in light.  

The tiny window was the hatch in the head and my life was down in the bilge. It was miserable and took much longer than I anticipated. The important lesson learned is how long boat projects take when you have to worry about materials curing! As soon as I finished the fiberglass work and began working with wood, everything just came together in a few days. 

The head is now done but the boat is far from finished. Our next job is to repaint the deck! 

Maddie, with her sprained ankle was able to sit around the deck and run the sander to take off the surface layer of paint. Most of the deck paint was holding up well, but there were a few areas, mainly at the fore peak, which were flaking off completely. The idea is to take the deck down to well attached substrates, be it well adhered paint or bare fiberglass. Once we are at that point, we will paint the whole deck and make it look like new! 

Head Refit: Plumbing

What’s the difference between a room and a bathroom? Plumbing! 

We ordered our sink off of Amazon, the faucet and shower were local finds, and now we need to install them all! 

Well, as mentioned a while back. When I built the fiberglass flooring, I planned on making the space accessible to fit a new (replacement) hose through there in the future. This way I wouldn’t have to rip out the floor just to run a hose. The issue is I forgot to run the drain for the sink as well, so I got to test out the practicality of this tunnel I created a little earlier than anticipated.

Luckily, the wood I used is so massive and thick that I was able to bore a hole through it large enough to fit the sink drain hose through without affecting the surface. The sink drain runs down behind the door and then into the dead space behind the wood under the shelf, then down into the base of the shower sump. From there the sump pump picks it up and shoots it back up and out the side of the boat through the (yet to be installed because it got lost in the mail) above water seacock! 

Yes, plumbing makes this a head, and it takes a lot of work to make it such a room as well. 

Head Refit: Cabinets Part 4

The original design plan with the head refit was to have no doors that open towards the keel. All doors would open fore-aft that way objects hidden in these cabinets would not fall out of the cabinet when the door was opened on a particular tack.  

Obviously, we didn’t listen to our original design theory. 

When we are on Port Tack, all objects in the cabinet will be leaning towards the hull. This is fine. 

When we are on Starboard Tack, all objects in the cabinet will be leaning towards the door. This is NOT fine! 

Why did we do this? Well, we felt that it would be too constricting to put the cabinet hanging over the sink, so instead, we kept the cabinet where two of the old cabinets used to reside. 

What are we going to do about objects falling? Fiddleblocks, tall tall fiddleblocks that will keep everything at bay.  To make it even sweeter, Maddie came up with the idea of putting a fruit hammock in the cabinet to hold the majority of the items. This means that it doesn’t matter what tack we are on, the hammock will simply swing along with us without a care. It’s basically a gimballed shelf!