_____________________ COCKPIT FLOOR BATTENS _____________________

The first attempt to glue down the cockpit battens (above) was a disaster. It happened like this. I had all four battens held in place with little blocks of wood (as above), all well glued up. I then proceeded to put as much weight (tool boxs, large G clamps, various wood planes etc, etc ) as I could find to place on top of the battens to apply pressure and squeeze out the excess glue etc. The next morning when I had a look at the job I found that I could slide a short steel rule under all the battens in various areas. So I ripped the whole lot out. One day to put the battens in - one day to take them out and sand and prepare the area for another try. I wasn't impressed by the loss of about 5 metres of good Alaskan red cedar.

For the second attempt it was recommended to me that I simply temporarily screw down the floor battens and remove the screws when the glue was dry. This I must admit, is a simple and effective method, but this would have meant repairing the holes the screws made on the outside of the hull after the job was completed. I wasn't prepared to do this. So I devised another way of applying pressure to the battens. A method which you can see in the photographs.This method turned out to be very effective and didn't involve breaching the hull in any way.

 

Job complete. The battens are firmly in place. A few more pieces of trim and we won't be too far away now from painting, varnishing and attaching all the sail controls and other gear.