Portuguese bridge door and cap

Ive completed some more finish work, mainly the Portuguese  bridge passage door and the wooden cap for the Portuguese bridge.

The Portuguese bridge door provides easy access to the fore deck while securing the bridge from any rough weather and  helping keep our feet dry. Because this door could see some green water, I thought it important to have a jamb the door will be in full contact with once its closed. Making the jamb out of wood seemed to be the easiest way to go for me.  I wanted the door to be able to handle any green water it might see without getting twisted, torn off, or damaged. I tend to make things up as I go along, and with no real plan, Im happy with how the door  turned out. I turned the door handle out of some 3/4" stainless round stock, and used a round over bit in the lathe to finish the ends. I also turned a stud with threads on the end to hold the handle in place, and make a pivot to engage the handle. Basically, the handle will dog down against the jamb, pulling the door tight and holding things fast. A nylock nut and washer holds the handle to the stud. To  make the keeper, I mortised out the wooden door jamb, then fabricated a stainless steel keeper for the handle to dog against. I gave the keeper a slight taper to help lock the handle in place. The more you engage the handle, the tighter it dogs the door down. As things wear and tolerances get looser, I have plenty of areas to adjust ( without much difficulty) to keep the door locking tightly. When were on passage, the door will be dogged shut. When were lounging on the fore deck, or working up there, the door will be opened and resting against the Portuguese bridge. I need to find a rubber bumper to hold the door off of the PB, and also to prevent paint from chipping if the door gets slammed open.


The other item I finished was adding a wooden cap to the Portuguese bridge. A lot of you are probably thinking that Im an idiot for adding some bright work, and I hear you, so let me spout off my justification. I like the look of bright work, and I dont mind the maintenance as long as its easy. The height of the wood cap and the fact that there are no rails or fixtures to work around will make this an easy area to maintain. Scuffing this cap with some 300 grit and apply some varnish, will be fast and easy with NO BENDING OVER on captain Conalls part. Im liking this part, and if I was on face book, Id give her a thumbs up. Because the Portuguese bridge area is going to be a pretty social spot, I wanted the wood cap to make things more comfortable, and give all a comfy  place to lean on and rest a beer. The wood cap feels and looks nice, and hopefully will eliminate bangs to any revelers funny bones.

I had to use the last of my wide boards to form the cap. I used the band saw and a belt sander to form the curves. I then used a 3/8" round over bit in my router to ease the edge of the cap. I ran out of wide boards so I ended up edge gluing some stock together to finish the job. I used a combination of traditional scarf joints reinforced with biscuits, and floating tenons to reinforce all the joints. Just before where the wheel house meets the salon, the Portuguese bridge terminates with a sever angle down to the deck. This leaves about thirty inches between the Portuguese bridge and the wall of the salon.  I treated this area of the cap by laying the cap over  the top of the cap headed down to the deck. I could have used a miter joint in this area, but I was afraid the joint would open up, and I like the way the eased edge of the top cap feels and looks. This is also the area where the spring line will be secured, and also where the shore power cords will pass through. There will be a two bar stainless steel rail bolted to the down cap and welded to the salon in this area, but that cant happen until the salon is in place.

  I bolted the cap down to the PB using 1/4" x 1 1/4" stainless screws and nylock nuts. I counter sunk and bunged the screw bore so no fasteners can be seen from the top of the cap. I had a few bad spots in the wood ( primarily a few dead branch knots) that I treated the same way I do all bad knots on my wood work. My preferred method of dealing with dead branch knots is to rout the bad wood away, and install a Dutchman patch. I use an inlay tool in my router to make these patches. The Dutchman patch is a legitimate repair used for centurys, and give the work that "homegrown, folk art character that I like. The cap will get four coats of urethane, then I will caulk the underside joint where the wood meets the metal. Once the caulk is laid down, this job will be off of the list.

There is really not much left to do to the fore deck and Portuguese bridge until the boat gets TO THE LAUNCH SITE , so Im going to scratch this area off of the list I keep meaning to write. Im kind of glad Im finished working up here,  as Im getting tired of ducking under the barn trusss . Ill vacuum and clean this area this week when I finish, and hang some tarps over it to keep the dust off and forget about it until shes out of the barn.   

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Portuguese bridge is painted

I took half a day off yesterday and finished the painting the Portuguese bridge. Before I put all the paint gear away, I think Ill paint the aft deck bulwark and the two door jambs in that area. This way, all the off white painting will be finished until I have her at the launch site and install the wheel house and salon. Ill be able to get a good leg up on some detail work while shes in the barn and all the good tools are close at hand.

I had blasted and primed the Portuguese bridge, then faired grinder marks, the deck:PB joint, and seam sealed the frame to sheathing joint. Once I was happy with how the fairing looked, I spot primed those areas with two coats of primer to seal the porous fairing compound, which will help the top coat look more even. If I didnt seal the fairing compound, it would suck up the top coat paint, and make a pretty decent looking job look like crap.

Because of other things I had going on, I had to wait more than 72 hours to top coat the PB. If you wait longer than 72 hours, a chemical bond between the top coat and the primer will not happen, so you have to scuff the primer to get the top coat to bond to it. I use the red 3M scuff pads for this job, and they are made for just this application. I have a hook and loop dual action air sander, and I cut the scuff pads into a six inch diameter circles, they will now hook on to the sander and make quick work of a tedious job. Once the scuffing is completed, I blow the work off with my air compressor then tape and paper the area I dont want paint. I bought a tape/paper applicator at Lowes the other week, and I have to say that while the tool was fairly inexpensive, it did a nice job. It did such a nice job and made taping so much quicker, I have to recommend it as a tool one might want to consider purchasing for any paint work. That $17.00 tool paid for itself in no time on what I had just done.

The scribe line marking the wheel house layout was starting to get a little faint, so I decide to paint the wheelhouse deck using the wheel house scribe line as my layout. You can now see how the wheel house will fit in the scheme of things. The wheel house floor is going to be cork, so Ill use some less expensive metal primer and paint, and apply that will a roller. Ill glue down 1/4" plywood as a substrate, and apply the cork to that. Spraying the cheaper paints is not such a good idea as the paint tends to stay wet while its floating around the shop. Whatever it lands on it sticks to it. Because of the quick evaporating reducers Im using with the high dollar paint, the over spray acts like heavy dust when it lands in the barn. I still protect my new shiny paint from over spray, and if I do get some on a good finish, a little rubbing compound will take it quickly off. Not so with paint such as Rustoleum.

Now that this painting is finished, Im going to spend the rest of April getting some detail work completed. I have a some sand blasting guys stopping over so I can get an idea of what the cost of blasting below the water line will be. The sooner I get the bottom blasted the sooner I can barrier finish painting the hull. Getting the boat on a dolly is a big deal for me and I want it done well in advance of moving her to the launch site. Youll probably start to notice a consistent theme in my future posts, and that theme is going to be " getting her to the launch site".

One thing Im starting to realize is that this is a big boat. On deck shes 44, and over all she is 48. The living spaces and machinery spaces seem to go on forever, and the wheel house is huge. Once the wheel house and salon are in place, the displacement will begin to be felt. With the hydraulic bow thruster, I feel shell be able to be single handed, but I do feel shes close to needing an admiral.

So, heres to getting her to the launch site and seeing more shiny paint.

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