Making Donuts

Jan isn’t the only person in the family who can make donuts.  Today I successfully made 22 of them.

Richard and I started making them as a single cut out but then Richard realised this method would result in a large timber wastage rate.  We changed the method to half donuts and significantly reduced the required number of sheets of plywood. 

They will go around the porthole opening and act as a frame for the liner. 

There are 11 portholes and each requires three frames to pack it out to the level of the cabin lining.  After the frames had been cut I scraped the foam insulation from around the porthole surrounds so the frames could be installed.  Jan and I then glued and screwed two layers of frames around 10 of the portholes.

The eleventh porthole is the one I had previously cut out with the jigsaw.  It didn’t have any fixing screw holes through the steel, and as Jan and I had previously discovered the old holes don’t line up with the new portholes, I decided to glue and clamp the frame.

Now remember Waiouru had previously been lined and the portholes installed.  So how did the previous boat builder manage to fit the timber porthole linings without there being a timber frame around the porthole?

The last task was to tape all the exposed surfaces with masking tape in anticipation of the spray foam contractor’s arrival on Monday.

Whilst reading blogs yesterday I noted from the photos on Trudy-Anne’s blog that David has the same make and model of digital gauges <photos here> as I would like on Waiouru.  His photo provides my first opportunity to get an idea of their actual size.  I’ve specified four (water, waste tank, and two fuel tanks).