Hatch work

 The hatch turned out pretty good, no finish or varnish yet. That will wait until later when I have finished other parts. The top layer was glued to the lower plywood layer so the screws would be hidden.

The handle was made and located but I have yet to decide if i am to put holes or some other grab feature in it. The slides are cut but I don't have the Teflon/poly strips made for the tops yet.

The poly strip will keep the hatch from falling off or lifting. The outside piece of oak will hold it in place.

All these parts are held temporarily until the cabin is installed on the boat. Whenever spring decides to show.

Until then there is plenty of small jobs to do, building a aft bulkhead ready to install once the deck is modified is just one. The other is a new boom. A new boom only because the other one is in my opinion too large and I am making a new setup for reefing my sails, a thing I seem to be doing a fair bit of.  I don't like getting dumped in +2 C water. Sunny or not thats COLD.

Cabin progress and the absent winter

The East coast of the US and Canada have been steadily hit with bitter cold and snow storms. With the notable exception of us here in Newfoundland... Eastern Canada. Forgotten by the major news media, maybe I sound bitter, I'm not. Well, not really. Where I live there is no snow, I mean none. Not enough to make a snowball, and the temperatures are consistently above 0 C.  Though winter is far from over and may smack me in the head any day, the days are getting longer and the amount of "wintertime" left grows shorter. Perhaps I should have picked up that tarp car shelter for working on the boat, I would have had an easy time working so far.  But I'm in no rush.

The cabin sides are now installed and I've sent my first article on this modification off to Duckworks for approval and publishing. Much of the material has been salvaged from the boat build and the building jig itself.

The pine shown is from the lifts on the jig. it will make the forward bulkhead doubler.

 The side doublers have been installed, and the ridge beam placed. The rear wall is only temporary for building this part, the real one will be built separately and installed before this is put in place.

 The starboard side roof has been screwed in place and its fitting well, the pre-curving of the parts helped a great deal and only a couple of screws are needed to hold the sides down.

 Roof panels complete though rough cut. Trimming will take place when cabin is finally installed.

 The edge has placed nice and cleanly along the wall, this will make a cleaner job when the trim is added later on.

The hatch is currently being worked on, but no pictures to upload yet. I am making the hatch and the sliding rails from oak and will be all varnished as a finish. This will show off some of the lines and break up the white of the roof and deck. Plus it's nice to see some hardwood on a wooden boat, I don't mind the maintenance it creates.
I was planning to do some winter camping in the snow... but with no snow and no ice it would just be a wet weekend in a tent and I would be unable to venture far being unable to cross ponds and rivers.

Christmas holiday and the non winter, Building a Pathfinder cabin

Christmas has come and gone for my household and all without snow. The rest of Canada and even the United states are getting their share, but here on the East coast of the east coast, all we have is rain, more rains and yes. rain. Moss has taken a hold of the rocks in the yard and the daytime temperatures have occasionally reached above +10 C. 

But I have been busy in the workshop. After the head scratching and drawing I have come up with a set of usable plans to build the cabin for my Pathfinder. The initial sketches are below and the one on the right winning in the end.

This is the cabin that is taking shape in the shop right now, while the boat is in the back yard under a tarp. Speaking of tarp, I managed to get in under it to find a critical measurement for the cabin length. I soon started cutting my parts for the cabin including the hardwood corners.

The roof panels were cut over size and steam bent over a common piece of 2x4. This is to set a curve so when installing it won't cause too much trouble.

The building form will do until I can get the boat into a temporary shop this coming spring.

It's made level and wood added to attach the corners and wall panels.

The corners are cut to fit my cabin corner blocks and be flush with inside cabin walls

Within a few hours I had a solid cabin frame and ready to install some battens for the roof panel.

All of this is just screwed together, no gluing. I won't permanently glue anything until its installed on the boat.
More description to follow as I progress in building the Pathfinder cabin.