Small Items

              

                                                Small autumn items 2013

Weather has not been so good and I have been occupied with my daily work so I have not been able to start with bigger projects.

Cable Tray in the Steering Cabin:

What disturbed me when I bought the boat were the loose wires hanging in front of the steering cabin windows for the window wipers.

As well as that the window wipers switches were mounted on big blocks against the top window frame, further cabling was for the search light, cables for the solar panels and a console light.

Looking for a solution to wrap these cables in a kind of a cable tray and to make sure that the cable tray in future would be accessible I came up with a construction of a mahogany cable tray against the top side of the window frame.

First job was to drill out all the old screw holes and plug them with mahogany plugs.

Plugs were glued in with colored two component epoxy trying to prevent any color difference between the plug and the window frame. As can be seen over the years a lot of screws entered the window frame.

Next step was to sand the plugs flush with the window frame and varnish in two coats the window frame.

The actual cable tray is made of two pieces a square 10 X 10 mahogany piece which is crewed against the window frame, due to the small seize and cutting the wood with the right grain it was possible to follow the curve of the top of the window frame.

About 12 mm was kept as a width for placing the cables in, so the actually cable tray will be 12 X 10 which is just enough to place the required cables in my case.

For the window wipers I do use a multicore cable easier to insert in the cable tray.

The cable tray comes down on port side and will run into the direction of the steering console.

The cable tray is closed with a flat piece of wood which cover the square support and touches against the white ceiling.

This is a flat piece of mahogany of only around 4 mm thick; due to the limited thickness I was able to bend this also in the curve of the window frame.

It is a bit under pressure but not that much that the screws do not hold.

Next picture shows the starboard side of the finished cable tray, at a later point the complete cable tray will be closed when all wires are pulled.

The strip in the middle of the ceiling which covers the sides of the soft ceiling tops was loose and did not completely cover both sides anymore.

Since this did not look very nice and since I needed a cable for the search light I made mahogany strip from forward to aft in the center of the ceiling which can hold two flat wires.

Next picture show the loose hanging strip in the middle,

I took a flat as possible piece of mahogany trip sanded the sides round made with a router two grooves on the inside, one for the cable for the search light which comes out fairly at the beginning and one for a future purpose for example a light in the steering cabin.

The cables were glued into the grooves.

Next picture shows the removed original strip as can be seen there is space available for placing a wire between the two soft ceiling panels, one has of course to be careful with screws of nails for not penetrating the cables.

In my case the two grooves for the cables were left and right of the center line of the wooden strip and therefore there was no chance of penetrating the cables.

Before the trip was installed it was twice varnished inside and outside to protect the wood against the weather it was than installed with brass screws against the ceiling.

At the front of the plank the two wires are coming out and will be guided in a later stage properly into the cable tray.

Next picture shows the finished strip screwed against the ceiling.

Main Cabin Ceiling Light

Originally the cabin ceiling light was round and as I can imagine the light might not have been very effective to read or to have a nice dinner, not enough light above the table.

Over the years before I bought the boat the round light has been replaced by a block of wood with 3 halogen lights, this block is rather large and in my opinion does not fit into the interior of the boat.

The above mentioned construction was removed and a new construction of mahogany was made which is thinner and smaller also in this piece of varnished mahogany 3 halogen lights were positioned above the table.

I think the new construction fits more into the interior of a classic wooden boat.